Beirut: World Capital for Corruption

A few times in the past, I've posted pictures of what I believed was Lebanon's quintessential basket. See those photos here and here.

And so, it is with some difficulty that I'm suppressing an inward grin at a recent series of posters that feature this basket. I love being not wrong, and the use of the basket in this context makes me feel that way.

The posters first caught my eye while I ran the 10K on Sunday. There they were, again and again. And here they are now in a photo I took recently:

The little bit of English text says Beirut World Capital for Corruption. I looked for them on facebook, as directed by the text on the poster. I wouldn't have found the page without google though, so here it is.

Lebanon is a pretty corrupt place, worse than most but not as bad as some. At least that's how it looks when you compare countries world-wide, as they do at Transparency International. I got this handy map from their website where you can check out results for 178 countries.

While nosing around online I also pulled up a few other sites for other anti-corruption initiatives in Lebanon. The Lebanese Transparency Association seems to be doing a lot in this area, and of course, I hope it works.