The extraordinary events in Australian Federal Politics yesterday where some 112 members of the Labor Party were forced to make the difficult moral choice between loyalty to a leader who was losing electoral appeal and the prospects of success at a rapidly looming election are a fascinating lesson in the sort of moral challenges any intelligent person faces at some point or other in life. By coincidence, last night on television across Australia, the ABC screened a documentary examining the difficult moral choice faced not only by Winston Churchill but by naval commanders and even ordinary sailors surrounding the decision to sink the French Naval Fleet lest it fall into the hands of Adolf Hitler. Today's commentary examines the challenges we all face in reaching the best moral decisions when the choices before us are difficult or next to impossible.

Two examples of people forced to choose in difficult moral territory...

Before extending this reflection to the more general cases that might apply to all of us, let me quickly try and outline the moral challenges in the two examples I have chosen...

The choice faced by members of the Labor Party yesterday...

Kevin Rudd was up until yesterday Prime Minister of Australia. He is a man of formidable talent who had risen from quite impoverished circumstances to lead his nation. He was elected in almost euphoric circumstances where the nation had reached the point of utter frustration with the previous Liberal/National Party government led by John Howard. John Howard was himself unceremoniously dumped even by the voters in his own electorate of Bennelong and he lost his seat in the Parliament. Moral issues where big agenda items surrounding the fall from grace of the previous conservative administration and also the alternative program that Kevin Rudd offered to the Australian people. From the legitimacy of the war in Iraq, how this nation treated asylum seekers to issues concerning the rights of ordinary workers were centre-stage and principally centred on moral issues of fairness and justice. For a significant time Kevin Rudd enjoyed the confidence of the Australia people with unprecedented popularity. There had long been rumblings of his style at the party and staff level of his administration regarding his inability to delegate, his control-freak style of management and inability to consult colleagues. His popularity in the polls was able to counter these difficulties with ease and his party continued to support him.

Following a decision Kevin Rudd made to place a key policy issue, the Emissions Trading Scheme, on the back-burner there was a dramatic slide in his popularity in the electorate starting in about April this year. Internal Labor polling also started to show a dramatic decline in the government's popularity particularly in crucial Labor heartland seats in New South Wales and Queensland. Last weekend a Labor by-election in the NSW State Labor seat of Penrith registered the biggest swing against a government in history, around 25.7%. While that was a State, rather than Federal by-election being a key electorate in the NSW Labor heartland it was seen as carrying significant Federal implications as well. The combination of these facts plus the long-standing internal disenchantment with Kevin Rudd's personal style within the government built to the point where yesterday collectively the parliamentary party membership decided to collectively dump Kevin Rudd and replace him with his deputy, Julia Gillard.

In the media reports in the 24 hours since these dramatic events many members of the parliamentary party have related how difficult the choice they faced was. Essentially the moral dilemma centres on issues of loyalty and personal readings as to whether Kevin Rudd (and the party) had become unelectable for a second term against the Conservative Coalition led by Tony Abbott. Self-evidently some were not prepared to ditch Kevin Rudd but in the end Julia Gillard "had the numbers", Kevin Rudd could see that and he chose to not contest the leadership in a contest against his deputy.

Some have challenged the decisions as being reflective of how politics has become driven by self-interest, how loyalty counts for nothing today, and the entire business of politics today is driven by self-interest. That is all undoubtedly true but is that not the universal challenge all of us face in so many of the decisions we have to make in life. We are in a perpetual contest of self-interest versus what is really in the best interest or our community, our family or our nation?

The choice faced by Winston Churchill in 1940...

By entire coincidence on ABC Television last night a documentary was screened that drew into sharper relief the questions of moral dilemma faced by political leaders than any other documentary I think I have previously seen expect possibly for one dealing with the moral dilemmas faced by various people who attempted to assasinate Adolph Hitler.

Entitled "Churchill's Darkest Decision" the documentary explored the decision Winston Churchill made to capture, or if needs be, sink the French Fleet to prevent it falling into the hands of Hitler after the French had effectively capitulated to Hitler in 1940. Here is the ABC's own program summary:

Program Summary

 

Churchill's Darkest Decision

8:30pm Thursday, 24 Jun 2010 View online on iView CC PG

 

 

Churchill's Darkest Decision reveals a little known fact about the war with Germany.

In the summer of 1940 Winston Churchill faced a terrible dilemma. France had just surrendered and only the English Channel stood between the Nazis and Britain. Germany was poised to seize the entire French fleet, one of the biggest in the world. With these ships in his hands, Hitler's threat to invade Britain could become a reality.

Churchill had to make a choice. He could either trust the promises of the new French government that they would never hand over their ships to Hitler, or he could make sure that the ships never joined the German navy by destroying them himself.

Some call his decision a turning point in the war, others call it a terrible betrayal, and a war crime.

This documentary tells the story of what Churchill did next, and why; and how 1,300 French sailors died as a result of what the French still call 'our Pearl Harbour'.

In the words of French survivors, some of whom still regard Churchill as a war criminal, and one of the British sailors who opened fire on his former allies, this is the forgotten story of Churchill’s darkest decision - to sink the French fleet.

Now for some discussion about the moral challenges...

I suppose someone could fill an entire book discussing the moral challenges face by the various players in these two examples I have selected for consideration today. I don't have space to do that in a single commentary but maybe between all of us we might open up a significant discussion in the Catholica Forum on some of the difficulties that various parties might face. What I suggest we are not so much trying to do here is prove who is right and who is wrong but to highlight that depending on where one is standing in the various dramas the moral conclusions a person can come to can be quite different, and in fact diametrically opposed to what might be the correct moral conclusion another person has to come to standing in just a slightly different position. The question I am throwing up for consideration here is: are all moral decisions that we are forced to consider in life totally "absolute"? In a sense I think there is a final "moral absolute" — that is the final decision each of us has to come to has to be morally correct in terms of our own conscience and, ultimately in the case of believers, as to whether the action we take leaves us with a clear conscience before our God. In coming to that "absolute" for each individual though we may well find situations in what was the absolute for Citizen A might be completely different for Citizen B who was standing only two feet removed from Citizen A.

For example take the position of two members of the Labor Party yesterday one of whom had deep friendship with Kevin Rudd and consequently had a deep sense of loyalty to him personally and the case of a person on the other side with deep friendship to Julia Gillard and consequently a deep sense of loyalty to her. Let us assume the chief moral consideration in the case of each of these people did centre on loyalty and they were less concered about matters of, say, national interest. Could they not each end up taking diametrically opposed positions yet both be considered to have taken the morally correct choice? But in a matter like this things are never likely to be as simple as what I have described above. There are usually a mix of moral considerations and also very pragmatic and self-interest considerations. Each player has to weight all of these up and in the final mix arrive at a decision that rests comfortably with their conscience.

The second thing our discussion might consider is the moral position of people who are not in a position to be in possession of the full facts. For example take the case of the ordinary sailors on the ship that inflicted the catastrophic damage on the French warship that resulted in the death of around 1,300 French sailors. As some of the now elderly survivors attested in the documentary, they have carried moral qualms about this their entire lives. I draw that to attention to highlight that the making of moral choices affects every one of us. The average sailor without rank might have little prospect of protesting or changing the outcome but I suppose, or perhaps even presume, some of them may have decided to hold, or delay their fire on what they perceived to have been allies they'd been sharing a beer with only a few weeks before. But take the moral dilemmas that faced officers in middle management positions — for example the ones who travelled in the boat to carry Churchill's ultimatum to the French Commander. Or the soldiers who boarded the submarine in British waters and had to make a split second decision that ended up taking the life of the French Captain (or was it the French Engineer?) of the submarine. There are no priests, cardinals or popes that you could call up on your cell phone to consult on what is the correct moral decision to take. We, the ordinary invidual have to choose. How do we do it?

I would certainly love to write much more in this lead-in commentary but alas time has gotten away from me so I trust this might do as an introduction that can be published and I'll try and add some of the many other scenarios that have been going through my mind — a lot of it in fact sparked by reading the various reactions on the Catholica Forum to the unfolding events of yesterday. Any observant readers ought be able to see that even in our relatively small community of those who have voiced comments on the leadership change yesterday that friends can arrive at moral conclusions that are diametrically opposed and yet, in conscience, both can be absolutely correct.

LINKS:

View the documentary on iView: www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/589978

ABC website page describring the documentary: www.abc.net.au/tv/guide/netw/201006/programs/ZX0012A001D2010-06-24T203000.htm

IMAGE CREDITS:
The photographs of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd used in the headline has been sourced from the coverage The Australia newspaper has given to the events yesterday. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/. The images from the documentary "Churchill's Darkest Decision" have been sourced the ABC website: www.abc.net.au

Brian Coyne, 25 Jun 2010

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