Cards and Steriods

It was another quiet evening in Togo and I was playing cards with the two oldest kids in the household. My family here in Togo has three adorable kids, all boys. Firmin is 11 and the partiarch of the family and not quite naive enough. Marusa is 8 and is appropriately naive. Paulin, the oh-so-cute 3 year old with a pot-belly, an irrepressible smile.

The game, which they call the "Jeu American" or American game, is basically crazy 8s with a few other rules mixed in. It's always a good time for all and a great way to pass the time after a good meal. It was a good game of cards and I had just won a round. As the cards were being counted for points, a saw the oldest, Firmin, sliding one of his cards into the pile before counting it.

Cheating. My reaction was not one that cared about winning but did care about making a point and teaching a lesson, and I saw an opportunity. This is not the first time I caught him doing this, but I gave him another, now perfected, lecture about how important honestly is, how if he wants people to trust him in life he has to be honest even when he's playing cards blah blah blah. Sensing this message needed some additional reinforcement since it wasn't the first time I used it, I imposed a new rule that those that are caught cheating gets 50 points added to their score. Thinking I finally had won, we continued the game. Before the night was out, I caught both of the brothers cheating once. Sigh.

Now, what to make of this? Even after explaining how it doesn't really matter who wins because it's just a game; that being honest will make you feel much better when you do win; that having people trust you is one of the most important things out there and even some pontificating about the idea of fairness, the kids still cheat. Is it just youthful immaturity? A blood-thirsty desire to win? Or rather a deeper cultural phenomenon?

It's probably a combination oh all of these, but looking at it through a cultural lens, it follows a lot of what I've seen in terms of bribery and corruption in Togo. From the cop that pulled over my professor here for "running a red light" and got 5,000 (10 bucks) in a bribe before he'd let us go to the cop that pulled over our taxi going between my village and Ketao for absolutely no reason, just to extract a 1,000 (2 bucks) payment, for what exactly I'm not sure, the attitude seems to be something as follows: although there are rules and laws, everyone is breaking them. By not taking a bribe or cheating, you are at a disadvantage and falling behind those around you, missing out an opportunity to help yourself and your family.

From this comes a different idea of fairness. In the US we tend to believe in fair systems. A deck of cards dealt out gives everyone an equal shot of having a good hand. Maybe fate will deal you a bad hand this time, but you're just as likely to get a great hand later. The same can be said about the police. Although everyone around me was speeding too, the fact that I got caught was random, but in the long run it's fair to all.

In Togo, it's a little different. They believe in fair relationships. By that I mean, that the systems are always tilted against them so that they have to rely on people to help them out when they are in a pickle. Pay for police officers is lousy, thus bribes are part of the job, and are exactly what you would do if you were in that position or one of your family members was as well.

The same seems to go for jobs and university admissions. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who said he supports the leading oppostion party, the UFC, which hardly has a foothold as the RPT, the ruling party has been in power for 40 years. However, when I was asking about ways to raise their support in Togo, he mentioned that even he worries about being too vocal for fear of being blacklisted. Not exactly democracy or fairness, but if everyone is protecting members from their party or ethnic group or family, then it all evens out, right?

When I talk to Togolese about how they see corruption, they respond with slight indignation that is over shawdowed by pessismistic fatalism that has accepted this reality. But I'm also brought back to examples in the US culture of shameful, widespread cheating. The CEO scandals as well the steroids epidemic in baseball show that this sort of corruption and cheating depends not just on the larger, but also the relative context. In other words, otherwise perfectly honest people find themselves in a context where they cheat. In regards to the Major League Baseball scandal; the public reaction is unamious condamnation. But when you hear the players talk about it, they claim that everyone is taking sterioids, and that even though it's illegal, you are falling behind others if you don't follow suit. Even though they apparently have the same norms of fairness as the general American population, the desire to compete and the lack of faith in others forces them to give in to temptation.

Thinking about how this might change, it seems that the belief in abstract concepts like fairness and justice that we have in the US requires a huge amount of faith. That those that take bribes will eventually be caught and punished and good officers will be promoted requires the faith that those above and around you will enforce the institution of the thin blue line and also that others around you are following suit. If not, you're only hurting yourself and your family by not following suit; you're the sucker not taking advantage of what he can. The same goes for those baseball players that cheat: unless they are convinced that those around them are clean, they will think they need to juice up just to keep up. The idea of appealing to abstract ideas public service, or ideas of justice is tricky when in the larger context and, probably more importantly, the smaller context of those around you, people aren't following suit.

So, back to those ragamuffin children who I repeatedly catch cheating. If you live in this relationship culture, one that instructs you to take advantage of the system when you can and the larger context which is pretty corrupt, it might make sense to cheat when you think everyone else is. If everyone is cheating at cards, all you are doing is being competitive. They do say that if you're playing cards and you can't find the sucker, then it's probably you. So maybe they are just taking me for a ride?

I'm going to see what I can do to root out the corruption in my family card games - if you have any ideas let me know! It's been tough already so I can't imagine a country wide anti-corruption campaign would take! But I'm also going to be thinking a lot generally about how corruption can be fought in Togo.

Cheers,
Alex

*I also have to take this moment to mention a small personal tragedy which depressed me a little. At this big ceremony last week my camera with all my great pictures on it was stolen from right out of my pocket while I was making my way through this big crowd. I know these things happen everywhere in the world but I was still pretty upset because I had just gotten to feel very safe and comfortable here in Togo, more so that I'd ever felt in other developing countries I've been to. I'm lucky enough to be able to replace the camera, but the pictures not so much. Oh well, one of the risks of travelling!