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Public service and morality, part one

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on May 15, 2009

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

For the next many days, I’ll celebrate with students who are graduating from New York University’s school of public service, which houses the Moral Courage Project (MCP).

One of my graduate students, a Danish dude named Terkel Borg, has been helping me expand the MCP. You’ll soon learn about the fruits of his labors.

Taking on Terkel as my intern was a no-brainer: As a student in the course I teach, Public Leadership and Moral Courage, he wrote a final paper that struck me as thoughtful, honest, even gutsy. It’s about struggling to be a “moral” public servant. With Terkel’s permission, I’m now publishing his essay.

This blog entry features part one of his paper. Interspersed are photos from my recent round-table with the International Public Service Association. Terkel also snapped those pics.

Read and reflect…

Let me start by making a confession. I do not know exactly why I applied to the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service [at NYU]. I did not have a crystal-clear reason.

Sure, Wagner has a good academic reputation, which could probably propel me onto a respectable career path with a decent salary after I graduate. But let us face it: If I wanted to make money, I should have applied to a business or law program. Yet I did not. I did not even consider it.

There was something that drew me to a career in public service; something I could not shake off. It was an intuitive conviction that “change” is more than a catchy election slogan. This might seem self-evident, but to me it is not.

Allow me to explain why.

I was born and raised in Denmark. An insignificant bubble on the map of Northern Europe, my Little Mermaid of a country has five million inhabitants who live relatively carefree.

We take pride in our model of the welfare state. Danes have income equality alongside a competitive economy. We have government-sponsored health-care and higher education. We are among the most committed donors of development aid. Transparency International ranks Denmark as the least corrupt country in the world, while the University of Leicester’s World Map of Happiness rates it as “the happiest place on Earth.”

Never mind the enormous tax pressure, the cold and cheerless weather, the unspectacular landscape, the dull cuisine, the language that nobody beyond our borders understands. We do not worry because we have no ambition to “impose” ourselves on others. We are happy to live our introverted fairytale.

In fact, we Danes are so accustomed to seeing the world in a political correct way and so scared to step on anyone’s toes that we have grown indifferent, almost oblivious, to the diverse reality of our globe, where conflicting values and beliefs are becoming more apparent than ever.

Our childlike desire for a world in which we all “just get along” blew up before us in February 2006. That is when the cartoon controversy erupted. A Danish newspaper published twelve depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in an attempt to demonstrate how the country’s media self-censor when it comes to covering Islam.

A provocative decision? Yes. But the fallout, dramatically fueled by the tribalism of some Muslim Danes and the xenophobia of some non-Muslim Danes, produced the unimaginable. Danish embassies in the Middle East were torched; Danish goods were boycotted across the Arab region; riots broke out in the streets and our self-perception as a peace-loving, innocent nation evaporated overnight.

In the blink of an eye, my land of birth had become the symbolic battleground of moral conflict between the Western and Islamic worlds. The fierce clash between freedom of speech and defamation of religion chilled me. I found myself confused.

On the one hand, I was ashamed, blaming myself as a Dane for “allowing” this to happen. Liberal rhetoric placed all responsibility on the offending newspaper and the venomous environment towards Muslims in Denmark.

In truth, that explanation didn’t convince me because I perceived freedom of speech as a cardinal and indisputable cornerstone of democracy. It is something that should be defended at all costs. Yet this position was most vociferously championed by the anti-immigrant party whose extreme politics I despised!

Sensing no middle ground, 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. As an aspiring and ambitious public servant, I left my homeland to assume an internship at United Nations Headquarters in New York. In a great stroke of luck, I landed in the Department of Political Affairs, which – I was told – is one of the most interesting spots in the myriad of offices and divisions at UN HQ.

Having spent what remained of my shattered budget on a proper suit, shirt and tie, I was euphoric to begin working inside the sky-blue windows of the grand UN complex. From my shabby cubicle on the 33rd floor of the 38-story building, I could see that the windows were actually filthy on the inside.

But I was not there for the view. I was there to prove myself; to show everyone, including me, that I possessed the character to work for an authoritative multinational organization that embodies the universal values of human dignity…

Next: Part two of Terkel’s essay, as he steps into the United Nations — and onto a minefield of ethical questions. Stay tuned.