Ethics Newsline®

EDINBURGH
When Alain Baxter took the bronze in the giant slalom at Salt Lake City on February 23, the folks here in Scotland were ecstatic. The local hero from the village of Aviemore had become the first skier from a British team ever to capture an Olympic medal.

Last week it all evaporated. “Baxter loses bronze and is banned from Olympics,” howled The Scotsman newspaper, above a huge front-page photo of the despondent skier. The problem? Methamphetamine, a substance banned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), showed up in Baxter’s urine sample after the race.

If this were the whole story, even loyal Scots would grudgingly admit that the IOC made the right call. Instead, the sports world finds itself in a wrenching right-versus-right dilemma, where justice comes squarely into conflict with mercy.

Why? Here’s Baxter’s side. Sometimes troubled by nasal congestion, he uses a Vick’s inhaler. Having left his behind in Britain, he bought another in Utah. It never occurred to him that the look-alike products are different. But American ingredients include a mild isomer of methamphetamine that, in stronger forms, is an increasingly popular recreational drug. Unwittingly, he was drugging himself with every breath.

The human body, of course, doesn’t distinguish intentional use from inadvertent exposure. Neither does the IOC. Should it?

If standards and justice are what matter most, you’ll say, “No.” You’ll insist that the only way forward is a zero-tolerance ban. And you’ll think about context. There’s a long and sordid history of performance-enhancing drug use among athletes. There’s a similarly nasty odor attached to the IOC itself, following allegations that some of its members sold their site-selection votes. These challenges suggest lax standards and moral mistiness. How better to refresh the Olympic image than to take tough stands against corruption?

What’s more (you may say), there’s a slippery slope ahead that’s trickier than any slalom. The Olympics could well become just another money-drenched media promotion in which contestants will be motivated less by athletic glory than by lucrative future contracts. That opens up a high-stakes future where illegal efforts to enhance performance will be increasingly subtle, organized, and well-funded. Such efforts will surely include the construction of plausible alibis in case anything is detected — alibis that will include things like Vick’s inhalers and “Gee, I had no idea!” defenses. The IOC must be increasingly vigilant.

But if you care about individual athletes, you’ll say to the IOC, “Have mercy! Separate purposeful actions from innocent mistakes, and forgive the latter.” There’s no evidence here of recreational drug taking. Nor is there reason to suspect efforts to enhance performance. Such concerns were so far from Baxter’s thought, in fact, that he didn’t mention his inhaler when asked at the post-race drug test to list all medications he was using: He didn’t think of it as medicine. Nor had he asked his team physicians to approve the U.S. inhaler: They had already certified his British one. He saw no reason to differentiate them.

The argument for mercy might also focus on the motives of the IOC. Given its concern for standards, did it sacrifice Baxter’s reputation to enhance its own? Would a less threatened committee, coming off a different history, have needed to do this? Is it fair to hold one individual hostage to a particular bit of community history?

Whether you go for justice or mercy, Baxter’s case points up three things:

• Legal drug use is so common that people no longer realize the extent of its role in their lives. Rubbing on lotions, inhaling vapors, chewing gum, swallowing pills, taking shots — each can introduce substances into the body, yet only the last two make us think “drug.” Baxter’s case reminds us of our culture’s silent slide into ubiquitous drugging — and of the need to be alert to its effects.
• As products go global, effective labeling matters more than ever. Items designed to look alike ought to be alike — or to carry more than just small-print words like “Levmetamfetamine,” which Baxter could have found printed on his U.S. inhaler. The sports world won’t again be snared by Vick’s. But how many Vick’s-like things are lurking in how many countries, waiting to trip the unwary? Having built a global following for a product, does a manufacturer have a moral obligation to maintain cross-border consistency?
• The tension between justice and mercy — between the expectation and the exception — touches every area of human endeavor. This week it hit sports. But it’s central to decisions about child raising, school discipline, parole discussions, corporate promotions, government contracting, accounting principles — wherever humanity encounters regulation. In a complex world, rules are vital. But it simply won’t work to say a rule’s a rule, and let it go at that. Forgiveness is too important.

Baxter may get a reprieve: The Court for Arbitration in Sport could get involved. But the issues he’s raised won’t change. In the end, having an IOC that understands justice-versus-mercy dilemmas is far more important than having one that only knows which drugs are banned.

(c)2002 by the Institute for Global Ethics

“What’s happening is the administration is opening up vast amounts of public land to oil and gas development that have never been opened before. I’ve never seen such an assault on public lands in more than 30 years of public service.”

WASHINGTON
After seven years of gridlock, the U.S. Senate last week passed a sweeping campaign finance reform bill, the first such measure in more than 25 years.

President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law.

But the Senate victory still left lawmakers bickering over the measure’s constitutionality and ultimate impact on U.S. politics.

By a 60 to 40 vote, the Senate last week approved the Shays-Meehan bill, which would clamp down on unregulated “soft money” and political issue ads, while relaxing restrictions on “hard money.”

The Shays-Meehan bill largely mirrors a reform measure put forth by Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) in 1995, a measure that has been blocked by Senate Republicans for seven years.

“This great center of democracy is truly tainted by money,” Sen. Feingold said during the final hours of debate last week. “Particularly after September 11, all of us in this chamber hope the public will look to the Capitol and to the Senate with reverence and pride, not with derision. Our task here today is to restore some of that pride.”

After final arguments, 11 Republicans split with their party, siding with the Senate’s one independent and all but two Democrats to pass the Shays-Meehan bill.

Among its provisions, the new bill bans unlimited “soft money” contributions from unions, businesses, and individuals to national political parties, bars paid “issue ads” from being broadcast in the final weeks before an election, and raises the limit on individuals’ “hard money” contributions to parties and candidates from $50,000 to $95,000 over a two-year election cycle.

Upon passage, spectators in the Senate’s visitors’ galleries broke into applause, while House Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Martin Meehan (D-Mass.) watched from the rear of the chamber, reported the Washington Post.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the most outspoken foe of campaign finance reform, vowed to launch a legal challenge to the new bill, promising, “Today is not the end,” according to a report from the New York Times.

McConnell, who has long maneuvered to get top billing on the lawsuit challenging Shays-Meehan, denounced the measure, saying its provisions would push political donations into the hands of less-regulated interest groups. “We are all now complicit in a dramatic transfer of power,” he said.

Senator Tom Daschle (D-S.Dak.), fired back, saying that while the measure may not be perfect, it would make things better, especially in the wake of the Enron scandal.

“Is it good enough that half the government has to recuse itself from an investigation of a failed company because it spread so much money to so many people? Is it good enough that in every election the amount of money spent goes up and the number of people voting goes down?” Daschle asked.

Analysts expect McConnell’s court challenge to end up in front of the Supreme Court, but note that Shays-Meehan includes a provision barring the court from throwing out the entire bill should only a portion of it be found unconstitutional, reported the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee last week blocked judge Charles Pickering from serving on the federal appeals court, sparking a partisan flare-up that ignited the temper of minority leader Trent Lott.

Along party lines, the Judiciary Committee voted three times to defeat the nomination of Pickering, President Bush’s pick for a lifetime seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans.

Democrats, who outrank Republicans 10-9 on the committee, said Pickering’s record on civil rights and his judicial temperament did not qualify him for a seat on the federal bench, reported the Washington Post.

Although Pickering is “a good person,” he “repeatedly injects his own opinions into his decisions on issues ranging from employment discrimination to voting rights,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) said.

Pickering’s “nomination fails the president’s own stated standard of wanting nominees who will enforce instead of make the law,” Leahy said.

Pickering’s supporters, including President Bush, decried such arguments, insisting that Pickering, who supported segregation and once intervened to lessen the mandatory sentence in a 1994 cross-burning case, had since become a committed supporter of civil rights.

Trent Lott, a 40-year friend of Pickering who hails from the same state of Mississippi, immediately denounced the Judiciary Committee’s decision. “I take it personally,” Lott said, and “I’m not going to let go of it for a long time.” Lott vowed. He promised, “You’ll see it in a lot of ways in a lot of days.”

The morning after the Pickering defeat, Lott began blocking the nomination of an aide to Sen. Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.Dak.), who was picked for a post on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Lott said the move was not retaliatory, insisting that the aide, Jonathan Adelstein, age 39, was too inexperienced and young to serve on the FCC. Analysts, however, pointed to the move as partisan payback, noting that the FCC’s Republican chairman just turned 39 himself, reported the Washington Post.

Observers say Lott’s action against the FCC nominee, as well as his recent move to deny the Judiciary Committee $1.5 million for a September 11-related investigation, are signs of bitter infighting still to come as Bush struggles to fill vacant judiciary posts with judges moderate enough to win support from both sides and the mainstream middle.

TOKYO
Two Japanese lawmakers last week fell victim to finance scandals, resulting in their resignations from the troubled political camp of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi.

Koichi Kato, a former LDP secretary general and rising star of Japan’s political elite, said he would resign from the LDP to take responsibility for the alleged embezzlement of more than $2 million by one of his aides.

Kato’s aide was arrested earlier this month for tax evasion, and stands accused of accepting millions in bribes in exchange for government contracts, reported the Reuters news agency.

Although Kato has denied any knowledge of the scandal, he said he “must accept political and moral responsibility for failing to supervise him.” Kato said he would resign from the LDP, but retain his seat in the Japanese parliament and work to restore his name and position, reported the Japan Times.

Fellow lawmaker Muneo Suzuki also resigned from the LDP last week, tainted by allegations that he used his power to intervene in contract awards and meddled in foreign policy, reported Reuters.

“I have decided to leave the party for all the troubles that I have caused,” a tearful Suzuki said last week, announcing his resignation. “I have never conducted political activities thinking that I was doing something bad.”

Opposition members of the parliamentary Diet have asked that Suzuki be ejected from the Diet and stand trial for perjury allegedly committed while defending himself against the charges, according to the Times.

The scandals have further weakened the LDP government of Prime Minister Koizumi, who took office ten months ago, promising to shake up and clean up the government. In a public opinion poll last week, Koizumi received a 43.5 percent support rating — his lowest since taking office, noted Reuters.

WASHINGTON
Racial and ethnic minorities in the United States receive poorer health care treatment than do whites, according to a broad study released last week by the Institute of Medicine.

The Institute, an independent research body that advises Congress on health issues, examined more than 100 studies conducted over the past decade, deducing a pattern of disturbing discrimination in U.S. health care.

“The differences are pervasive,” Martha Hill, director of the Center for Nursing Research at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, and the co-vice chair of the panel, told the New York Times. “It cuts across all conditions of health and across the entire country, and we think this is a very serious moral issue.”

According to the new report, the problem is largely caused by subtle stereotypes within the U.S. health care industry, as well as by inferior health care plans offered to lower-income people, many of whom are non-white.

But even when people have identical health care provisions, non-whites fare worse, with advanced medical treatments often left unrecommended and unexplained to minorities, a practice that often results in higher mortality rates.

“Stereotyping, biases, and uncertainty on the part of health care providers can all contribute to unequal treatment,” the Institute of Medicine report stated. “Significantly, these differences are associated with greater mortality among African-American patients.”

The report noted that the biggest discrepancies in treatment occurred in the diagnosis and delivery of care to people with cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS, reported the Washington Post.

In one of the report’s more disturbing findings, blacks were 3.6 times as likely as whites to undergo amputation for lower limbs as a result of diabetes, noted the New York Times.

“Some of us on the committee were surprised and shocked at the extent of the evidence” of racial and ethnic discrimination, Dr. Alan Nelson, the chairman of the panel and a former president of the American Medical Association, told the Times. “The evidence is overwhelming.”

Panel member M. Gregg Bloche, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, said the practice of racial and ethnic stereotyping is often taught through subtle cues in medical school.

Most of it “gets taught covertly by modeling,” Bloche told the Philadelphia Inquirer, discussing his own schooling experience. “When you see senior attendees or senior residents react to minority patients and there is a subtle, veiled contempt, you may incorporate those ways of acting and thinking in ways that are not even conscious.”

The panel’s report recommends increased awareness of stereotypes, increased consumer education, more opportunities for minority doctors, improved coverage from health care providers, and fuller funding for civil-rights enforcement by the Department of Health and Human Services.

GENEVA
The World Health Organization (WHO) last week offered a helping hand to nations looking to take on Big Tobacco in the courtroom, saying a coordinated legal attack was a necessary tool to curbing the spread of smoking.

The WHO’s offer comes as delegates from the group’s 191 member states gather in Geneva to continue hammering out a global treaty to curb tobacco use, reported the Reuters news agency.

That treaty, the proposed Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), was launched in 1996. The WHO hopes to have it completed by May 2003.

While the FCTC would be one avenue of attack, separate legal suits are also needed to protect the public, according to Douglas Blanke, author of a WHO report advocating taking the battle to the courts.

“Litigation is not for everyone. It has to be handled with great care and discipline,” Blanke told Reuters. “But its power is so great that it simply must be implemented into the global approach to tobacco control.”

The WHO’s offer to help countries fight tobacco companies in court follows recent revelations that the world’s leading tobacco company, Philip Morris, has hired a PR firm to advise the company on undercutting the proposed treaty.

Since at least 1997, Philip Morris has been working with Washington-based public relations firm Mongoven Biscoe & Duchin on tactics for weakening the FCTC and undermining the authority of the WHO, reported the Independent last week.

The allegations, documented in the British publication Tobacco Control, are backed by the WHO’s Executive Director of Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health, Derek Yach.

“Progress has been thwarted by a tobacco industry seeking new and younger tobacco users,” Yach told Reuters. “Tobacco industry tactics constitute the single greatest hurdle on the road to tobacco control.”

The WHO estimates that 10 million people will die each year due to tobacco-related causes by 2030.

NEW YORK
Television network NBC last week announced that it would no longer air commercials advertising hard liquor, saying a public outcry over the ads had forced the network to rethink its new policy.

Last December, NBC broke with network television’s 53-year voluntary ban on hard-liquor ads, setting up a stringent set of hurdles that would allow alcohol companies to tout their products to late-night audiences.

But criticism of the new policy — from quarters as diverse as the American Medical Association, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and the beer industry — pushed NBC to pull the plug on the short-lived experiment.

“We went into this knowing we’d be plowing new ground and it would not come without controversy,” Alan Wurtzel, president for research at NBC, told the New York Times last week. “We said we would do it as responsibly as we could. And after listening to the House and Senate, to the interest groups, we felt it was not appropriate to go to the next step at this point.”

While the national network had a change of heart, analysts predict that several national cable channels and 200 to 300 local stations will quietly continue to air ads for stiffer spirits — a practice they began without much ado in 1996, noted the Associated Press.

Beer makers, who have long enjoyed relaxed advertising standards on network TV, had opposed the recent inclusion of hard liquor ads, concerned that Congress would react by ratcheting up regulation on all alcohol ads, with more stringent standards spilling over onto the beer industry, noted USA Today.

LONDON
U.K. teachers need more help in dealing with abusive and lying students, two of Britain’s leading teachers groups claimed last week, warning that careers were being damaged and teachers too often intimidated.

One growing problem is the number of teachers falsely accused of abusing their students, according to the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT).

Over the past decade, 1,200 cases of alleged abuse have been filed, with a “vast majority” proving to be unsubstantiated, NASUWT general secretary Nigel de Gruchy told the BBC last week.

In too many of those cases, though, the teacher’s innocence is overshadowed by the false rumors of physical or sexual abuse, often costing them their jobs, community support, and self-esteem, de Gruchy warned. He also said that such false allegations have led to suicide in several cases.

The NASUWT and the Teacher Support Network last week announced a new counseling service to help teachers overcome false charges of abusing their students. The new service, which will launch next month, will provide 10 free sessions with a psychologist.

“We rightly treat the safety and welfare of children as sacrosanct and all allegations must be investigated thoroughly,” Steve Thorpe of the Teacher Support Network told the BBC. “But with a high level of claims never making it to court, teachers also need to be heard and supported.”

Both groups also warned that U.K. teachers are facing an epidemic of violence, with 85,000 teachers saying they had experienced student “aggression” in the past two years. Nearly 300 teachers have taken three or more days off work due to assault, according to figures from the Teacher Support Network.

“Teachers are expected to put up with the type of behavior that if it happened anywhere else would be treated as a criminal act,” de Gruchy told the BBC.

LONDON
U.K. students want more say in how their science classes are taught, according to a new poll that shows high demand for more debate on ethical issues such as cloning, and less focus on memorization.

The poll of 2,000 U.K. students found that 68 percent want their science curriculum to include debate on cutting-edge ethical issues, such as cloning and genetic engineering, reported the BBC.

Over half said that current testing standards put too much emphasis on knowing how things work, rather than why, insisting that comprehension should take precedence over memorization.

The poll also found that 86 percent of students said they should have the right to opt out of dissection in biology courses, according to the BBC.

The poll, which found strong support for smaller class sizes, was conducted over the Web sites of the Science Museum and Science Year, a project highlighting the role that science plays in everyday life.

ATHENS
Greek television regulators last week rejected an ultimatum by their agency’s head, who said he would resign unless they pulled the plug on two “reality” shows that he says break the laws on public decency and dignity.

Vasillis Lambridis, who heads Greece’s National Council for Radio and Television (NCRT), last week barred two shows — “Big Brother” and “The Bar” — for nudity and sexual references, reported the Associated Press.

Although Greek TV often features nudity, sex, and lurid plot lines, Lambridis said the two programs went too far, offending moral decency, and should be scrapped altogether.

In a resounding rejection of Lambridis’ line of reasoning, the NCRT last week voted 8-1 to let the shows resume their broadcasts, saying freedom of expression outweighed the public decency concerns in this case.

As a compromise, the NCRT plans to ask the programs’ broadcasters to move the shows to post-midnight slots, reported the Associated Press.

In a front-page editorial, the Athens daily Eleftherotypia supported the NCRT’s decision, saying that, “freedom of speech is attacked when the council makes itself the judge of aesthetics and ethics.”

“Big Brother” follows a group of people confined to a house with cameras and microphones in every room. “The Bar” employs a similar technique to monitor the activities of a group of people who must live together and operate a bar adjacent to the apartment in which they must live. In both shows, viewers vote contestants off the program until only one is left to claim the cash prize.

The Dutch-born “Big Brother” program, a version of which was also pulled last week by a Turkish station for undermining “family values,” has been a frequent flash point of criticism in Germany and the United States.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

MONTREAL
The Quebec Securities Commission has terminated a two-year probe into financial scandals at one of Canada’s leading animation companies, Cinar Corp., with a $1.3 million settlement imposed on the company’s founders, Micheline Charest and Ronald Weinberg.

In addition to imposing the settlement, the largest in Quebec history, the couple is also banned from serving as directors or officers of any publicly traded Canadian company. Moreover, even though they still hold the majority of shares in the company, they are banned from voting for any new Cinar director for a five-year period.

The settlement comes not long after Canadian authorities decided not to file criminal charges in connection with misuse of funds at the company and the receipt of tax credits for Canadian authors who turned out to be American.

Large sums of money have been paid back to Cinar and Canadian tax authorities by the couple, without any admission of guilt.

While the allegations were not considered to be securities regulation breaches they were regarded as abuse of their powers as directors. The company, which was a huge market success before the scandals broke, producing such well-known animation cartoons as “Arthur,” is still involved in civil actions against the founders and a former chief financial officer who allegedly was involved in the financial improprieties.

Special to Newsline from editor Carl Hausman

The Enron debacle and its fallout dominated the news in ethics through much of March, with a related story — campaign finance reform — leading this week’s report. The Enron scandal was cited as one compelling reason for the need to stanch the flow corporate money into government. Criminal indictments of Enron were reported on Mar. 18, and in our Mar. 11 issue we relayed stories about President Bush calling for tougher penalties for corporate mismanagement. A concomitant chill in Canadian markets was one of our top stories on Mar. 3, as our Canadian correspondent reported how the incident has shaken faith in markets there.

Health-ethics stories received a great deal of play during the month. Three major stories are in this week’s report: a finding that minorities receive inferior health coverage compared to whites, an offer by the World Health Organization to aid in lawsuits against Big Tobacco, and NBC’s decision to bow out of its attempt to advertise hard liquor after protests from health and social groups.

Media-ethics stories ran the gamut this month, from attacks on too-real “reality TV” (Mar. 25), a Canadian animation firm’s troubles with government regulators (Mar. 25), a report alleging that Hollywood has been playing cozy with tobacco companies by featuring their products (Mar. 18), the use of television to fight religious violence (Mar. 11), and the U.S. government’s decision to shut down a propaganda office after journalists expressed fears that disinformation could work its way into the foreign press and back to the United States (Mar. 4).

And international affairs and governance issue received heavy play in March: a scandal-related shake-up in Japan (Mar. 25), controversy over politically motivated tariffs (Mar. 18), charges of corruption in the Zimbabwe elections (Mar. 18), and a U.S. State Department report accusing several nations of softness on human rights issues (Mar. 11).

From the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, in association with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life:

“As a religious people, Americans are unsure about how to judge a world that seems increasingly in conflict along religious lines. The public overwhelmingly sees religion’s influence in the world and the nation as a good thing…. But the public does not see all of religion’s effects as positive. A 65 percent majority believes that religion plays a significant role in most wars and conflicts in the world….

“Americans do not speak with one voice on these difficult questions. The most secular and liberal elements of the country are more critical of the role of religion in general terms, but have a more favorable view of Muslims and Islam. Conservative groups, including white evangelical Protestants, hold the opposite opinions. They are more supportive of the role of religion in the world, but hold more negative views of Muslims….

“The nationwide survey of 2,002 adults … also finds strong expressions of religious inclusiveness. An overwhelming majority (75 percent) say that many religions can lead to eternal life, compared with only 18 percent who regard their own religion as the ‘one true faith.’…

“Yet Americans are conflicted over the centrality of religion to personal morality. The public is split about equally over whether belief in God is necessary for one to be a moral person (50 percent say such belief is not needed, 47 percent disagree).

“There is somewhat more agreement that children raised with religious faith are more likely to grow up to be moral adults. Six-in-ten (61 percent) believe this, but about a third hold that children raised without religion are just as likely to grow up to be moral….

“African-Americans, Southerners, and older people - especially women - are among those who see the link between religion and morality as very important; other groups, including men, younger people, and college graduates, are less likely to say that religion is a prerequisite for morality. Politically, conservatives - especially conservative Republicans - place the most importance on the connection between religion and morality. Independents and liberal Democrats attach the least importance to the religion-morality link.

“Americans are open to the possibility that many religions lead to eternal life, but they are critical of people who do not believe in God or have no religious affiliation. Atheists get very low ratings (34 percent favorable/54 percent unfavorable) and ‘people who are not religious’ are given better but still modest evaluations (51 percent favorable/30 percent unfavorable).

“But the public’s low regard for people who are not religious does not undermine its support for religious pluralism…. By more than three-to-one, Americans also reject the idea of churches and other houses of worship endorsing political candidates.

“There also is broad opposition to the idea of government programs aimed at encouraging marriage. Nearly eight-in-ten Americans (79 percent) want the government to stay out of this area, while just 18 percent endorse such pro-marriage programs….

“In post-Enron and post-9/11 America, the public’s estimation of the honesty and ethical standards of government officials and corporate heads have switched positions when compared with the mid-1990s. Public officials in Washington are now seen more favorably, heads of major corporations less so.

“Today, 34 percent of Americans say Washington public officials have high or very high standards of honesty and ethics, up from just 18 percent in 1995. Heads of major companies, however, have dropped from a 33 percent positive rating to only 24 percent….”

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived, and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and realistic.”

– John F. Kennedy (35th U.S. president, 1917-1963)

Last week, as President Robert Mugabe reaped global opprobrium for rigging the election in Zimbabwe, I found myself asking, what went wrong? Not with the latest election — that’s obvious. No, I meant what went wrong over the years with Mugabe?

I first encountered him in 1979. I was part of the London press corps covering the Lancaster House agreement that transformed Rhodesia, a British colony, into the independent nation of Zimbabwe. Mr. Mugabe and his rival, Joshua Nkomo, sought to succeed Ian Smith and his essentially white Rhodesian Front government. Lord Peter Carrington, foreign secretary to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was in the chair. And all of us were watching.

To many of my press colleagues, Mugabe seemed the perfect successor. They impatiently dismissed complaints about his terrorist past and Marxist credentials. Instead, they painted him as the thinking man’s militant whose list of scholarly degrees, meshed with his ten years spent in jail without trial, produced a seductive blend of martyr, philosopher, and activist. I found myself less taken with the man. And I remember chastising myself. Was I being unduly harsh or moralistic? I wondered. What were my colleagues seeing that I was missing? Were they simply much more astute commentators than I?

This is not an “I-told-you-so” column: I’m claiming no courageous insight here. Sadly, I never plunged beneath the surface, never wrote a definitive piece exposing Mugabe’s flaws. As he was swept into power, I simply reported on the process. And at first, he seemed the right choice. But as the years went by, the downward spiral began. Now the results are clear: a ruined economy, a cowed populace, a corrupt government, and a tyranny propped up by force and fraud. What went wrong?

The answer is not in Mugabe — just as it’s not in Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Chairman Mao, or the rest of the world’s tyrants. It has to do with the inevitable lightness of dictatorship — the systemic inability of a tyranny to achieve gravitas, to find its moral ballast, to sustain success. To see why that’s so, consider these distinctions — admittedly broad-brush — between dictatorship and democracy:

• Dictatorship is all about persons — the “rule of men.” Democracy seeks to be about the “rule of law.”
• Dictators view life through a simplistic, right-versus-wrong moral lens — with themselves inevitably right. Democracies agonize over right-versus-right choices, where each side is well-meaning and the highest right must prevail.
• Since everything else is “wrong,” dictators must win at all costs. Members of a democracy must be willing to lose — that’s the essence of government by majority consent.
• To be sure of winning, dictators create their own external threats and artificial enemies, justifying extreme measures and focusing their populaces on something other than their government’s failings. Democracies try to analyze real threats and weaknesses, knowing that only accurate knowledge can produce effective countermeasures.
• Fearing change, dictatorships draw inward, silence the opposition, and sink into paranoia. Embracing change, democracies are good at expanding outward, engaging different voices, and building new arenas of trust.

Bottom line: Dictators prize loyalty above all else. And that, finally, accounts for their inevitable emptiness. With a fixation on allegiance and a dread of competition from underlings, dictators surround themselves with second-rate colleagues. In choosing government officials, they relegate competence, experience, and wisdom to secondary roles — not only at the cabinet level, but right to the bottom of the political food chain. In such a culture, the pool of candidates is sharply reduced, holding only those who pass the loyalty litmus. The result is perfectly foreseeable: inept government, incompetent policy, and a slide toward corruption among those with no higher calling to office than to sustain the dictator and enrich themselves.

What went wrong with Mugabe? He failed to defend himself against the allure of power. Painting himself into a corner of his choosing, he cannot now escape. Like so many dictators, he must cling to power at all costs, fearing that to lose would mean death at his enemies’ hands. That’s another contrast to democracies: They usually transfer power peacefully, making loss unpleasant but not fatal.

The issue here is not peculiar to Mugabe, nor to Africa, nor even to nation states. Tyranny crops up everywhere — in families, schools, churches, corporations, the professions. It’s not hard to spot. It puts loyalty first. It daily grows shallower, lighter, and less effective. And it ends, tragically, in disarray. It’s all about people, and people always end. Democracy is all about ideas, which exist far beyond those who think them.

(c)2002 by the Institute for Global Ethics

“Smoking is being positioned as an unfashionable, as well as unhealthy, custom. We must use every creative means at our disposal to reverse this destructive trend. I do feel heartened at the increasing number of occasions when I go to a movie and see a pack of cigarettes in the hands of the leading lady.”

CHICAGO
The possible collapse of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm tainted by the Enron scandal, could spell disaster for some of the firm’s 2,300 clients, which could be forced to find new auditors en masse — a market flood the industry likely could not absorb, analysts warned last week.

But the scramble could also lead to higher standards among the remaining accounting firms, said Paul Brown, chairman of the accounting department at the Stern School of Business at New York University.

“It could be that these other firms are going to be so squeaky clean, so vigilant,” Brown told the New York Times. “That would be the best thing to happen out of all this.”

Andersen has been badly bruised over its handling of Enron, whose books received the stamp of approval from Andersen for years before Enron finally imploded.

After accounting irregularities contributed to Enron’s collapse, Andersen began taking heat for complicity, leading to last week’s federal charges of obstruction of justice, according to the Times.

As Andersen struggles to settle lawsuits arising from its handling of Enron, the firm is also fending off bankruptcy concerns while trying to woo possible merger partners. So far, the firm has had few suitors.