The Turnbull-Trump tapes took one back. For some, it was back to the Watergate Tapes and the innocent years of Richard Nixon. For those of us of a certain age and faith, it was back to the primitive and unenlightened world of Abraham.
Both Turnbull and Abraham bargained about numbers: Turnbull by reducing the number of asylum seekers from Manus Island that Trump might take; Abraham by reducing the number of just men he would need to produce for God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction. Abraham’s conversation is part of a fragmented cycle of stories about the division of land between Abraham and Lot, his nephew. Lot chooses the downlands; Abraham the uplands.
Lot eventually settled near the area that includes Sodom, which God had decided to destroy because of its wickedness. He tells Abraham, who had offered hospitality to God’s emissaries, what he has decided, and has sent emissaries to get first hand information.
There is a bargain between the bazaar-wise Abraham and God. Abraham pushes down the number of good men needed to save Sodom from 50 to 10. God’s emissaries go on to Lot’s house in Sodom and are hospitably received.
But at night, every man of the town tries to break into the house to rape the two guests. So much for the 10 just men! God then tells Lot to get out of town and destroys the cities.
This story cycle is built around acceptance of a universal moral order guaranteed by God, the violation of which has consequences. The stories explore what room that universal moral order leaves for personal responsibility and virtue. They ask whether personal human goodness could avert the consequences of the sin of the majority.
In more general terms, the question is posed: Is there space for compassion in the moral order? Abraham’s successful bargaining proves that there is, and that the outcome—the escape of Lot’s family—shows that the moral order respects the humanity of each human being. People matter as persons, not as generalisations, and compassion is integral to any good society.
Although this is a primitive story, its characters have the dignity proper to people who are players in a much larger drama. As the number of just men required to save Sodom falls, so the value of each human being rises. The level of tolerance of the mess inherent in displays of compassion also rises.
"We see two men bargaining, but with little dignity. Here no universal moral order is in place."
Returning to a more enlightened age, and to the phone conversation between Trump and Turnbull, we see two men bargaining, but with little dignity. Here no universal moral order is in place. There are only local political imperatives. There is no consideration of value, only of control and expediency. There is no appeal to truth, only of the need to maintain appearances.
Trump’s desire is to look good by keeping out immigrants. Welcoming someone else’s asylum seekers would be a bad look. Turnbull’s desire is also to look strong by keeping out unwanted asylum seekers, and to appear generous by shifting them to the United States. In reality, the interdiction policy in place has already stopped boats coming, and he is willing to trade the asylum seekers away.
Against this background the bargaining does not test the quality of a moral order. It only tests the limits of expediency. When Turnbull offers the bargain of reduced, even no, numbers, he declares as nil the personal value of the people he trades.
This stands in contrast to Abraham’s bargaining, which, step by step, values more highly the importance that human beings have in the moral order and so attends to the respect owed to them. In the exchange between President and Prime Minister the real suffering, and human diminishment, of the asylum seekers is treated as only apparent, while the potential loss of esteem for President or Prime Minister is the reality. If there is space for compassion it is due to the two merchants being trapped in their necessities. Other than that, it has no place in the case about which they negotiate.
As President Trump often insists, statecraft is about making deals. In this deal Mr Turnbull proved himself quite adept. Perhaps in this more enlightened age that is all we can hope for in any conversation between heads of state.
Yet one is left with the faint suspicion that these protagonists lack dignity, involved in a grubby business that strips away the grounds for mutual respect, as well as respect for the people they bargained about.
In the meantime, on Manus Island, Hamshed Shiripour lies dead, long afflicted by a mental illness untreatable in that place of punishment.
In Abraham’s conversation, Hamshed would be considered a person, the object of compassion. In the telephone conversation between Trump and Turnbull he is a cipher, to be counted but not valued. It may be considered 'primitive', but we can see how a moral order seems more decent when we observe its absence.
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street.