And the Corrupter Cried: I Want Reform

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Among the virtues of elections is that they act like a pincer squeezing the tail of the corrupt, making them cry out: “We want nothing but reform.” I examined many slogans, and abbreviated phrases broadcast by candidates and adopted by electoral lists, and found them chanted by criminal ghouls transforming themselves into peaceable doves, warbling about reforming conditions and promising to make up for what has been lost. These wolves, who made the Palestinian people taste the bitterness of suffering, who plundered money, assaulted people’s honor, imprisoned strugglers, cooperated with Israel, and held drunken, debauched parties, now speak as though they were ewes whose udders overflow with abundant milk poured into the mouth of the poor man’s son. Elections are a sword; it would have sufficed simply to remind these corrupt men of the filth boiling in their bellies and the wine-fever that once addled their heads.

I looked at a huge banner for one of the heads of villainy and found that he had described himself as the best one to hire, being the strong, the trustworthy. I said to myself that this thief could never have afforded to print this banner had his own guts not been fattened on the people’s sucked-out blood; and certainly he would never have run in an election were it not for an era of baseness. Another wrote promising that healthcare would become available to everyone once he won. I said to myself that this man would never have spoken of healthcare had he not been the one who stole it in the first place. He contributed to plundering the treatment of the sick, and no problem ever crossed his mind except the ones his own hands created. And a bloc wrote that its capital was justice, and I recalled its stubborn efforts to corrupt the judiciary; and a bloc writes claiming it will provide security and safety for citizens, when it is well known that its supporters roam the streets threatening citizens and exposing their safety and property to looming dangers.

What is amusing is that a bloc that grovels at the feet of the Americans speaks of the dignity of citizens. Many figures in this bloc receive American money, some of them open shops for “democracy” and “openness,” and occupy advanced positions in the Palestinian Authority, and do not hesitate to issue promises of achieving dignity. Perhaps what they mean is that dignity can be achieved with necks trampled beneath the boots of “the Marines.”

What do you think, dear readers, of an age in which a prostitute speaks of honesty and purity and finds people who believe her? It is not strange for the impure to speak of purity — this happens everywhere and always — but what is strange is that people know this full well and yet some of them close their eyes and believe, as though they were the ones deceived. By God, these people are not deceived; they know and they understand, but their interests are stronger than the commandments of the Lord of the Worlds. Some people hide behind rituals and observances, while in their behavior they sink into a murky denial. How many a corrupt man has invoked God hypocritically before the crowds, and how many a hypocrite has striven constantly to justify a corrupt man.

[The vote is a trust that requires] a movement toward correcting some of what has been corrupted, restoring rights to their owners that have been lost, investigating crimes that have occurred, and returning the people to some of the morals that have been destroyed, and to a social fabric that has been torn apart. For this reason, the vote remains a great trust that must be honored. And whoever wishes to honor this sacred commitment, in a manner that does not contradict the trust God has placed within the human being, let him look to a person’s history and past; and if it is a bloc, let him examine the past of its members to determine from what clay they were molded. And here I do not speak of the past of childhood, or the past of reckless youth, but of the past of mature productivity, in which a person becomes aware of his own actions and deeds.

There are electoral lists that have deliberately papered themselves over with strugglers and names known at the social level, but which conceal within them enormous heads of corruption who will one day stand before the courts of the Palestinian people. And there are lists that include names serving the Americans and the Israelis. And there are lists bearing the names of those who carry freedom-of-passage cards issued by Israelis. Some candidates, whether on lists or as individuals, even use cars bearing red license plates in their election campaigns. All of them now cry out that they want reform; they pass by people, greeting and smiling, and speak now with flattering words. Only yesterday they were not out in the streets, absent from their districts and plundering people’s money. Now they swear they are truthful. No, by God, they are liars. That which is crooked will not be set straight, for it has already stiffened; and that which has gone astray will not be guided, for it has lost its insight.

We will call them to account according to the rules of truth and justice. The Palestinian people will rise again on its feet, and will overcome the tragedies of the lean years. We will gather them one day, and truth will be the arbiter. I myself have gathered a great deal of material incriminating a number of those contesting the elections, and I will bring cases against them as soon as the next Legislative Council reorganizes the courts and appoints judges who fear God and treat everyone equally.

Now is the time for a swift reckoning. Elections are every Palestinian’s opportunity to tell the traitor that his betrayal has brought him to ruin, and that corruption has caught up with its own perpetrator. We must not hesitate and must not flatter. We know who stole, who traded in the cause of Palestine, who used mediation and favoritism, who assaulted people, obstructed justice, and cooperated with the Zionist Jews. Long years have passed, years that sorted people out, in which the foul was distinguished from the good, the patriot from the non-patriot, and the man of faith from the trader in religion. Turning a blind eye is a calamity, and there is no escape for one who flees from the truth and the discharge of a trust.

Let us all remember that family is not sacred. Social bonds are certainly cherished and ought to be, but not in falsehood; and how many a “brother” of yours was not born of your own mother. I stand with my relative and with my friend when he is in the right, but when he is in the wrong and I know it, the truth is what separates me from him.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “وصاح المفسد: أريد إصلاحا” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.