How to Participate in Injustice

I contemplated if I should write this post. It's not that I'm necessarily ashamed, but I'm not exactly proud either. It's a complex and multi-layered issue involving systemic social issues beyond the scope of my personal power. But here it is...I participated in corruption. It sounds terrible. I'm a peacebuilder, and I'm a moral person, and I'm Mennonite. I do not pay bribes, that's not what moral peacebuilding Mennonites do.

The context explains my behavior. I needed to learn how to drive with a passenger and so I finally succeeded in getting one of my coworkers to risk her life and ride with me. On my first ride with a passenger, I turned right-on-red with three seconds left on the countdown clock in front of the Tout-Chen (Chinese Embassy) into "the brong kill zone" ("Foreigner Kill Zone"). The traffic cops love this corner. It's not a busy stop light so people run it all the time. I'm hardly the first--or the first of my coworkers--to get caught in this trap. Often, "fines" are imposed for no reason (you ran a yellow light, your license plate is crocked), and it's hardly worth your effort to challenge a cop.

I was stopped, and understood "stop ploum" (red light) out of the Khmer. I had to get off my moto and walk off the road to a spot off the sidewalk where a cop was sitting on his stationary moto against the wall of the Tout-Chen. He asked about where we worked, where we were from, and then asked for five dollars for the "stop ploum" incident. We haggled it down to three. Technically you shouldn't pay any more then a fair $1.25 for a traffic violation of any gravity but I'm a "brong." Enough said. No documentation, no need to give names, and no unpleasant words.

I was mildly upset by the situation for several reasons. First, I rarely make such public errors in judgement, and the one time I do, I get caught. Everyday I see at least 50 motos run red lights at major intersections at a perilous risk to their own lives. And yes, I wait the 60 seconds every time because that's what I do and I refuse to be killed in traffic...and I get slammed for turning right-on-red into no oncoming traffic. This in itself in unjust.

And secondly, it's no great secret Transparency International placed Cambodia 154 on the 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index; 154 out of 178 countries. There are many issues in every sector from education to customs. I was angry discovering myself trapped at the bottom of systemic injustice. I don't want to participate in it's continuation! It goes against all my development theory, my peacebuilding convictions, my Mennonite ethics, the Do-No-Harm philosophy, and my personal values. I couldn't not pay, because committed some mistake (though hardly a serious one, gosh!). It's quite obvious what's happening. Without a uniform system for tickets or traffic violations, your "fines" rarely make it to the police station. So I left knowing I was in the wrong...on two counts.

I used to self-identify as a fairly law-abiding person. But now I pay bribes...because that's what you do when you live in Number 154. And there's nothing to be done about it. I work on the micro-level for positive nonviolent change on the individual/interpersonal level between families and churches. I can't change systemic injustice.