Dear Editor,
I refer to Swami Aksharananda’s letter in Stabroek News, June 18, 2019 `Scientific literature on corruption makes no reference to any group’s religious beliefs as a motivational factor’.
I maintain that the PPP’s tolerance of corruption is primarily motivated by religious beliefs by the reasons I gave in a previous letter which was circulated on the internet.
The primary factor for corruption in all humans is greed which is an element of the human condition. Hence corruption is found in all countries of the world and it is more pernicious in countries with high levels of poverty, particularly if one looks at social consequences for small developing countries and poor countries like Guyana. I never said that the PNC are motivated by “naivety” – I raised that as a possible explanation for the President’s apparent ignoring of the phenomenon in his party and Guyana
When one is doing a scientific study one generally ignores social information – and this is problem I have with economists and political scientists; they take economic and political information out of a social and cultural context and therefore miss underlying social reasons for a particular phenomenon having happened and shaped in a particular way.
Religions do not function in a vacuum – if they did, they would be useless. Sacred Texts were written by humans for purposes of domination. We need to be honest about the violence and greed we are taught in our Sacred Texts and reject them. We must accept ideologies that pertain to kindness to others; not to accumulate wealth while others are hungry; do not utter words that may cause a community to break; do not be untruthful; be compassionate; do not kill and let others be killed; find whatever means to protect life and prevent war.
Guyana needs statesmen, not the run-of-the-mill leaders we have at the moment, with the above qualities so that everyone can have a good life.
Yours faithfully,
Professor Kean Gibson
