text: Yes. Nations are extended tribes really. What makes a tribe a tribe is of course its shared cultural norms.  And moving beyond 'morality is relative to culture' its pretty easy to see that the morality of a bunch of camel herders in an arid climate is necessarily different to the morality of a bunch of peasant farmers in a harsh c0ld and wet climate.
  
  When Zuma says that 'Corruption is a Western thing' He is precisely right: It is. In his culture and world-view, the absence of socialism and welfare means putting self first, family second, and tribe third.  That is simply survival.
  
  Only a culture that has evolved out of a monumental dependence on trade and business ethics, comes to condemn corruption as 'bad for business'.
  
  In South Africa, we see the conflict between cultures: On the one hand everyone wants the advantages of technological civilisation, but no one wants to pay the ultimate price in adapting their culture to what is necessary for it to function.