Force and Faith — Turkey
[ by Charles Cameron — “we wrestle not against flesh and blood” ]
.
Stalin’s sneering rhetorical question meets Erdogan’s declaration of faith:
**
The idea of spiritual force is an old one, found eg in both New Testament and Qur’an —
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. — Ephesians 6.12 When you were calling upon your Lord for succour, and He answered you, ‘I shall reinforce you with a thousand angels riding behind you.’ — Qur’an 8.9
— and von Clausewitz:
One might say that the physical factors seem little more than the wooden hilt, while the moral factors are the precious metal, the real weapon, the finely-honed blade.
