10th August 2023, Istanbul/Turkey  -  Wishes 52 / 53 / 54

In the name of Peace and Justice.

I have three wishes today, which I present to you in the name of Peace and Justice - in the hope they may be fulfilled.

Corruption is one of the most hideous terrible devastating crimes in the world. There is corruption at all levels, everywhere in this world. Corruption is the abuse of power for some personal gains.

As long as there is corruption - any kind of corruption - there is no Justice, and there is no Peace in this world.

I would say there are two kinds of corruption. There is corruption at the top end, involving people of great influence and power, like politicians, priests, big business wheelers and dealers - and there is corruption at the bottom end, small scale criminals like policemen, administrators, servicemen of all kind.

My first wish for today is about the fight against top end corruption. Victims here are communities, whole nations - in a globalized world all of humanity and, to a large extent, even nature as a whole. To pinpoint the exact source of corruption and the beneficiaries is often difficult, and in many cases nobody feels directly responsible, really, to prosecute such cases and bring the culprits to justice. People tend to shrug off such offenses as "business as usual", as in the case where lobbyists bribe politicians to pass such and such a law which profits them directly at the expense of the general public, or in the case where simple citizens argue that it's almost a natural law that the people on top profit at the expense of the rest of the people.

How to stop this?

Now, I have to admit that I'm not an expert on top end corruption and the fight against it. But I know that we have to find ways and means to solve this problem because in Paradise, which we aspire to establish, there can be no corruption.

My wish therefor is that worldwide experts on the matter, from all nations, come together to discuss the issue, from a global point of view, and present solutions. These must be international solutions (because in many cases national authorities have no incentive to follow up on flagrant cases of corruption in their own country as they are smeared in corruption themselves). Methods have to be put in place to expose cases of high level corruption and the people involved, and legal authorities to follow up with the persecution of such criminals.

My second wish for today is about the fight against bottom end corruption. Here, the victims are simple citizens, mostly poor, underprivileged, easily exploited, with no means to defend themselves. Policemen and other officials would stop them, ask for their ID card and enforce the payment of a bribe, or else the ID card wouldn't be returned to the owner. Hospitals would enforce the payment of an admission fee (even though medical services are officially free of charge), or else the patient will be left to die without medical support. Schools would charge parents for admission, books, uniforms, all sorts of other services (even though education is officially free of charge), leaving poor parents to forget about the education of their children. Employment officers would charge a prospective employee the equivalent of two or three months' salaries as a bribe before signing an employment contract. Lawyers would take your money and never deliver on their promises and their paid-for services. Even judges would impose a hefty bribe before offering to rule over your judicial case, if they ever do so at all. And so on, and so on, and so on. The list of petty crimes at the bottom end of corruption is endless. And, believe me, I know what I'm talking about!

What to do about it? It surely looks like an impossible task. Such crimes cannot be traced. The payment of bribes, at every level, is done by cash, in secret secluded locations. No proof. No signs. No traces.

My wish is that there be an international initiative to establish an electronic reporting system where everybody who experiences corruption of any kind can leave a notice about what they experienced. At a national level, such an initiative would be useless because nations where corruption is prevalent at such a scale, nobody in power would be interested in changing anything about it.

Taking things from there, it would be up to an international anti-corruption body to take things up, make the findings public, put pressure on the individuals and the powers that be to end this practice and to punish the criminals concerned.

Which brings me to my third wish for today. How to punish corrupt criminals? How to punish corrupt individuals, corrupt companies, corrupt institutions, corrupt political parties?

To start with, of course, the bribes have to be paid back, in full, to the victims concerned or, in the case of political or corporate corruption, to a neutral anti-corruption body, to be used in the fight against corruption.

In addition I think a penalty of at least ten times the original bribe should be paid by the criminals (individuals, companies, institutions, political parties, and so on), of which fifty percent would go to the victims concerned, and the rest to the same anti-corruption body as mentioned above.

Going one step further, I believe that the identity of the culprits should be made public, and a ban should be spelled out for such criminals to occupy a similar function or job ever again in the future.

Such are my three wishes for today, which I present to you in the name of Peace and Justice, in the hope they may be fulfilled.

In the name of Peace and Justice, thank you!