Why I don’t support the UN International Anti-Corruption Day…

Today, December 9^th, is officially the UN International Anti-Corruption Day, and even though that this day is important, I do personally believe that this day comes way short to achieve its objective, as stated on the United Nations website about the International Anti-Corruption Day “… to raise awareness of corruption and of the role of the Convention in combating and preventing it.”

With this article, I want to challenge the UN International Anti-Corruption Day, as it is my personal opinion and conviction that the focus established by the United Nations is wrong. Don’t get me wrong, fighting corruption is crucial, but the focus is wrong and that for two main reasons. Allow me to explain in more detail starting off with Mother Teresa.

One day, Mother Teresa was approached by some people and was asked why she didn’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. Her response was as follows: “I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.” And I do 100% agree with her, because you can only have anti-war as long as there is war.

The same applies for the UN International Anti-Corruption Day. The International Anti-Corruption Day can only continue to exists as long as there is corruption. There is no denial that corruption still exists in many places around the world and it needs to be fought to eradicate it, but not having corruption is not the end game at all. What society wants to obtain goes much further than ‘no corruption’, and that leads me to my second point…

The only way to know if an organisation, private or public, and a politician is not corrupt is by making (forcing) those organisations/politicians open and transparent, because that is the only way to force them to leave corruption behind and transform themselves in open and transparent organisations/politicians.

Therefore, my recommendation to the United Nations is to take up their responsibility and change the International Anti-Corruption Day into the ‘International Transparency Day’ using Mother Teresa’s quote as motivation.