(6 of 6)
Thus, for all the efforts of Asian leaders, it is likely that the odor of Asian corruption will linger for some time to come, though perhaps not with the ripe impact achieved by an independent legislator in South Korea's National Assembly, when he dumped a can of human excrement over a row of Cabinet ministers he accused of letting smugglers operate in the country. Progress is needed on every front—social, economic, political. Education is an imperative, for a well-informed electorate will hold to closer account the officials of a democratic government. And opposition parties must be encouraged so that voters will have a meaningful alternative to an administration corrupted by long years of uncontested rule. Better communications will bring the fire of a crusading press to distant villages, and the ire of distant villages to bear on the people in power. Increased contacts with the rest of the world should help to develop greater understanding of the techniques of government and business competition; and this, in turn, would encourage the confidence of Western leaders and international agencies, tired of seeing their aid money siphoned off into illicit channels.
This process has already begun. For Asians are acquiring a taste for the material advantages of Western life and developing a respect for the benefits of free enterprise. And along with this taste and this respect, they are beginning to realize that the old ways, which they call traditional but the West calls corrupt, are simply not good business.