Does politics have a morality of its own?

By Fr Kwesi Alleyne, a member of the Maloney Parish Clergy Team

As I ruminated on the Epiphany readings with the familiar imagery of the Wise Men, the infant King of the Jews, Herod the Great, Mary, and the star, I listened for a word, a message that would speak to the present moment, illuminating the today of our history.

Looming large in the consciousness of the nation was the voice of another great whose death the country is still in the process of memorialising, Prime Minister Basdeo Panday.

Immediately, some famous words of his with their characteristic wit, passion, and provocative allure entered my mind: “Politics has a morality of its own”. What a powerfully controversial statement this has proven to be! The tension it holds reflects the unfolding intrigue of Herod and the Wise Men in the gospel text.

The late Prime Minister’s assertion is often read in Machiavellian terms. In fact, one of the local articles that I read quotes it as from this famed, or, maybe more accurately, infamous political philosopher. I could not, however, find confirmation of this from other sources.

From all accounts it seems to be Panday’s formulation. What Machiavelli does say, however, is that “Politics have no relation to morals”. For him, if politics takes one direction, morality walks the other. The political sphere even necessitates immorality.

It is this extreme that many impose upon the former Prime Minister’s words or at least find implicit in them. Others, weighing in on the debate, argue that politics is the realm of compromise. They interpret this to mean that politics requires that moral demands be bent or even possibly set aside when reality calls for it.

Professor Ramesh Deosaran, in an article adopting such a view, presents the example of the visit of Pope Francis to Myanmar in 2017. Many expected the Pope to speak out openly against the oppression of the Muslim minority Rohingya by military forces representing the Buddhist majority.

Instead, the Pope was very diplomatic in his words, speaking to the values of love and peace around which his trip was themed but not directly addressing the Rohingya plight.

Deosaran describes this as “a political decision…that overcame what many saw as a moral obligation” (December 2, 2017. Newsday). This is a decision taken in consideration of the negative consequences that a more scathing critique could have had on the tiny Muslim and Catholic minorities in the country.

While some see this as failure to bring morals to the public sphere, it can also be read as simultaneous attention to different moral responsibilities.

The responsibility to speak up in defence of peace and justice is coupled with the responsibility to safeguard the lives of the innocent. The truth cannot just be spoken for speaking the truth’s sake. It must be spoken with wisdom and prudence, which does not mean cowardice.

What this example does show us is the struggle in the public sphere to keep morality alive, but morality does have its place.

Some persons of faith, as they hurl ‘stones’ at politicians, cast the entire political sphere as amoral. They leave politics for the immoral and divorce themselves, as moral persons, from political engagement.

Sometimes, entire religious movements adopt this stance. Our Jehovah Witness brothers and sisters, for example, abstain from voting as a means of excluding themselves from the anti-values of the world. In a certain way, such approaches are the flip side of Machiavellian philosophy. This is done in an effort to completely separate the person of supposed moral character from the immoral domain of politics.

The call of the Christian, however, is to incarnate moral principles in public life, in the space I am called to live in, flowing from the very mystery of the Incarnation of the Word that we celebrate at Christmas and in the Epiphany.

Is there a way, then, that the statement “politics has a morality of its own” can be understood in a manner that serves this call?