George Orwell wrote 1984 in 1949, saying it’s “a novel about the future.” But anyone who read it then saw the parallels to post-WWII Europe. The book imagines a world divided into three totalitarian super-states where there is no free choice and everyone is forced to serve only the state. These states are in a way versions of the European nations that once divided the world into colonies and later the superpowers fighting between ideologies of communism and democracy.
Oceania’s landscape is dark and bleak, mirroring a Europe devastated by war. The Party controls every aspect of life, individual thought is banned. There is a daily “Two-Minute Hate” video that everyone is forced to watch and they yell out against their enemies onscreen. Every word and action is recorded on two-way televisions. Citizens who do not follow or even so much as question Party rules are tortured and purged by the Thought Police. They are erased from history and become “unpersoned.”
This was in light of Nazi Germany’s successful hate-driven propaganda to exterminite its Jewish population and the Great Terror under Stalin’s secret police who eliminated dissidents. When banned copies of 1984 were smuggled into the Soviet Union, readers were haunted by its accuracy.
Orwell masked the true history of totalitarian regimes in a futuristic dystopia, with a warning of how easily democracies can fall and freedom of thought can be taken away. These themes are constant. But 1984 resonates even more in its prophetic vision of today’s political and social landscape.
In the book, the Party erases not just people but facts from history to fit its present propaganda. Currently since the Inauguration, the term “alternative facts” has been made famous by an administration that has only gotten more blatant at the use of them. But unlike in 1984 where the Party controlled all facts, today, “reality control” can come from any platform. “Holohaux” – denying the Holocaust ever happened – is a widely held belief. And more frightening than that claim are people who believe it.
In 1984, the department in charge of revising history is called the “Ministry of Truth.” As ironically, today, the term “Fake News” is being used to discredit the free press. There was even a viral meme – “‘The People Will Believe What the Media Tells Them to Believe’ -George Orwell.” Well Orwell never said this and besides the people now have tools to fact-check what they hear, including this meme.
In 1984, the daily “Two-Minute Hate” is used to drive perpetual wars against so-called enemies. Today shocking rhetoric is being used to incite animosity towards others – describing asylum seekers as gang members and rapists invading the US, describing the religion of Islam as a “sickness,” and now the endless deragatory terms describing the pandemic and protesters. Just like the citizens of Oceania yelling at the video, some supporters of the administration have come out waving Confederate flags.
Orwell took from his own experiences to write the book. He was born in British India, served in the Imperial Police in Burma, fought as a Republican soldier against Franco’s fascist regime during the Spanish Civil War, and wrote news and propaganda for the British in WWII.
But the one science-fiction idea in 1984 is what has become so eerily true – the use of mass surveillance 24 hours a day even in our most private moments. “Big Brother is watching you” says the posters plastered all over Oceania. Now that surveillance goes beyond the two-way telescreens in the book.
In 2013, the Snowden spying scandal exposed how the NSA is using wide-scale surveillance on Americans and other world leaders. And government-used technology has only gotten better and more invasive in facial recognition, behavioral prediction, and, especially now during the pandemic, in GPS tracking. Law enforcement pressure internet and mobile providers for personal information, sometimes without a court order.
Google keeps our entire search history, Alexa records everything we say, even DNA is stored in a database. And we have been willing participants. Social media stores every photograph, check-in’s, our likes and dislikes, family members and work history. Dating sites include our most personal information. And as we are connected to some device almost every moment, the more data collected on our individual lives. As we turn on location sharing we basically use it ourselves to spy on each other.
But the use of cameras for surveillance is now cutting both ways. Ordinary people living ordinary lives are using recordings and social media to police injustice. George Floyd’s death in police custody caught on video by civilians has inspired a revolution. As more videos of police brutality, Karen’s, and other everyday discriminations go viral, Black Lives Matter has become a global movement.
Finally everyone is listening. Finally everyone begins to recognize what discrimination looks like, not just the victims. World leaders and police chiefs are acknowledging systemic racism. They are implementing new laws faster than ever. Companies, celebrities and the sports world are standing behind the movement. Multi-generations and multi-ethnic protestors are marching hand in hand. Shameless people are being held accountable for harassing their own black and brown neighbors.
I was surprised and inspired by the scale of it. I didn’t see this coming – Orwell’s Big Brother in full force. Big Brother is here. He is watching. And he is us.
