Asian countries are often said that they have many commonalities. People are basically friendly and warm, and have deep connection between people with a strong sense of community. Since I am from Japan, I was comparing the characteristics of Nepal and Japan during my stay. One thing that came up as a similarity was the political corruption.

According to Transparency International the 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index, Nepal had the corruption rate of 2.2, on a scale from 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt). Among the 178 countries in the survey, Nepal ranked as 146. We can clearly see that Nepal’s politics are far from being transparent. This rate can be given by analyzing the frequency and/or size of bribes, and for Japan, the rate was 7.8, ranked in 17th place. Seeing the figure, it may seem that corruption is not a big challenge for Japan, however, the corruption is endlessly broadcasted through media everyday and people cannot make a way out of it.

Corruption leads to people’s lack of interest in politics. What we saw in Nepal was the passiveness of people to participate in building positive peace on their soil. They were just waiting for a savior to come and take leadership to change everything for them. That culture of suppression completely supports corruption to remain.

I think one reason for this passiveness is from the quality of education. In Japan, we define our education as cramming education and we are not used to think critically or raise questions. I have no idea how much children in Nepal talk about their internal conflict in the school, but seeing the people that we met, I don’t think children are exposed to the failure and difficulties that the country is facing now. Nepali people just want to erase the past and keep going, not knowing that how fragile the peace they are now holding on to.

People can be called as politicians only by fighting with the absurdity of society. Fundamental standpoint of the politics is to extend the hand of relief to people who are suffering the most.