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siamese
stories
greasing the wheels
By Roger Norwood
The report this week on the level
of corruption in the member states
of the EU must have brought a wry
smile to both foreigners and Thais
living in Thailand, as this country
is so often held up in comparison
to those in the western world and
deemed to have failed in this aspect.
Anyone who has been here will
normally have some tale to tell about
being ripped off, and annual studies
often rank Thailand as one of the
worst places for corruption, but I
have always thought that the true
nature of the beast in ‘developed’
nations has been carefully hidden,
and largely exists in the rarified air
at the top of governments, banks
and boardrooms.
In Thailand, as with much of Asia,
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it exists at all levels, and ordinary
people can both benefit and suffer
from it, rather than just suffering it
in places like the UK. Anyone here
can, as long as they have either
money or strategic influence (such
as a relative in an important official
position), work situations to their
advantage, from simple things like
having fines due that get ‘misplaced’,
being waved through to the front of
queues, and such like, to making
sure their child gets a pass in an
exam. Most attempts to do any such
thing in the UK, for example, will
often lead to the courts!
The dilemma that expats often face
is whether to ‘do as the Romans
do’ or to try and be a pillar of
morality and set a good example.
For instance, you get stopped riding
your motorbike without your crash
helmet on; on the spot ‘fine’ without
paperwork is 200 baht, or done at
the police station properly, 400 baht.
Almost without fail, people choose
the former, because of the saving in
time and money. However you slice
it, you have taken part in a corrupt
transaction. The problem is that in
Thailand corruption has become
institutionalised and thus endemic
to the way the society operates; if
an attempt was made to eliminate
it there would be far reaching
implications, many of them not
good. The best that could be hoped
for is that the worst examples of
corruption are stamped out, leaving
the rest of society still lightly
lubricated with it.
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