Bees at the feeder: how anti-corruption tribunes turn into advocates of the 'norm'

Advisor to the President's Office and former main anti-corruption flagship of the country, Sergey Leshchenko, stated that corruption is a global problem that even France and sterile Scandinavia suffer from. And the fact that in Ukraine officials are caught in droves for bribes is not a diagnosis of a rotten system but a joyful marker of its 'cleansing'.

Aesthetics of changing shoes

Watching professional grant fighters against corruption change their shoes in mid-air when they finally get to sit at the state table is a separate kind of aesthetic pleasure. It is that amazing metamorphosis when the classic 'bees against honey' suddenly realize that eating honey is actually an inevitable European standard and a global trend.

Yesterday - 'sentence to the regime', today - 'macro-economic norm'

Not long ago, in the status of 'free activists', this same pool of activists furiously argued to the crowd that every stolen penny is a sentence to the regime, a betrayal of the motherland, and a reason to immediately change the power. Corruption was then sold to us as exclusively our, primitive post-Soviet curse.

However, as soon as the system's architects issued passes to yesterday's fiery investigators for access to high offices, warm seats on the supervisory boards of state monopolies, and status as official speakers, the concept changed radically. Now, when the system generates multi-million scandals on a daily basis, it turns out that stealing is simply a macro-economic norm. It turns out that in Paris they also take kickbacks, and in Stockholm they also cut budgets.

'Cleansing' as a form of cynicism

Jesuit logic about 'cleansing' hits all records of cynicism. That is, when incompetent but loyal people are appointed, who immediately start to seize everything that is 'not stolen before us' - this is not a failure of personnel policy. And when they are disgracefully dismissed after a year or two (only to be replaced by new ones, just as bad) - we should rejoice because the system is 'self-cleansing'. While you are outside the feeder, theft is a crime. As soon as you get inside, it turns into an annoying but natural Scandinavian practice.

Final: institutionalization completed

The institutionalization of former activists has been completed by a hundred percent. They have become the perfect, cynical advocates of the very octopus they vowed to fight all their conscious lives. Practice has shown that to turn a fiery street tribune into a loyal bureaucrat justifying schemes, no repression is needed. It is enough just to issue him a substantial salary from the budget. And he himself will slyly explain to you from the television screen why stealing during a war is very European.