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[Guardian] Comment - Triumph of doublethink in 2003
Triumph of doublethink in 2003
Orwell warned against the kind of lies we are being fed about Iraq
Paul Foot
Wednesday January 1, 2003
The Guardian
This year, I suppose, for many of us will be George Orwell year. He was
born in 1903, and died in 1950, and has loomed over the British literary
scene ever since. This centenary year there is certain to be an
entertaining re-run of the arguments on the left between his supporters,
including me, and his detractors who hail back to the good old days under
comrade Stalin. So I start Orwell year with a reminder that his famous
satire 1984, though essentially an attack on Stalin's Russia, is not
exclusively so. It foresees a horrific world, divided into three power
blocks constantly changing sides in order to continue fighting against
each
other. The governments of all three keep the allegiance of their citizens
by pretending there has only ever been one war, one enemy. "The Party said
that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith,
knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as
four
years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own
consciousness. All that was needed was an unending series of victories
over
your own memory. 'Reality control' they called it: in Newspeak,
'doublethink'."
There is doublethink going on now as Oceania (the US and Britain) prepares
for war against Iraq. We, the Winston Smiths of today, know that 15 years
ago, the US and Britain were in alliance with Iraq. We know that the
British Foreign Office sided with Saddam Hussein when he did those
terrible
things to his own people listed in Jack Straw's recent doublethink
dossier.
We know that our government changed their own guidelines in order to sell
Saddam the ingredients of any weapons of mass destruction he may or may
not
now have. We also know that the key bases from which US bombers will take
off to kill Iraqis are in Saudi Arabia, whose regime is even more
dictatorial, savage and terrorist than Saddam's. But where does that
knowledge exist? Only in our own consciousness.
Orwell's great novel was not only a satire, but a warning. He wanted to
alert his readers to the dangers of acquiescence in the lies and
contortions of powerful govern- ments and their media toadies. The
anti-war
movement is growing fast, in Britain and the US. Fortunately, we can
still,
as Orwell urged in another passage, "turn our consciousness to strength"
and shake off the warmongers "like a horse shaking off flies". If we
don't,
we are in for another awful round of victories over our own memories and
of
doublethink.
Probably the best speech I ever heard was in the summer of 1999. The
speaker was my friend Eamonn McCann from Derry. His subject was the peace
process in Northern Ireland, and his theme was the insistence by the state
that the population in Northern Ireland must be divided into Protestant
and
Catholic. For an hour, he had the huge London audience in an almost
permanent state of merriment as he quoted from the official documents sent
out for the 2001 census.
The documents were quite different to those in England and Scotland. There
were for instance 73 different categories of religion specified for the
1.5
million people in Northern Ireland, compared to 17 religions available to
the 50 million people in Britain. What amused us was the stubborn refusal
of the census authorities to concede that there were people in Northern
Ireland who are neither Protestant nor Catholic. Even if you said you had
no religion, you were obliged to disclose the religion of your parents or
grandparents or the name of your school, so you could be shoved against
your will into an appropriate (if inaccu rate) category. Eamonn proposed
his only possible answer: "I am an atheist - and I come from a long line
of
atheists". His point was that if the state insists on dividing people by
religion, there is little hope for genuine reconciliation, or for peace.
Last week the Northern Ireland census figures were published. Press
reports
concentrated on the diminishing gap between Protestants and Catholics, but
by far the most hopeful revelation was that 14% of the Northern Ireland
population refused to be classified in either group, or said they had no
religion. These had duly been "reclassified" as Protestant or Catholic by
reference to their school or family. Ironically, one official reason why
the Northern Ireland census insists on religious classification is the law
against discrimination. The authorities argue that if they are to protect
Catholics from discrimination, they must know exactly who is Catholic, and
who is Protestant, even if neither is true. The rather obvious answer is
that this process discriminates against people who have no religion and
are
proud of it.
comment@guardian.co.uk
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