Educating our kids about corruption

Nearly everybody is convinced that we need a metamorphosis of our political system, and we could claim that the main reason for this ambition is the corruption of a few politicians. Due to this dishonesty, we sometimes don't demand too much from ourselves because we think that the responsibility is only for those who lead the country. As a consequence, we don't judge their mistakes the same way as the ones that we might make.

The reason for this error is that we usually have two wrong ideas. The first one is a mistake of proportion, it's not the same to cheat with little money than to steal the savings from the retired, and the second one is a mistake of judgement, we tend to justify ourselves if some of them spend the whole time defrauding us out of our money, why can't I do the same with a silly amount? Therefore, to understand it properly, you criticise them because you can't be at the top doing the same. In other words, you complain about the situation due to a filthy feeling of envy, not justice. In this case, you must recognise that although you've got a poster of Che Guevara in your room, you've just drawn the face of Berlusconi in your soul.

So, if we want to modify the political landscape we should start getting rid of this Iberian idea that the brightest is the one who breaks the law without being caught. In this country it's not unusual to share a meal with some friends who brag about the way they steal public money, and although we aren't going to be like the Scandinavian citizens whose Bible is the law, we should try to respect it as a part of our lives. Then, our children must listen at home that we can't accept our own corruption because we need to show excellent behaviour. The main idea is really simple, we can't have a pure background because all of us make mistakes, but we must have a clear idea about being honest. Consequently, if we manage to make a new generation understand that we will improve our public services if we pay what we have to pay, and we can ask for resignations if we try to have an exemplary life, we will be modifying the old way of understanding politics because we will be changing future voters' minds.

Anyway, if we wish to bring them up in that way, we should start analysing ourselves and we must understand that instead of cheating we must talk about stealing. As you know really well, you can't prevent your children from smoking if you spend the whole time smoking, and we can't make them eat vegetables while we gobble a hot dog with chips. This is a kind of performance of a hypocrite upper class society which hates what they usually do secretly. So, to demand integrity from our politicians, we must be honest with ourselves and the rest. It's a non-negotiable condition if we want to be a wonderful agent of change.