The Victory of the Mind

The Victory of the Mind

1986 5 May 16 The Victory of the Mind (390) Just after the murder of Egypt’s President, Anwar Sadat (1918-1981) the Time Magazine published a special feature on this event (19 October, 1981) which started with a famous question put by Napoleon to his people in his final days; “Do you know what seem the most astonishing thing in the world to me?” The answer, which he gave himself, was, “It is the inability of power to achieve anything. In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind.”

Anwar Sadat was a leader who had acquired all conceivable power. But that did not prevent his being done to death at the very moment when the celebrations of the 1973 Suez victory were at their heights, and he was proudly taking the salute at a march past of his troops. As a security precaution, all dignitaries and other visitors had been thoroughly examined by a metal detector, and even the rifles of the soldiers taking part in the parade had been emptied of bullets. But inspite of all this, one of the soldiers suddenly ran out of the parade and, before the President’s bodyguards could stop him, had emptied his pistol at Mr. Sadat.

This gruesome affair was a victory of the mind over the sword. Sadat’s opponents had circulated propaganda among the public that their president had forsaken his faith and that on this account his being killed was, as they saw it, justified. This rumour had its effect on a large section of the public, including a certain lieutenant, a Mr. Khalid, who hailed from Istanbul. He set about planning the murder of the president with the help of some of his colleagues and, on the day of the victory parade circumstances being favourable, his plan went into execution.

It is an incontrovertible fact that the mind is far more powerful than the sword. Innumerable examples can be found in history to testify to this truth.

It is regrettable, however, that so far as peaceful, constructive activities are concerned, the mind is seldom applied in this way. Most of the mentally gifted people in the forefront of politics, economics, science and technology have bestowed upon mankind little more than the techniques of destruction. There are few of the very talented people in this world who have ever bent their natural gifts to anything other than destructive ends.