Our nation lacks moral leadership, and we have a choice….
27 April 2019
SIMON DAVIDSON
PORT MORESBY - Our nation, led by Peter O’Neill, lacks moral leadership. It is morally bankrupt.
To be a moral leader, a leader must live by moral principles that are enshrined in the book of supreme virtue - the Bible - and universally accepted guidelines of right thinking and right conduct.
Morality is taught as an ideal that all mortals should adhere to. It is the North Star that guides all human conduct.
In every religion, in every culture, there is an innate sense of what we ought to do when we live in human societies.
Morality guide’s human conduct, elevates human beings, facilitates human relations and creates a just and fair society.
Morality is the bedrock of national greatness. A nation’s strength does not depend on its military might, nor its wealth but by adhering to ancient moral guidelines.
In our nation’s propitious moment in time, Peter O’Neill is a bad leader guiding the ship. He lacks morality. He is not a moral leader of the nation. He lacks moral leadership. Every fibre of his being seems to detest morality. He breaks rules of conduct and lives the life of a man on the verge of a moral nadir.
He has in his inner circle men who are morally weak and are driven by greed and self-interest. The government he leads is deeply corrupted and lacks transparency. A man who lack moral fortitude and does not follow sound ethical guidelines cannot be a leader.
A government run by crooks, self-interested braggarts, cannot take the nation to greatness.
History abounds with nations that fell through moral decay and degeneracy. One example amongst many is ancient Rome. She was the Queen of the world. Her legions dotted the landscape. No one could challenge her militarily.
Gibbons in his seminal work, ‘The Decline and fall of Rome’, cites fiscal irresponsibility and moral decay as some of the reasons Rome fell from greatness and descended into oblivion.
Our leaders are following the same path. They are leading this resource-rich nation with its 8.5 million people to the brink of anarchy.
Through prodigious spending on inflated projects, in an orgy of unrestricted borrowing and with corruption on a grand scale, our nation is going down the drain.
We the people who voted this corrupt government into power must not remain silent waiting for a miracle to happen. We must, by pen and voice and by all means with our reach, talk against the blunt disregard for the rule of law by this wicked government.
For if we hold our peace, when the house we live is on fire we have only ourselves to blame for our timid indifference.
When our nation’s forests are disappearing, when our mineral wealth is extracted and we are paid a pittance, when foreigners collude with parliamentarians and let migrants fill simple jobs and make us beggars in our own land, we need to rise and demonstrate the people’s power to speak against a government that is morally deficient.
We have a choice to speak and change the nation’s destiny, or let it degenerate and fall into decay.
I agree with Simon Davidson that our political leaders lack morality or ethical principles as a guide to govern our country. Some political leaders are morally corrupt.
Morality simply means good customs, traditional norms and ethical behaviour.
In the absence of ethical principle and spirituality we are facing a political and identity crisis as human beings who are created in the image of God.
Our responsibility as a result of custom and tradition is to promote and embrace human dignity. We are guided by natural law or divine law that is written in our hearts to do good and avoid evil.
Many of our political leaders and bureaucrats do not follow our moral conscience and they do not differentiate good and bad in our decisions and actions.
There seem to be no political insights, wisdom and values in our leaders in the like of Sir Thomas More, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and others.
Ethics or morality does not involve leaders alone but branches into many fields including medical ethics, social ethics, business ethics, work ethics, counseling ethics, legal ethics, and the list goes on.
Ethics constitute the principle of common good and what is based on principle we cannot change it. It is absolute and final.
Politicians when making decision or come up with a law it must benefit the people. When people are happy and live peacefully we are establishing a moral and ethical society.
We apply ethics in work and want to set up standards and we often called code of conduct, certain rules and regulations to follow like no drinking in office, no sex in office, no stealing, absenteeism etc.
In the case of the death penalty, it is morally wrong to take away another person’s life. Similar to abortion which is outlawed in PNG, a fetus has the same value and dignity as a human person.
Posted by: Philip Kai Morre | 04 May 2019 at 11:59 PM