A friend of mine recently told me that once he reaches 60, he wouldn’t have any female secretary younger than him unless she is his wife, his daughter or his niece.
A friend of mine recently told me that once he reaches 60, he wouldn’t have any female secretary younger than him unless she is his wife, his daughter or his niece. He explained that this is the lesson he learned from some recent workplace scandals, such as the relationship between former CIA director David Petraeus (60) and his would-be biographer Paula Broadwell, some 20 years his junior. My friend said he felt that men are vulnerable today to accusations of sexual misconduct, and that the world will always condemn the man in such instances even if he is falsely accused.
From time to time we find ourselves judging, criticising, mocking and rubbishing those who have been involved in scandals of all shades, and without learning anything from them we can find ourselves making the very same mistakes. When athlete Marion Jones confessed in 2007 that she had been using steroids, she lost her five Olympic medals and was sentenced to six months in prison. Some people rubbished her for doping, while others commended her for coming forward and facing the subsequent consequences. With that in mind, who would had thought that Lance Armstrong would emerge as one of the biggest cheats in modern sports, let alone cycling? But it’s true.
He and Jones are the highest profile figures caught out so far, but they are surely just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, cheating is rampant in sports and other walks of life for many different reasons. Obviously not every thing that glitters is gold, and it even seem that this world is fast being dominated by manipulators. As long as you can convince others that what you are doing is good and acceptable and you are able to cover your wrongdoings, the world will believe in you. And many people out there aren’t afraid of doing evil, they are only afraid of the law which may catch up with them.
Yet even within the legal system there is corruption. There is no worse tool of tyranny than an ineffective and biased judiciary that protects criminals and targets victims. Next to it stands a biased media that spreads half-truths, lies and disinformation in favour of a specific individuals or groups at the expense of the masses.
Unless the world works aggressively towards a moral, free and fair judiciary operating in the environment of an objective media, democracy will always be a charade, a ghost which most people believe exists but which no one has seen.
As the saying goes, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and repeat the mistakes committed before them. That is. unless we are willing to learn from other people’s mistakes so that we avoid making our own.
Pastor Thomas Baganineza is an ordained minister who has been pastoring for more than 10 years. He graduated from Global University and is currently a freelance columnist and writer.
