I was a city boy, a soft Asian: novelist MG Vassanji describes growing up with graft in Tanzania

New Internationalist, Dec, 2006 by M.G. Vassanji

In desperation, one might be tempted to conclude that corruption is only natural. It's always existed. There is an old Swahili proverb, ukiwa na udhia, penyeza rupia; to be rid of an annoyance, pay some money. Grease the wheel. Where a bureaucrat or school teacher or policeman can barely afford the luxury of a newspaper, when the sons and daughters of the well placed return from Europe or America flaunting wealth and style, can one really blame him for asking for chai ('tea') money, which he will use to buy a decent dinner that night or even pay school fees? No, we cannot blame him. But to accept the status quo is to accept a society without a sense of fair play or rules, in which the rich are always the winners, and the vast majority remain poor and desperate as the population escalates.

MG Vassanji's novels include award-winning The In-between World of Vikram Lall and The Book of Secrets. He currently lives in Canada.