Integrity
I remember a story a friend told his Sunday School class a long time ago. It was about how a bus conductor gave the wrong change to a passenger. It was 10 sen more than the correct change. The passenger alerted the bus conductor to his mistake and returned the 10 sen. And the bus conductor said to the passenger, “Actually I deliberately gave you 10 sen more. I know you are a Christian, and I wanted to see if you would be honest enough to return the 10 sen.” The moral of that story told to the Sunday School children was that we should maintain our standards even for an insignificant amount like 10 sen.
Over the years I have had opportunity to return sums of money that were mistakenly given to me by shopkeepers and waiters. The biggest amount I had returned was a few hundred dollars that a bank teller gave me by mistake.
I remember when I was in the university being worked up over the matter of queue-cutting. Meal times always saw long queues. It was, of course, unfair to those who have been in the queue for some time to allow a friend to cut in the queue where I am. And so I don’t. But what if a friend asks you to buy food for him? Is it not the same as allowing him to cut in the queue? And so when a friend asked me to do so I bought his food (I did not want to refuse him) and then lined up at the back of the queue again to buy my own. It was important to me to maintain integrity while still showing my friends that I care.
An article in the NST had the following headline: “A staggering RM45 million! That is the amount of City Hall overtime claims last year.” That sum works out to an average of RM4,017 per employee. And in the first 6 months of this year, the overtime claim has already breached RM30 million.
I remember another story a friend told of how in the early days of his time in the civil service he would take the bus when he needed to visit some businesses over their tax issues. He was an officer at that time. Having taken the bus, he would submit a claim for the bus fare. But others in his department were unhappy. Although they too had taken the bus, they want to submit claims for taxi fare, which was their due. But how could they, when the officer had submitted a claim far less than theirs.
Another article some time back spoke of how a policeman in Gemas lodged a report against all his colleagues including his superiors allegedly over dissatisfaction on how the monthly bribes from those operating illegal activities was being distributed. Then in retaliation, one of his superiors, a sergeant, lodged another police report against the policeman, a lance corporal, for allegedly selling station property to scrap dealers.
I have been stopped by traffic police on occasion. Sometimes I was let off with a warning. Other times, I was issued summons. The times I was issued summons, I paid. These days it is quite easy to pay summons through the internet. I don’t offer bribes or tell a tall tale to avoid being summoned. After all, the summons will only cost me money. The most costly experience I had was on a trip to Thailand. I took the train but at the border I was told that I must show that I have in my possession a certain amount of money since I was on a visa. For a 20 (or was it 40?) ringgit bribe I could continue on my journey. Instead I took a bus from the border to Penang, withdrew the requisite money, bought a plane ticket and finally arrived at my destination. Was it money well spent? Not from an accounting point of view. Well, depending on what you are accounting for.
Recently during supper with some friends talk went to how doctors and private hospitals tend to overcharge when they know that insurance will cover the charges. I have no experience of this, being a person who is in the “cannot afford to fall sick” camp. At that time we were looking at someone’s medical bill that had gone beyond RM10,000 for a simple surgical procedure that did not even require an overnight stay. “Do you know that many of these doctors are Christians?” one friend said. “Isn’t overcharging another term for stealing?” I asked. “They have sold themselves out to money,” another opined.
I know that in conversations like this, we paint with a very broad brush. Obviously not every doctor overcharges. In fact in that conversation we spoke of another doctor who was “faulted” for often not charging. And I know that there are arguments that can support such practices. But I do believe that if we are honest with ourselves, and money is not the most important thing to us, arriving at “fair” charges for our services will not be a difficult thing to do.
It seems to me that the age old ideal of being scrupulously honest has become a rare virtue in Malaysia. While most people might not steal another person’s money out of his drawer, or rob a person at gun point, it seems that there are few qualms about giving and accepting bribes, inflating overtime claims, tax evasion, parking charges, etc.
In an environment where corruption seems endemic and lucrative, the Christian needs to be even more on guard. We certainly should not be doing things that are basically unethical and wrong merely because these are accepted practices. It is not easy to swim against the tide. And in the case of my friend the tax officer, he had to struggle not with the desire for the taxi fare, but with the fact that his honesty casts him to be “not a team player” in his department.
Someone asked, “I am offered enough money to take care of my financial needs, in seven figures, basically to do nothing. To look the other way. What do you think I should do?” Another person says, “My business will fail if I do not give bribes. What will happen to my workers? I have a responsibility to them.” And the issue of ethics takes on a very different dimension. The principles though do not change. And perhaps when we are faithful over small things, we will be better prepared to be faithful in big things.
High ethical standards are what we should hold ourselves to, not judge others by. I am tempted to put a few caveats into this article to say that I am not holding myself up as a person with very high moral standards. Nor that I think everybody else are crooks. That is not the point at all. The motivation in writing this comment is that as I read these cases of corruption in the government I asked “Do we no longer have any ethical standards? Have we no shame? Do we take whatever we can, regardless of whether it is our due or not?” And I was moved to come to the conclusion that only when society uphold high moral and ethical standards will we begin to push back the tide of corruption and the waste that comes from professional neglect.
But high moral and ethical standards must first be applied to ourselves. In our conduct. In our dealing with government. In the way we carry out our duties. In our lives. “Do as I say, not as I do” just will not do. As Christians surely we have a head start in this matter. We are called to truth, to honesty, and integrity. Beyond what we desire for our nation, our primary motivation for doing so is our love for God. In the situations I shared above, what I want to point out is that there is a cost when we maintain high ethical standards. Often that cost is money. Or some inconvenience. But we need to be aware of the cost of not maintaining high ethical standards. Specifically, as Christians, the cost is in our relationship with God. We grieve Him when we have scant regard for honesty and integrity. Broadly the cost is our own integrity and self-respect. Even more broadly, the cost is a society that breaks down because there is no self-discipline, no moral standards that are upheld by conscience. In Malaysia we talk seriously about needing people who watch over those who watch over us. How sad this is when we can no longer rely on integrity, conscience and religious conviction.
Ethics, morals, truth, honesty, integrity – these are very familiar words that were very frequently talked about and hotly discussed when I was in the university. Tricia Yeoh’s article on Idealism brought many memories back. But it has been a long time since and I have yet to feel that these issues are the preoccupation of Christians and churches these days. And perhaps, by not being “salt and light” we have contributed to the sad state our society is in today.
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