Experience within a corrupt system is not an advantage

“There is a way out for a person who has had his experience in a within a corrupt system if he is to qualify himself for leadership. That is to openly tell the people the disadvantages of the system within which he is living and to openly repudiate his own past.”
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By Citizen Somapala

(December 24, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The claim of having long years of experience as a qualification for leadership may be valid only to the extent that the experience has been acquired within an an acceptable system. If the experience has been gained within a corrupt system then that experience should be a disqualification for leadership and should be treated as a disadvantage for exercising the functions of leadership.

The very idea of experience means something positive only to the extent that the experiences themselves are positive or at least not completely negative. Experience of corruption is a completely negative experience .

A person with experience of a corrupt legal and political systems can only put his experience into practice in order to reproduce the very same forms of corruption. Experience of a corrupt system cannot bring benefit to others.

The very idea of corruption within a system and the benefit to others is quite opposite. For people to benefit from anything, it should be of a nature that has not had a bad impact on the people in the past. Negative experiences can only create a mentality that could reproduce that kind of negative impact from the people. Therefore no beneficial interest would accrue to people from the experience of politicians whose experience has been conditioned by negative and a corrupt system.

It is a universal experience that all human actions are conditioned. Buddhism teaches a philosophy of the conditionality of human behaviour. From within a corrupt system the only conditionality that could arise is a corrupt result. When the causation is one of a corrupt nature, the result must be one of a corrupt nature.

In fact, when people chose representatives they should try to look for those who do not have experiences which have been gained through a corrupt system. A politician is a system operator. If the system that a person has operated is corrupt, then by that very fact, the only system that this person would operate in the future would also be corrupt.

There is a way out for a person who has had his experience in a within a corrupt system if he is to qualify himself for leadership. That is to openly tell the people the disadvantages of the system within which he is living and to openly repudiate his own past .

If a person genuinely disclaims his past and declares that his past within a corrupt system has revealed to him what is really bad to continue with that system and that he is completely ready to repudiate and destroy that system, such a person, despite of his past bad experiences may qualify himself for future leadership.

However, if a person who has had his formation within a corrupt system claims his past to his credit and claims, that his past experience is what he is going to rely on in the future, then it will be foolish to want such a leader.