A spectre is haunting the liberal West: the rise of the “civilisation-state”. As America’s political power wanes and its moral authority collapses, the rising challengers of Eurasia have adopted the model of the civilisation-state to distinguish themselves from a paralysed liberal order, which lurches from crisis to crisis without ever quite dying nor yet birthing a …
The irresistible rise of the civilisation-state – UnHerd Read More »
It is official: Hagia Sophia, for a thousand years the world’s largest cathedral, and since 1934 a museum, is to be turned back into a mosque. Ever since I heard of the possibility, I have been praying it would not be so because of the impact it will have on Muslim-Christian relations in Turkey, the …
There is no justification for turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque – Spectator Read More »
“When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations,” John F. Kennedy once said. “When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.” Maybe, but so much depends on the circumstances of the poet and the man in power. Sometimes the poet, not the man in power, is reminded of his limitations. And sometimes the poet is in Germany, while the man in power is in Turkey. What then?