The ALP and Absalom

So it's all over the Australian newspapers: we're set to have another Labor party leadership challenge, less than two years since the last one, and it's the reverse of the last one, this time with Kevin Rudd challenging Julia Gillard. And the whole thing seems very, very messy. One of my colleagues today expressed that she hasn't been able to look at the newspapers since it all started heating up, she finds it that frustrating. "It must be making us the laughing stock of the world," was how she summed up the situation.

Now, I'm not wanting to evaluate which of Gillard or Rudd was the better, or, as one infamous campaigner once put it, "the least worst", Prime Minister. It's not something I could possibly judge. But one thing does strike me - that, if you're going to challenge your leader, this isn't the way to do it.

This quote from Gillard particularly struck me when I read it paraphrased in The Age today:

Ms Gillard said that she did "everything" she could as deputy prime minister to try and get the Rudd government functional, but it became "manifest" to her that continuing with Mr Rudd as prime minister was not going to work. (Judith Ireland and Michelle Grattan, "Gillard throws down gauntlet", The Age Online, Thurs 23 February 2012)

Well, perhaps she means what she says. Perhaps she really did try. But why, I wonder, did it occur to her that she was the one to replace him? Did someone tap her on the shoulder and suggest to her the idea that would otherwise have been unthinkable, that she was the one for the big job? If so, how did she respond? "Oh, no, not me, don't dream of it..."? (The whole situation seems very reminiscent of Yes, Minister..."If one was asked, one might consider..." Or Mrs Elton in Emma: "I wouldn't call myself a potential prime minister, but my friends say...")

It makes me think of a story from a small kingdom in the ancient Middle East, where the second ever king of that kingdom, a man named David, was being challenged for the leadership of their fledgling nation, Israel, by his son, Absalom. That boy had been approached by the people; they had said to him, "This father of yours, he's treating us all very badly." And Absalom had stood at the gate of the palace and heard all their grievances, nodded, made sympathetic noises, said, "Oh dear, that is bad." And he'd done a very good job, fooling perhaps even himself into thinking that it would be for the good of the country if he were king instead - not because he wanted the job, of course, but because...well, someone had to do it, and the people seemed to want him...

Was he fooling himself? He no doubt believed it. But, in acting the way he did, he showed how unlike his father he really was, though not quite in the good way that he had thought. You see, his father reacted to the leadership challenge with quite an extraordinary attitude, one we rarely see in politicians at the best of times, least of all at the worst: he showed humility.

David had once been the popular young leader. At a time when the first king, Saul, had become a mad tyrant, David was the nation's hero. But he had never stood in a leadership challenge. When given multiple chances to stab his king in the back, he had chosen not even to stab him in the front. When the king had died, David had grieved.

And now, challenged by his own son, David remembered what he had known then: that God was the one who appointed kings, and if He wanted him to be king, then He would make it so. His job while Saul had been king was to submit to Saul's kingship, broken and tyrannical though it was. And now, perhaps this challenge to his leadership was not a threat he had to stand against but an indication that God no longer wanted him to be king.

You can read the whole story in 2 Samuel 13-18. It has also been brilliantly adapted into a parable about leadership by Gene Edwards in his Tale of Three Kings. The moral of the story, according to Edwards, is this: if your superior is a Saul, it is still not your place to overthrow him. Or, if you are a David and you are challenged by an Absalom, approach God with humility. Seek His protection, or accept His judgment. Either way, He is right.

And if you are an Absalom? Woe to you. You may become king, but being king by foul means is never, ever going to be satisfying.

So which, you may wonder, is Kevin Rudd in this parable? And which is Julia Gillard?

I cannot say. But I wish that they both knew that there never comes a time when stabbing in the back is appropriate. And the good of the nation should never be used as an excuse for our own petty power plays.

Perhaps one day 2 Samuel 13-18 will be taught in politics classes, but I doubt it. In the meantime, let it be a voice in the wilderness, showing how things should be done if people had their hearts and minds in the right place.