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Public service and morality, part two

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on May 20, 2009

Transforming “inspiration into impact” with members of the International Public Service Association. (All photos: Terkel Borg)

During his controversial commencement speech at Notre Dame University, President Obama called for “open hearts” and “open minds” when discussing uber-emotional issues. He was tackling abortion — and doing so at an internationally renowned Catholic college.

Of course, the president’s appeal for reason (or, at least, for reasonableness) can be applied to other incendiary debates, including free speech versus religious respect.

Which brings me to Terkel Borg, one of my graduate students. Terkel’s final assignment for me addressed an ambitious question: In a world of clashing beliefs, what makes for a moral, honest and introspective public servant?

Last week, I posted the first half of Terkel’s essay, in which he divulged his deeply personal struggle to figure out where he stood on the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad - - and the riots that followed their publication.

“Sensing no middle ground,” Terkel writes, “I chose the least troublesome option. I took no side. I let my political correctness triumph over my morally nuanced conscience, rationalizing that since I did not pen those drawings, why should I care anyway? A few years later, this moral dilemma came back to haunt me.”

Terkel then tells us that he landed a snazzy internship at the New York headquarters of the United Nations, an institution that “authoritatively embodies the universal values of human dignity.”

Or does it? That’s where we pick up the story — and Terkel’s next set of ethical challenges:

It turns out that the UN is a painfully hierarchical place and being a lowly intern does not expose you to many fulfilling assignments. You must make an effort to claim them. In February 2008, I got my chance.

The Danish intelligence security agency arrested three immigrants for conspiring to kill Kurt Westergaard, the most prominent artist behind the Muhammad cartoons – prominent because he is the one who sketched the Prophet with a bomb in his turban. In an act of solidarity with Westergaard, Danish newspapers reprinted his drawing.

Of course, the whole controversy flared up again. This development had to be reported to the UN Secretary General, and my division was tasked with doing so. At our staff meeting, all the overworked desk officers tried to dodge the assignment.

I detected an opportunity to assert my relevance to the team so I assured my superiors that I would be more than happy to write a detailed memo to the Secretary General. My relieved bosses appreciated the chance to test their new intern.

There was no template for the memo except that it had to be a maximum of one page and should not, in any way, include subjective analysis or recommendations for the Secretary General. Just the “facts.”

As I began to craft the memo and walk the diplomatic tightrope, I felt the entire undertaking to be a bit mystifying. Just the facts? Why should moral considerations be absent?

This would be a confidential in-house communiqué exclusively for the Secretary General. As the specialists on this matter, should our office not include clarification about what is at stake here?

Should I treat with silence the divisions and tensions in contemporary Danish society that led to this debacle? If I did, would the Secretary General not be misled to reduce this complex issue to a group of confrontational journalists and editors trying to cause commotion?

Should he not be warned that there was a deeper, more delicate moral conflict unfolding?

I decided that my politically correct instinct to view this as someone else’s problem would not win the showdown with my integrity. Not this time.

Carefully, I tried to express some of my concerns about the moral predicament through language ambiguous enough that it just might pass the censor. I soon realized that I was way out of my league. My superiors, being senior diplomats, reminded me with their edits that imprecise sentences are their bread-and-butter.

After witnessing several of my drafts crossed out in red ink, I gave up before further embarrassing myself. Having hustled to finish, I had done my job. The memo was excruciatingly objective and artificially concise – I squeezed it onto one page after gaining permission to tamper with the spacing and margins (yes, they do that at the UN, too). My pleased superiors allowed me to identify myself on the memo, which is not exactly a common gesture toward interns. To the casual observer, it had been a rarely rewarding day for this UN novice.

So what was it that still irked me? The truth is, I could not consider myself fulfilled after writing something so mechanistic for the supreme official of the United Nations that he might as well have been briefed by Wikipedia.

The more I pondered, the more annoyed I became. For once, I had cast off the political correctness to which I was so prone. I had cultivated the courage to defrost my mind of the ice age that Danish politics had been preserving it in. I had been ready to deliver a bold analysis that would have touched a raw nerve, even in me, only to discover that boldness was not wanted by the noble institution where I served the global public. The guardian of idealism and universal human rights was just as indifferent to, or afraid of, this moral dilemma as I had been a few years ago.

The political clash of moralities triggered in Denmark three years ago is by no means over. In April 2009, a divisive UN conference against racism took place in Geneva amidst unilateral boycotts and ambassadors walking out in protest.

The conference proved vividly how universal rights can be politicized to promote an agenda that has nothing do with rights at all. Even before April, a union of Muslim-majority states used the conference to equate criticism of certain cultural practices with “racism” against Islam. In turn, many human rights advocates objected fervently that universal principles of dignity are meant to protect the individual, not organized religion.

When moral values are stripped of their context like this, how are we supposed to navigate as public servants? Do we pretend it is someone else’s problem again?

Although the word “morality” can sound eerily like the dreaded word “moralizing,” are we really content to doze off into a world of relativism where we have no idea what to defend because we would rather imagine that nothing is stake?

If we truly want to serve the public good and realize this “change” that we love to buzz about, do we not need to clarify and defend our principles at the risk of upsetting those who do not share them?

Most people would agree that public service is far from a science, let alone an exact science. How we define useful solutions to pressing issues seems to evolve in paradigms. As a student, I find this frustrating to admit because deep down I really want to believe that rationality can guide all of us. Regrettably, not every answer can be an efficient one. Nor can all policies be apolitical.

Believing otherwise is simply naive because values and moral claim a huge stake in public service. Becoming an honest public servant means, first of all, acknowledging that the world you inhabit is full of power struggles, human manipulation and challenges to our own moralities. This is indeed treacherous ground.

Still, caution should not be allowed to freeze our audacity. If we succumb to the fear of offending purists who resist because it is culturally fitting or politically convenient, we will not only wind up doing the public a disservice; we will also be violating our own integrity.

After all, integrity is the bedrock of our beings. This is where we find the courage to stand tall and pursue change, even when that means stepping on the toes of some who see things differently.

Integrity is what allows us to uncover the values that are too valuable to dilute. Integrity is the inconvenient voice inside that makes us pause and think when the undemanding choice feels spineless, ineffective, or simply wrong.

Not being afraid of the troublesome alternative – in all it clear-cut simplicity and overwhelming complexity – is how I define moral courage and public leadership. In our baffling, disordered, globalizing world, that is how I choose to serve the public.