A Better Class of Corruption

You don't need to fly to Sub-Saharan Africa to find endemic corruption by elites, embedded in the codependent UK and EU "Aid and Development" Industry.

A Better Class of Corruption.

A preview of my autobiography, in case I’m run over crossing the road on the way back with my morning newspaper. (Yes, still do). Fortunately, or not, I’m not important enough or know enough- but I know a man who is.

The paternalist West’s codependent addiction to thinking it’s “Doing Good”, that it must intervene, will have disastrous unintended consequences- for The Patricians.

The British elites are now as corrupt, as rapacious, amoral, as any “Central Africa Republic” they like to cite as “Regimes”- undemocratic “Republics”, bananas or not.

“At least we’re not as bad as that”, they seem to say in scrolling subtitles underneath.

They are as bad as that. Worse perhaps in their way, just a bit classier about it.

Usually. No “double-taps” to the head assassinations. Not in Olde London Town. (Unless you’re a BBC Presenter about to blow your whistle). Just the quiet offer, the “suggestion”, over a pink gin at the Club, of a Knighthood. Or else. Early Retirement. Relocation, Relocation, Relocation. Or they’ll make you “His Majesty’s Ambassador to the US” and overnight, scrub your “Register of Member’s Interests” from the Internet. Give you an injection of Diplomatic immunity, while whatever scandal it could’ve been is avoided, “blows over”, as the English say.

You become one of the international Untouchables, flying above The Law in a private jet, always hovering between jurisdictions and the BVI. Irritants that trouble the “Little People” far below, like “Tax”, need not trouble you. Or Us. The Powers that be. No blood on the carpet. The English and the EU, “arrange” things. More neatly, than some Asian autocrat. But the immortality, what lies lie underneath, is the same. Worse. For the gentleman of England, “the Suits”, should know better. But who knows better than greedy men in suits?

When I was working in Geneva “many moons ago”- an English phrase I particularly like- a fellow delegate, from Cameroon, took me on the ferry along the shore of Lac Leman. The crystal light blinked back from the windows of the Grande villas and snow on the mountains behind, as we steamed into the sun and told each other everything and nothing about ourselves, as I guess we were trained to do.

After a while he stopped talking, looking down at his hands overhanging the ship’s railing, turning the thick rings on each finger. I wondered if I’d said something amiss. Easy to do, with seven thousand miles and a whole history separating our homes and lives.

But no. He smiled, one of those little wispy smiles, people do when they hesitate to broach a “sensitive” subject. (It used to be called, impertinence). Which he wasn’t.

“See that villa there?”.

He pointed to the bougainvillea-shrouded home, with its own pier for an equally stunning yacht. As big as most people’s homes in London or Cameroon. (For a quick escape to the private jet waiting at the airport, I learnt later). That, he told me, is where Saddam Hussein’s brother lives. “Three weeks of the year”.

And that one, he gestured, “No, the big one”, belongs to Mr and Mrs Mandela. Yes. Incredible. No one knows. And this one, bigger still, with the security gates and long, long drive, is Gabon’s President’s “Rabbit Hole”. (“Bolt hole”, I corrected him. “Lapine”, rabbit is better, we agreed). You know, Monsieur Le President, the one who hasn’t been “elected” for thirty-five years of elections. He likes to go racing at Longchamps with his mistress. His wife goes shopping- with her’s. A “Toy Boy”, he added, dropping into English as you say, “En Anglais”.

“The shore”, he waved with a long sweep of his arm, left to right- “That’s the way the money goes...Where nearly all the “Aid” ends up. That’s the “Third world”- “Avant les Yeux” before your eyes”- he smiled again, without smiling.

My temporary friend returned to Africa. Continued to criticise, with that cantankerous determination copied from the French, one of the local potentates of a different tribe, once too often.

A few years on someone told me he had been killed in a road “accident”.

“Terrible roads, worse drivers”, they shrugged.

EXCERPT James Chanel- AUTOBIOGRAPHY- AMAZON/KDP

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