Sydney's Lindt Cafe siege began last Monday morning and concluded, tragically, in the early hours of Tuesday, with the deaths of barrister Katrina Dawson and the cafe's manager Tori Johnson.
There is so much information we do not know at present.
First, Australians have, literally, no comprehension how the Islamist criminal Man Haron Monis was ever in the country, let alone granted refugee status and then citizenship, and a host of welfare benefits.
Second, Australians also have no comprehension of how a man with Monis' criminal past could ever have been allowed out on bail. The laxity of New South Wales' bail laws, in either form or application, will inevitably be a political issue and, in that light, the NSW Bar Association's opposition in August of this year to the bail laws' tightening looks unspeakably tragic in retrospect, given Monis' murder of one of its own members, as well as Mr Johnson.
Third, there will be an inquiry into events leading to, and the Police conduct of, the Lindt Cafe siege. That inquiry will identify what was operationally effective, what was not, and it will hopefully answer in detail in an unclassified form, the public's questions as to whether, for example, any aspects of Martin Place and the building's physical environment could have been used better, or why the sniper teams deployed were not used once the perpetrator was identified as a single gunman. There are many questions being asked by the Australian people who, rightly, consider two dead hostages to be a sub-optimal outcome. This is not to, in anyway, criticise the Police or second-guess their efforts but, in an Israeli way, to instead approach this tragedy's investigation in an atmosphere of open questions, honest answers and a determination to learn from any errors and do better next time.
However, there is one incident during Monday afternoon of the siege that, in the aftermath, has deeply troubled me. It occurred at approximately 3.45pm in the afternoon when 2 men - the 82-year-old retired tennis player John O'Brien and the young barrister Stefan Balafoutis – became the first hostages to escape the Lindt Cafe siege. There is a full report here by the Sydney Morning Herald. This was O'Brien's account to the paper:
O'Brien glanced up at Stefan Balafoutis, a lawyer, who was standing, as ordered, with his hands against the window. The younger man had his eyes closed.
"I said to the barrister, look, this is not going to end well, this guy will never get out of here alive, and he's going to take everyone with him," O'Brien said in the first detailed account from a hostage who was held inside the cafe.
He whispered his plan to Balafoutis. The lawyer replied: "Good idea."
The two men then, in simple terms, got to a position in the cafe where they could quietly use the out of hours exit (the green button) to quickly escape the cafe. They were followed by another man, Lindt worker Paolo Vassallo. These three men escaped and left the other hostages behind, which included two pregnant women, as well as other women and men, with the Islamist gunman Monis. The Lindt Cafe manager, Tori Johnson, stayed until the end until he lost his life, dying so that others may yet live. The contrast is an unavoidably stark one.
The conduct of the men raises an interesting question about Australia in 2014, which is what, if any, is the duty imposed on men, especially younger, fit men - and men having lived a full life and who are still fit enough to play tennis - to ensure that, in a Lindt Cafe or like scenario, the priority for any safe escape from danger is always first the women, especially pregnant women, children, and the vulnerable? Are women and children still made safe first?
I have been troubled by the sparse and morally sterile reporting of this small incident, in which men made a plan for their escape, which left pregnant women and other women and men behind at the mercy of Monis the Islamist gunman. To my knowledge no one in the media has raised any questions about the men's conduct, despite the fact that, compared with standards of one hundred years ago, such behaviour would have been considered at best selfish, if not cowardly. The idea of men escaping with the certain knowledge that women, especially pregnant women, were left behind, is one that offends every principle of Biblical and natural law, and the chivalrous virtues that not only once permeated the West's Judeo-Christian civilisation but were, literally, a moral basis of its defence in wartime and in times of crisis. As part of the West's progressive secularisation, we have made mute and invisible our traditional Judeo-Christian virtues that a man's duty is to protect the vulnerable and to do his duty to help others live even if exposing himself to the gravest of risks. In this centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War, in which those virtues were daily practised, it is a bitter irony that in the same Martin Place precinct in which the Sydney Cenotaph commemorates our courageous war dead is placed, this question has been raised anew by tragic events in the nearby Lindt Cafe.
I could not help, as the details of the men's escape filtered out, but think of the Birkenhead drill and the Titanic's sinking and the prioritisation of "women and children first" for the lifeboats. While there are conflicting stories of what actually happened, our society's proudly moral understanding was that the ship's officers stood on Titanic's deck at the railings as the boats were lowered, with orders to prevent, if necessary by lethal force, any man from leaving the doomed ship and thereby taking a woman or child's space. As a result of this ethic, in the case of Titanic, 74% of women survived, 52% of children survived, but only 20% of men survived. Additionally, there was an expectation that the leading classes would lead by self-sacrifice, which meant that the survival of the Chairman of the White Star Line's J. Bruce Ismay meant he would spend the rest of his life as a socially radioactive pariah in British society.
One may, admittedly, consider my views harsh, perhaps hopelessly Edwardian and reactionary, and inappropriate to apply to ordinary civilian men in 2014, who have to be careful to observe all of the canons of our times in relation to equality of the sexes, even when in physical terms such equality is transparently idiotic and, when practised in an emergency, positively dangerous.
After all, it could be said, Western societies are now equal societies, and many women in the contemporary armed forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and have suffered horrendous deaths, maimings and mental traumas as have many of the men who served in those wars. Women serve in the Police and other emergency services, and are no less courageous or resourceful than are the men they serve with. So surely we are all equal now? Has chivalry died? Do we need it anymore?
(In saying this, I pass over, for example, the consistent failure of the equality boosters to interest any significant number of female servicemen in life as an infantry soldier. I pass over, also, the discussions held by men recently in harm's way as to their real fears for what would happen if one of our female troops fell into the Islamist enemy's hands, and their determination to prevent it any cost.)
Here in Sydney, the nagging question, in my view, arises as to whether a civilisation can survive when men feel it is morally acceptable – and the press' silence suggests it is – for men to look after themselves and abandon women (especially pregnant women) who are in the direst of situations? Is this ever right? Do we, as a society, expect more of men in a crisis? Do we dare to? But do we dare not? Do women, especially, want to live in an Australia where the traditionally protective instincts of men are now a form of predation that allows men to put their strength, speed and skills into ensuring a man's safety first?
I may be the only person who feels this disquiet at men deserting their duty and, as a lifelong holder of generally conservative views, I am more than happy to be the only one who feels this way.
However, I cannot believe I am the only Australian, especially the only man, who feels that a basic rule of our Judeo-Christian civilisation was breached on Monday afternoon when men took it upon themselves to plot their way out and, in so doing, at that time left the vulnerable, especially pregnant women, to fend for themselves against an Islamist gunman. I cannot believe this is right and, as I said, I do not care if I am the only one who is of this opinion. There is no scripture whereby our Lord says that a man's greatest act of love is to lay down his fellow hostages in order to save himself. To even consider such a proposition is a moral blasphemy.
Almost two decades ago, Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States concluded his dissent in the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) case by noting that the institute had "The Code of a Gentleman" which it expected all its military staff and cadets to follow. Its terms were
"Without a strict observance of the fundamental Code of Honor, no man, no matter how `polished,' can be considered a gentleman. The honor of a gentleman demands the inviolability of his word, and the incorruptibility of his principles. He is the descendant of the knight, the crusader; he is the defender of the defenseless and the champion of justice ... or he is not a Gentleman."
Scalia concluded by saying
"I do not know whether the men of VMI lived by this Code; perhaps not....I do not think any of us, women included, will be better off for its destruction."
I would add only my agreement and, moreover, express my strongest doubt that any society which accepts the moral fiction that a suicidal equality demands the equal vulnerability of both men and women to grave danger can long survive.
Australia crossed a civilisational Rubicon on Monday afternoon and perhaps the worst part of it is that almost no one has seemingly noticed or cared.
