In 1983 Oliver Tambo declared that ”there is no force more powerful than the spirit of a people who have decided to endure torture, imprisonment, assassinations, hangings and massacres as the price of freedom, of liberation.”
This was very upsetting news for fans of Victor Hugo, who for years had lived by his observation that there is no force more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
Most alarming were the practicalities imposed by Tambo’s revelation; nevertheless, a few residents of rural Shropshire decided to meet fortnightly to torture, imprison and hang one another; but somehow the promised omnipotent force never materialised, and in the end they compromised and agreed to note in their minutes that Tambo’s idea was one whose time had come.
According to a particularly pink and floral website, ”there is no force more powerful than inspiration, and none more precious”. But how does that mesh with a more mystical approach, perhaps the tenet, discovered elsewhere online, that ”there is no force more powerful than direct, clear spiritual love”? And if one opts for the latter, how to explain direct, clear physical lust in face of evidence such as shoeprints on walls and kicked-in boudoir doors?
Oprah reckons there’s no force more powerful than the human spirit. Indeed, a couple of weeks ago she insisted that the human spirit had proved more powerful than Asia’s tsunami. Yep, all those dead Sri Lankans sure showed that wave who was boss. But still, one had to wonder: If the sombre Europeans on the show, so noble in their trauma, had proved the superiority of their spirits by surviving, had the hundreds of -thousands of dead Asians been shown up as possessing deficient spirits, and was it a stark reminder to us all to pay our Angel Network subscriptions and take the neighbours a key lime pie with an affirming limerick hidden in the crust?
This week United States President George W Bush laid a key lime pie on the grave of the Unknown Soldier in France and was about to say: ”Y’all come back now, y’hear?” before he realised that it might qualify as an attempt to raise the dead and wouldn’t play at all well in Ohio. So instead he opined that World War II had revealed that there is no force more powerful than freedom, sending admirers of Hugo, Tambo et al back to the drawing board. All, that is, except the lads over at GolfDigest.com, who were still insisting on -Wednesday that ”there is no force more -powerful than inertia”.
What the American president meant, of course, if that there is no force more powerful than the United States Air Force. Because let’s face it: if it came down to a bare-knuckle showdown between the human spirit and a gaggle of stealth bombers, the smart money is on the mushroom cloud of flaming doom.
Maybe if the human spirit was backed up by the awesome power of love, and reinforced on the flanks by inspiration, and perhaps had its rear protected by inertia, and had been around the block a few times in the torture and hanging department, the fight might get a little sweaty; but you’re still eventually just going to end up with a big sheet of glass and a bunch of crackling Geiger counters.
Of course it would have been terribly poor form to stand on the ceremonially cemented-up bones of Jacques or, later in the week in Eastern Europe, of Yuri, and be honest about the lessons of World War II: that nuclear warfare works as long as you do it first; that you can run but you can never hide from the backroom boys at Boeing; that whoever has the most men standing wins; that you shouldn’t invade Russia in the winter; that Canada and Switzerland aren’t worth invading at any time of the year; that whoever wins gets lifetime front-row seats for its past -presidents at papal funerals.
But perhaps Bush just knows the value of walking softly and carrying a big enriched uranium stick. Perhaps, in the end, there is no force more powerful than euphemistic understatement.