n  "War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength."n

n  Initial Thoughtsn

When the world around is getting a touch dystopian and government control is starting to become a bit strong, then it's time to read that classic piece of fiction...1984. One of the most famous and regularly quoted novels of all time. I'm absolutely ashamed to say I've never read it before.

What finally swung it for me was I had to read a controversial book for a reading challenge that I'm undertaking. What's more controversial than a book that's been banned in certain countries, burned in a few and could actually get you a prison sentence for possession in Stalin's Russia?

It's been one of those books I've had my eye on for the years and wanted to be in the right frame of mind before reading it. I just had a feeling this would be heavy and being written in 1949 I was expecting the style to be quite challenging.

n  "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. "n

n  The Storyn

As I've already said the book was written in the late 1940s and set in the future world of 1984...hence the title. The story follows the central character of Winston Smith, a low ranking member of the government, who suffers inner turmoil as result of the extreme government control and the ominous figurehead of "Big Brother."



Society is bleak in its totalitarianism and Winston's job is to rewrite historical documents, like newspaper articles, to support present political propaganda. There is no objective truth and facts can be adapted, changed or manufactured at whim. 'The Party' controls literally every aspect of the public's lives and there is no joy and certainly no love. But what they do not control is thought, although they do do as much as they can to achieve this, and Winston harbours an intent to rebel against the system.

n  "Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun; today, to believe that the past is unalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic."n

Winston Smith, begins a small scale rebellion against the regime, starting a diary of his innermost thoughts. With writing being banned and the content being regarded as a deadly thought crime, it will be the chopping block if discovered...or worse.

With his newly acquired lover, Julia, he begins a covert fight for freedom and justice, in a world where all others appear oblivious to the oppression they are living under. Thats the nuts and bolts of it. An absolutely fantastic premise that is used to maximum effect by Orwell to engage the reader and draw you in to this captivating narrative.

n  The Writingn

Orwell's prose are deceptively simple and have a pretty contemporary feel to them that suited me perfectly. There's some very deep and thought provoking themes and the style adopted by Orwell is perfect for getting them across. Honestly, if you're concerned about this book being too challenging in a literary sense then it won't be. The only difficulty you will have is when it challenges your long held beliefs on the world we live in.

n  "Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth."n

A key theme in this one is language and how it can be used to control our thought process. Orwell demonstrates quite brilliantly, through his invention of Newspeak how we rely on language for the for our memory and ability to interpret events, and more importantly how language can be used to empower or control our ability to express ourselves.

Orwell's skill as an author is absolutely unparalleled in his ability to stimulate my mind and speak to me on a very deep level. His prose are sometime visceral and harsh, but he never fails to vividly paint this nightmare reality.

n  The Charactersn

The focus of this story is Winston, a meek and on the surface obedient member of the government's Ministry of Truth. He is constantly aware of the constant surveillance he is under and through his inner monologue you really feel the pressure he is under to contain and hide his beliefs. Winston is the vehicle Orwell uses to highlight the horrors of this totalitarian regime.

Winston is just old enough to remember a time before the current government seized control. He has fond memories of the past and longs to return to those times. I found him someone I could easily relate to.



Unlike Winston, his liver Julia is more concerned with her own desires and wants in terms of her rebellion. Her aims are to have the freedom to enjoy herself as she pleases and does not demonstrate the depth of inner turmoil that we see in Winston. It's a strange relationship to say the least and amusing how this odd couple form the only resistance against the severe political oppression.

n   "It was true that she regarded the whole war as a sham: but apparently she had not even noticed that the name of the enemy had changed."n

The only other character of note in 1984 is the mysterious O’Brien. He is first introduced as Winston’s superior and a member of the "inner party." But Winston immediately suspects that O’Brien has a similar stance to himself and is someone who could prove a friend against his fight back against the machine that enslaves them.

n  Final Thoughtsn

I'll finish by saying that 1984 is one of the best books I've read in my short reading career and almost certainly the most important. Orwell explores the themes of mass media control and government surveillance brilliantly, looking at how a totalitarian regime can rewrite history, to manipulate our beliefs and control our lives. Doing this, he spells out exactly why the government shouldn't be involved in our private lives.

I was expecting 1984 to be dated but it was certainly not despite its title. In fact it is probably more relevant now than it has ever been. I bet people reading this in 1949 thought that the reality described was far fetched and would never happen. But for us reading in 2022 it certainly doesn't appear that far out there.

It's packed with social commentary that's probably more relatable now then when it was first published. It provides a stark warning to us all and is a reminder of why we should always be concerned when those in charge start banning books. But it's no surprise when Orwell is promoting skepticism of those governments and the things they do to supposedly "help" you that in reality hurt us all.

Before I go, a subject covered in this book that's of importance in the current climate is war. Orwell describes how they are fought because they are required to maintain social order, structure, and the economy for those in charge. A "benevolent" way of using up funds that otherwise would have improved the lives of those at the bottom. Surely not. That's too much for my tiny mind to take. No more Mr Orwell, I want to go back to my happy ignorant life!

n  "The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent."n

Anyway, I have never been made to think more and challenge my belief system when reading a novel. For that this one gets all the stars and not just a firm recommendation but a place amongst those books that must be read. Certainly before it is banned again and wiped from history, never to have existed again.

Thanks for reading. Cheers!


The magnificent and irrepressible George Orwell

I believe I read this book in high school, because I was expected to do so. I have since reviewed it a few times, because it has re-visited my Little Free Library Shed. It has also been a topic of discussion amongst friends during the past administration.

I can't help but wonder...

Was this book a foretelling for us today?

This novel is a grim read that tells of a future. A society of oppression. Exploring technological mass surveillance.

Keep in mind that it was released in 1949 during the immediate aftermath of WWII as the Iron Curtain descended over Eastern Europe and Stalin tightened his grip on power.

If you have read anything about Orwell, (in my research I learned this), he was a disillusioned socialist, strongly opposed to communism - especially anything under Stalin. So it makes sense that his story was influenced by these global anxieties of the time.

Still...how real does 1984 feel today?

The true horror and genius of 1984 isn't so much the mass technological surveillance... (consider the evolution of CCTV that helps to solve crimes as they occur).

Rather it is a cautionary tale showing glimpses of a grotesque society that exists in a near and future society. One in which technology exploits humanity as opposed to benefits humanity. Obviously it is doing so in the book.

But, if we were discussing this book now and talking about it in today's world view, should we not be concerned? For example - how is technology being used to exploit humanity today?...

i.e., Social media - fake information?

The books message from the Ministry of Truth: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

That message should be worrisome.

Our democracy is at risk today. Would people take the books message to heart and use it to hurt humanity? Or would they use it to pay attention and see what we need to do to save our world?

Or is this just a book?

As soon as I saw “1984ishere” is trending on Twitter and realizing many people who never read the book making such nonsense comments, I decided to choose this brave, thought provoking, compelling, unconventional book as my flashback Saturday read!

Imagine a superstate Oceania is enforced by privileged Inner Party and Thought Police with a main purpose to restrict freedom of independent thinking by manipulating its citizens who are restrained, forced to shut their mouths and thoughts, turned into sacrificing lambs obey what their government told them to do! Big brothers watch every step they take, every action they plan! They slowly lose their identities by the mental and physical pressure, turning into human wastes.

Orwell created such a dark, grim, ruthless world governed by totalitarian system based on his own experiences by fighting as Franco’s fascism. But as we read some passages of the book and witness how the party intervene the people’s lives and growing hatred against the unfairness, inequality, injustice are reflections of today’s world! He truly foresaw so many things before which makes this book more terrifying, haunted but also realistic!

I was too young to fully understand and give the praise the book deserved when I read it at high school. In my opinion best thing to absorb everything written in this novel is experiencing life, observing more, aging more, learning more. It’s like mentally and culturally updating yourself. After that you’re all prepared to read this book, to understand the deep meanings between the lines, see the resemblances with the new world system you are already entitled! That’s what makes this book a brilliant and all time favorite masterpiece!

My favorite quotes from the book are:

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”

“Who controls the past controls the future.Who controls the present controls the past.”

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”

“Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”

“Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.”

“Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.”

If you're considering reading this book please note that it contains graphic thoughts of rape, self harm/suicide and torture.

You have almost certainly encountered some of the language invented in this book in your daily life and not realised it. It must have been a game changer on many fronts.
Unfortunately time dulls political satire; the use of the word comrade doesn't strike fear into my Russian-hating heart (note: I do not hate Russians), even when paired with communism that denies people such things as sugar and lemons.

At the beginning during HATE WEEK Winston fantasies about raping a young girl and then killing her, which is pretty fucked up. Seriously, what the fuck, Winston. He ends up dating her, which is illegal (because the party don't like people touching each other) and also fucked up because she reacted to the line "I wanted to rape and murder you" with "cool, let's get naked".

They faff about for a good while not really doing much more than talk about murder and how this girl (Julia; I'm surprised the younger generation doesn't have Russian sounding names) wants to get a real woman's dress and wear makeup, which makes me wonder if George Orwell was afraid of feminism as well and readily brought into the idea that all feminists are butch man haters, and that real women(tm) are unafraid of men who want to murder them.

It isn't until half-way through the book that someone comes in to give them a purpose. They get a book, which leads to an obscenely long chapter of them reading. This book mentions that there is no racial discrimination right before going on to describe people as "Jews, Negroes, South Americans of pure Indian blood" which, uh, doesn't strike me as post racial, per se.

It turns out that the book ruse was a distraction because, lo and behold, their purpose is ripped away from them before anything interesting happens. There's a lot in the way of torture scenes and I cared about none of it, because I couldn't forge the slightest connection to Winston.

The book on a desolate note - something I'm all for, especially in this type of story - but the only thing I cared about was that, in terms of the 1984 universe, absolutely nothing happened.

1984 is a stoopid and borring and depresing book they made me read in school that is clearly an attck on the Pressident of the United States Donald Trump. They think they are so smart they can call him Big Borther (Big? He aint fat, his dokter just sed he was fisicaly fit, so there!) and say he lives in Oceania instead of Amerika! You cant foowel me! We elected him, so get over it! God wants Him to be Pressident, my preachur even said so. You r living on the Greatest kuntry in the werld I don’t know what you got to wery about you must have been in the sixties with all those riots aginst the guverment you should all go back to your s***hole kuntries if you don't love Amerika.

Big Brother is watching you, it sez? Oh, come on. Why worry about that? If you just watch tv and football and have a couple drinks, why do you care if they watchin u?

One part that is stupid, the anti-sex league! In this Great kuntry you can grab anything and anyone you want and have sex with porn stras and nuthin bad kin happen 2 u. Why would we be aginst sex, if you can have anything you want?! All these wimin in the streets, they should be hapy men will even like them! And didn’t the Pressident just give them a tacks brake! Aren’t more women bein hired now?! Fox Nooze even said so. You odn’t need the ERA or whateve my teacher sez, I don’t think wimn should make what I do as a guy! They are wimmin! Comon!! I no for a fact you can’t make them happy! They are clearly mad for no rezin.

What I like the book 1984 sed is that Newspeak or whatever they call it will make the words smaller and ezier. My teacher said to put in kwotes it will be bttter in my repert so here goes

“The beauty of Newspeak is that each year the vocabulary is getting smaller and smaller! The range of thought gets smaller and smaller. When the language is appropriately small, the revolution will have become complete!”

“It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” I agree with this cuz I hate werds I never speak I just want to wacth tv and toss a cupple back with my boys.

I don’t know what all those werds even mean, but I want smaller words, and less of them. I know they say Trump speaks on the 4th grade level, I dn’t even know what they mean, he is the Pressident, he can speak on any level he wants he needs to speak so we can understand him don’t he?

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength?” Is this stupid or what? I am strong and can ded lift like 525 pownds! Does that make me ignorant?

But did like the torture parts. I want to do that to people who are portestin our duly elected Pressident and old white libtards even a guy who sez he was a Repubican Jeff Flake who sez Trump talks like Stalin! Who is Stalin!? I don’t even think he exists! Buncha lies and fake nooze. I aktualy want to tortur this guy Orwell for writin this book and my techur for makin me read it its so stoopid.

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.” I say good some people need to be stamped on like people from s***hold kuntries.

I like how they ban books in it because all I watch is tv my football and Fox news with my beer and I am good. Books are too hard they need to make things ezier so this kuntry will be Great again. I am so hunover aftir that game but I perfer that because thinking is hard and makes me sad sometimes.

This book was like anuther book the libtard Englsih techur Mz jones Forced us to read, Farunhite 451 where they burn books which was stupid 2 they call the guy a firman and he burns books haw so stoopid! How do they come up with this crap?!

But it made me think this is whut we shuld do is burn this book, it only makes some people mad and confoozed!!

Like these kwotes I hope will get me a btter grade tho I don't understand them:

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Like huh?!

“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.” Like The Art of the Deal, maybe?!

“We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. . . Power is not a means; it is an end. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. . . Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”

Huh? I say agin: Why kant they use ezier werds like in newspeak they said they were gonna use smaller wrds! Liars!

Here's one I really don't git: "The only way to preserve a hierarchical society is through poverty and ignorance."

Another kwote I don’t understand:

“To think is the only hope.” Winston said this. What could he possibly mean?!

(With a tip of the hat to Paul Bryant)

Q: We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.(c)
This was meant to be a warning not a guide. Yet, somehow, it has managed to turn into a manual. Which probably was not what the author had in mind. NB! Do not ever attempt warning the public about any dastardly Party plans. They might take to it and go straight to the implementation phase.

When I read this in school, I visualized some country with harshly blatant communist/socialist/whatever regime and the rest of the naivete incorporated. And I was mistaken, see below WHY. Today, I see that this is happening in about any country. Any at all, no matter how declaratively liberal, democratic, freedom-oriented they believe themselves.

When I reread this, I couldn't help wondering why the author kept going so hard at giving this bunch of messsages, even to the point of sacrificing the literary worth of this novel.

Was he some kind of government-tenure writer, paid to promote certain ideas?
Did this freak of a novel simply go really wrong?
Or was he a visionary of quite some access to the bleak future that our society keeps moving to?
Or maybe he was simply a fruity nutter who thought himself a prophet?

Not sure. Anyway, how does one go about thinking up world populated by a Ministry of Truth (the version THEY tell you!), a Ministry of Peace (concerned with war!) and a Ministry of Love (the scary one!), complete with Junior Anti-Sex League, Thought Police hunting for 'face-' and 'thoughtcrimes', novel-writing machines, 'versificators', Two Minutes Hate, 'child heroes', 'unpersons', 'sacred principles of INGSOC', 'Newspeak, doublethink, the mutability of the past', 'reality control', Physical Jerks (yes, and not in the way one would naturally think about such a thing), Pornosec (unmarried girls only! 'cause, they are the ones pure enough to prepare porn, you know), 'memory holes' (sorry, no porn meaning intended for this one!), 'definitive texts', 'duckspeak', 'ownlife' ('meaning individualism and eccentricity')? "Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces."

Q:
The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.
The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no windows in it at all. (c Powerful stuff, sheer gunpowder!
Q:
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. ...Somewhere far away a rocket bomb exploded with a dull, reverberating roar. About twenty or thirty of them a week were falling on London at present.(c)
Q:
Only the Thought Police mattered.(c)
Q:
Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold.(c)This definitely borrowed from Zamyatin. And it actually predates the psychological research on the effects of cold on a person. Fascinating, actually.
Q:
The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.(c) Remember the scandals on the camera-snooping?
Q:
You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.(c)
Q:
For some reason the telescreen in the living-room was in an unusual position....
It was partly the unusual geography of the room that had suggested to him the thing that he was now about to do....
But it had also been suggested by the book that he had just taken out of the drawer. It was a peculiarly beautiful book. Its smooth creamy paper, a little yellowed by age, was of a kind that had not been manufactured for at least forty years past. He could guess, however, that the book was much older than that. He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little junk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not now remember) and had been stricken immediately by an overwhelming desire to possess it. Party members were supposed not to go into ordinary shops ('dealing on the free market', it was called), but the rule was not strictly kept, because there were various things, such as shoelaces and razor blades, which it was impossible to get hold of in any other way. He had given a quick glance up and down the street and then had slipped inside and bought the book for two dollars fifty. At the time he was not conscious of wanting it for any particular purpose. He had carried it guiltily home in his briefcase. Even with nothing written in it, it was a compromising possession.
The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp.(с)
Q:
A sense of complete helplessness had descended upon him. To begin with, he did not know with any certainty that this was 1984. It must be round about that date, since he was fairly sure that his age was thirty-nine, and he believed that he had been born in 1944 or 1945; but it was never possible nowadays to pin down any date within a year or two.(c)Ok, this is clulmsily thought-up. I mean, how does one establish if they are 'fairly sure they are 39'? How exactly? By remembering all their birthdays or something?
Q:
How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.(c)Another piece where the literary merits are sacrificed to the IDEA. I'm not persuaded that the opressed dystopian people would be that bent on the grandeur of the future and the intricacies of communicating with it. A good phylosophy point but a weakness to the novel
Q:
It had happened that morning at the Ministry, if anything so nebulous could be said to happen.(c)
Q:
He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones. It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.(c)
(WHY)Q:
The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even - so it was occasionally rumoured - in some hiding-place in Oceania itself....
Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less....
the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. The Brotherhood, its name was supposed to be. There were also whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the author...(c) Can't help thinking of all the half-assed media shit storm (Facebook, hackers, etc, etc, blah-blah... all the shit that gets written about Trump, Assad, Russia, China... Any parallels with Mr Goldstein treatment and the Two Minutes Hate?
Q:
And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality which Goldstein's specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army -row after row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others exactly similar. ...
Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against the hordes of Asia (c) I never paid attention to this before. Basically, this shows the Oceania as a Big Brother society with HQ in London warring for their Party ideas with Eurasia (Russia?+China). WTF? Orwell time-travelled or was a seer or something? This definitely wasn't about communist doctrine, the 'neckerchiefs' made me misread it all the 1st time around.
Q:
The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary.(c)
Q:
He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.(c)
Q:
To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction.(c)
Q:
... it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals.(c)
Q:
'Why can't we go and see the hanging?' roared the boy in his huge voice.
'Want to see the hanging! Want to see the hanging!' chanted the little girl, still capering round.
... what most struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the woman's greyish face. ...
With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. ...
It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. (c)
Q:
... it was still impossible to be sure whether O'Brien was a friend or an enemy. Nor did it even seem to matter greatly. There was a link of understanding between them, more important than affection or partisanship.(c)
Q:
The past was dead, the future was unimaginable.(c)
Q:
He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.(c)
Q:
He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that in some way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed to his own. It was one of those dreams which, while retaining the characteristic dream scenery, are a continuation of one's intellectual life, and in which one becomes aware of facts and ideas which still seem new and valuable after one is awake. ...
Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there was still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason. ...
Today there were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows.(c)
Q:
'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' ... Proles and animals are free.(c)
Q:
His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.(c)
Q:
Everything melted into mist. Sometimes, indeed, you could put your finger on a definite lie. ... But you could prove nothing. There was never any evidence. ... All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. ... Even the written instructions which Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of as soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed: always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy.(c)
Q:
But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at one-hundred-and-forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than one-hundred-and-forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared.(c)
Q:
To-day he should commemorate Comrade Ogilvy. It was true that there was no such person as Comrade Ogilvy, but a few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence. ...
At the age of three Comrade Ogilvy had refused all toys except a drum, a sub-machine gun, and a model helicopter. At six -- a year early, by a special relaxation of the rules -- he had joined the Spies, at nine he had been a troop leader. At eleven he had denounced his uncle to the Thought Police after overhearing a conversation which appeared to him to have criminal tendencies. At seventeen he had been a district organizer of the Junior Anti-Sex League. At nineteen he had designed a hand-grenade which had been adopted by the Ministry of Peace and which, at its first trial, had killed thirty-one Eurasian prisoners in one burst. At twenty-three he had perished in action. Pursued by enemy jet planes while flying over the Indian Ocean with important despatches, he had weighted his body with his machine gun and leapt out of the helicopter into deep water, despatches and all -- an end, said Big Brother, which it was impossible to contemplate without feelings of envy. Big Brother added a few remarks on the purity and single-mindedness of Comrade Ogilvy's life. He was a total abstainer and a non-smoker, had no recreations except a daily hour in the gymnasium, and had taken a vow of celibacy, believing marriage and the care of a family to be incompatible with a twenty-four-hour-a-day devotion to duty. He had no subjects of conversation except the principles of Ingsoc, and no aim in life except the defeat of the Eurasian enemy and the hunting-down of spies, saboteurs, thought-criminals, and traitors generally.
Winston debated with himself whether to award Comrade Ogilvy the Order of Conspicuous Merit: in the end he decided against it because of the unnecessary cross-referencing that it would entail.(c)
Q:
You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year? ...
Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. ...
Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. ...
Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.(c)
Q:
The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime.(с)
Q:
The past not only changed, but changed continuously.(c)
Q:
Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.(c)
Q:
The heresy of heresies was common sense. ... Truisms are true, hold on to that! ... Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.(c)
Q:
In principle a Party member had no spare time, and was never alone except in bed.(c)Now, that a really sad perspective
Q:
It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory.(c)
Q:
At the sight of the words I love you the desire to stay alive had welled up in him, and the taking of minor risks suddenly seemed stupid.(c)
Q:
To turn his head and look at her would have been inconceivable folly. With hands locked together, invisible among the press of bodies, they stared steadily in front of them, and instead of the eyes of the girl, the eyes of the aged prisoner gazed mournfully at Winston out of nests of hair. (c)
Q:
What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship....There was a direct intimate connexion between chastity and political orthodoxy....The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately.(c)
Q:
There were things, your own acts, from which you could never recover. Something was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterized out. (c)
Q:
Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree. (c)
Q:
'I betrayed you,' she said baldly.
'I betrayed you,' he said. (c)

I wanted to understand the origin of the expression "Big Brother" associated with our modern world, and I immersed myself in 1984 by George Orwell. This novel of anticipation, published in 1949, is striking! We follow the destinies of Winston and Julia in this universe, which is reminiscent of ours or what it could become. Of course, it is a fable, but the images strike and remain used for a long time. After reading this cult novel, we look at certain realities differently. It is a detour that is worth it, a must. Why did I wait so long to read it?

Praise the lord and pass the amunition, I am finished with this beast of a book. My brain feels like sludge, I just want to crawl into a hole and forget all that was engrained into my poor head. Why, oh why did I have the noble idea to read such a monster? How am I supposed to rate such s#@$?????
I believe, like some of you that this might have been better had I read it in a class or with a group. Alone it was fingernails to chalkboard miserable.

After reading this, it just makes you feel hopeless.

Hallelujah, it's over. Never again, Orwell.... Never again!

Sidenote: I did a little experiment on facebook about this book... I wrote in my status that I was reading '1984', anybody have any opinions? Almost everyone of the commenters wrote how much they enjoyed this book and how it was one of their favorite books ever. While I am sure that maybe 1 of them was being truthful, I have to doubt atleast half of them..... Now I ask, Why do people lie about certain books? Do they think it makes them look smarter? Cooler? Well-rounded? I just don't get it, if you don't like something you don't like it. It's not neccessary to like it for classic book sake. This might not be making sense to some of you.... maybe you would have to know the people who were commenting, I don't know. But, I am sure all of you have been in a bookstore or talking with a co-worker, etc., and they spout out some well known "hip" book that they just 'adore'. You know this person and it's hard to see them reading period, much less what they are talking about.

I guess my point is, don't be a fake book talker. Like it, Yay. Don't like it, Yay. I'm not going to think less of you for not liking something you "SHOULD" like by literary standards.

Rant over.

Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone over a misunderstanding, only to eventually realise that you both actually have the same views and that you've essentially been arguing the same things the whole time, and so you just walk away feeling a little silly?

That's kind of how it feels to read 1984. It's like somebody's shouting things at you that you agree with, true things that you understand and support. "Totalitarianism is bad! War is not the answer! We mustn't let ourselves be duped by the promise of security!" After some time, you get a headache and you want them to stop shouting at you, and you just keep saying, "Yes, I agree with you, I understand what you're saying and I feel the same way... Now, can you please stop shouting?" If the person shouting at you said the same things in a more interesting way, and if they didn't shout them, it would be more effective. But instead they believe so strongly in these things that they think it is their duty to warn others of the coming disaster, and to retroactively tell them that when the world does go to shit, it will be all our fault. And you may agree with them, but you can't very well think over the sound of their shouting.

That's actually exactly what reading 1984 is like. It's an essay, really, and I believe it would make a very good essay if Winston weren't in it and if it were marketed as such, because Orwell is a very good essayist. Just read  Such, Such Were the Joys. But Orwell wanted many people to read this, so instead he stuck a few characters in there, gave them names, tossed in a rather flimsy backdrop, and stuck in the essay in the form of his leading man's internal dialogue. Which is silly, because I don't know about you but my internal dialogue isn't very essay-like. It's more like one of those free-form poems that doesn't make any sense, or a recipe for penne vodka. No real person's thoughts are like essays, so the fact that Winston's consistently are feels disingenuous and lazy.

For those that will inevitably tell me that I have to think of this "in the context of when it was written"- save it.  Brave New World, published about a decade before 1984, is far more imaginative, well-written, and far, far more "prophetic," to use the word on my copy of 1984's back cover. In Brave New World, it's not some totalitarian government oppressing the innocent. It's the public's wilful ignorance, wilful laziness, wilful indulgence in trivia that causes their own downfall. They're numbed by drugs and happy to toil away. It may be a dystopia, but nobody realises it- or, more frightening still, nobody cares. And what sets Brave New World leagues above 1984 in my mind is that it isn't a scary, warped, power-crazed leader or group wrenching rights away left and right. In fact, the government gave the people exactly what they wanted- peace, leisure, and freedom from troublesome thoughts, arguments, opinions, and discord. Plus, Huxley doesn't shout at you. He has interesting and important points, yes, but he also tells a story, because it is a novel, after all, and that allows for a sort of back and forth between author and reader, rather than being tied to a chair and yelled at for 312 pages.

So if you're of the opinion that we have to fear big, mean, powerful political groups who will take over and enslave us in their rhetoric, you'll probably like 1984. It'll be familiar. But I'm of the opinion that what we have to fear is what seems the most appealing- a sense of security, a world without opposition and fighting, widespread medication to numb us and smooth out our lives. A world where we don't have to bother with thinking too hard. That's why Brave New World is far scarier and far more valuable to me, because it seems to my eyes that it's that world we're coming closer and closer to every day- one where we can fight for what we believe is right, and we can read and think and debate and philosophise and rebel, but we choose not to.

I like essays. I like books. But I don't like when an author tries to pass one off as the other.

So please stop shouting, Orwell. We can hear you just fine.

“Los mejores libros son los que te cuentan lo que ya sabías.”
Este pensamiento de Winston Smith, el personaje principal de 1984 nos hace reflexionar, promediando el libro, que nada de lo que George Orwell nos cuenta en esta tremenda distopia es desconocida por nosotros.
A lo largo de la historia, la Humanidad ha pasado por todo tipo de calamidades de naturaleza política que impactan destructivamente en lo social y lo humano: guerras, dictaduras, nazismo, racismo, holocausto, totalitarismos, stalinismo, comunismo, censura, persecución, torturas y muerte. ¿Cuántas palabras duras, no? Pero es parte de lo que ha sucedido desde que este planeta conoció esa era que se llamó “Civilización”.
De la "Barbarie", se encargaron los hombres.
Vayamos primero a revisionar la definición de lo que significa “Distopía”: término opuesto a utopía. Como tal, designa un tipo de mundo imaginario, recreado en la literatura o el cine, que se considera indeseable. La palabra distopía se forma con las raíces griegas δυσ (dys), que significa ‘malo’, y τόπος (tópos), que puede traducirse como ‘lugar’.
La sociedad distópica de 1984 ideada por Orwell funciona dándole completo sentido al término, pero llevando la realidad que viven los ciudadanos a un extremo demasiado duro. El Gran Hermano controla todo en pos de un "bienestar" del pueblo que regentea con mano firme, dándo rienda suelta a todo tipo de las atrocidades conocidas dentro de un totalitarismo férreo. El sólo hecho de leer las presiones que la Policía del Pensamiento ejerce sobre la gente nos remite a la poderosa Gestapo nazi que luego de asumir Hitler se encargó de asesinar y devastar topa oposición al Führer en forma sistemática.
Orwell toma lo peor de los totalitarismos, del comunismo y las dictaduras más crueles para transformar a Oceanía en un infierno de cemento. Los Partidos Exterior e Interior le alcanzan al Gran Hermano para llevar a cabo ese control sin piedad basándose en la mentira y el castigo despiadado a los disidentes o rebeldes con utilización de torturas clandestinas a través de la Policía del Pensamiento o la utilización propagandística de los "Dos Minutos de Odio" para afianzar el lavado de cerebro de la gente mediante la proyección de películas clandestinas del odiado Goldstein (¿inspirado en Trotski?), el lider de la resistencia subversiva.
Orwell quien siempre estuvo en contra de todo totalitarismo (llegó a formar parte de la lucha en la Guerra Civil española, sobre la que escribió un libro) utiliza en forma inversa esa oposición para volcarla de lleno en la atmósfera pesimista de 1984 y lo logra con creces.
Winston Smith tiene para mí, cierta conexión (aunque un tanto lejana) con Guy Montag, de la novela Fahrenheit 451 de Ray Bradbury con la diferencia de que ambos mundos distopicos, si bien, sombríos, son diferentes. De hecho, la sociedad de Fahrenheit es más bien naiff y eso se percibe en el personaje de Clarice.
Aquí la situación es otra. Los ciudadanos de 1984 no están adormecidos con pantallas gigantes como en la otra novela, sino más bien forzados a ser simplemente engranajes de una gran maquinaria que los usa y los descarta (porque tarde o temprano serán "vaporizados" sin la menor contemplación) bajo un halo opresivo de violencia, que es observado por los megaposters con los ojos y los negros bigotes del Gran Hermano.
Winston comienza a querer revelarse contra el sistema a partir de cosas mínimas, como escribir un simple diario en el que vuelca sus pensamientos (porque "no pueden controlar lo que está dentro de tu cabeza", dice en un momento) de la misma manera que Montag es seducido por leer esos libros prohibidos que quema.
Pero Winston sabe que el resultado puede ser devastador. Aún así, se apoya en Julia, quien tiene pensamientos similares y de esta forma comienzan a pasar cosas que cambiarán radicalmente su vida. Su acercamiento a ese grueso y prohibido libro que le acerca O'Brien y relacionado a Goldstein, al enemigo número uno del Partido, será en cierto modo un viaje de ida para él. Pero no irá solo. Está Julia, esta chica de abundante cabellera morena y mucho más joven que él que es un soplo de aire fresco entre tanta podredumbre gris.
"Si queda alguna esperanza, está en lo proles", escribe Winston. Su equivocado anhelo recae en una clase marginada, sucia, olvidada y sin ningún tipo de reacción. Esos son los proles. Seres toscos, vacíos, espectrales. Una sub raza que me recuerda a los Morlocks del libro "La Máquina del Tiempo", de H. G. Wells quienes se encuentran viviendo en las mismas condiciones precarias. A Winston les atrae su forma de vida, de todos modos. Esto lo llevará a vivir experiencias muy importantes pasando la mitad del libro. Su vida se desarrolla entre la lúgubre atmósfera del mundo en que vive, las calles mugrientas de los barrios proles y los recuerdos de su vida pasada, de cuando era niño, con las reminiscencias idas de su madre y su pequeña hermanita.
Pero nada escapa semejante vida opresiva, a tanto pesimismo, algo que se mantiene a lo largo del libro, con muy cortos períodos de "luz". Nada está fuera de la vista del Gran Hermano. O´Brien lo explica con crudo fundamento:
"Somos los sacerdotes del poder - dijo -. El poder es Dios. Pero ahora el poder es sólo una palabra en lo que a ti respecta. Y ya es hora de que tengas una idea de lo que el poder significa. Primero debes darte cuenta de que el poder es colectivo. El Individuo sólo detenta poder en tanto deja de ser un individuo. Ya conoces la consigna del Partido: «La libertad es la esclavitud». ¿Se te ha ocurrido pensar que esta frase es reversible? Sí, la esclavitud es la libertad. El ser humano es derrotado siempre que está solo, siempre que es libre. Ha de ser así porque todo ser humano está condenado a morir irremisiblemente y la muerte es el mayor de todos los fracasos; pero si el hombre logra someterse plenamente, si puede escapar de su propia identidad, si es capaz de fundirse con el Partido de modo que él es el Partido, entonces será todopoderoso e inmortal. Lo segundo de que tienes que darte cuenta es que el poder es poder sobre seres humanos. Sobre el cuerpo, pero especialmente sobre el espíritu. El poder sobre la materia..., la realidad externa, como tú la llamarías..., carece de importancia. Nuestro control sobre la materia es, desde luego, absoluto."
Con esto no quiero desmoralizar a quien quiera leer 1984, pero sí establecer qué mensaje quiso dejar Orwell con esta historia.
“Llevo siete años sin escribir una novela, aunque espero redactar una muy pronto. Seguro que será un fracaso, como todos los libros, pero veo con bastante claridad el libro que quiero escribir.”
Parece mentira la poca confianza que se tienen algunos escritores a veces. Él no sabía que había escrito una obra maestra.
En un momento O'Brien y Winston concuerdan en ese slogan del partido que dice que "El que controla el pasado controla el futuro y quien controla el presente controla el pasado." Para mí este libro es una enseñanza y una advertencia. Es tener memoria y no olvidar todo lo malo que la Humanidad ha tenido que soportar.
Es apreciar que el hombre no olvide nunca que posee una de las cosas más preciadas que le da la vida: la libertad.

الأخ الكبير الذى يعرف كل شىء و لا يسمح لنا بخطيئة التفكير فهو يفكر بالنيابة عنا و يعرف مصلحتنا أكثر مما نعرفها نحن
01
إننا ندرك أنه ما من أحد يمسك بزمام السلطة وهو ينتوي التخلي عنها.
إن السلطة ليست وسيلة بل غاية , فالمرء لا يقيم حكما أستبداديا لحماية الثورة , وإنما يشعل الثورة لإقامة حكم استبدادي.
إن الهدف من الأضطهاد هو الأضطهاد, والهدف من التعذيب هو التعذيب وغاية السلطة هي السلطة, هل بدأت تفهم ما أقول الآن ؟
02
إذ لم يكن من المرغوب فيه أن يكون لدى عامة الشعب وعي سياسي قوي , فكل ما هو مطلوب منهم وطنية بدائية يمكن اللجوء إليها حينما يستلزم الأمر
03
أن تعرف وأن لا تعرف ، أن تعي الحقيقة كاملة ، ومع ذلك لا تفتأ تقص الأكاذيب المحكمة البناء ، أن تؤمن برأيين في آن وأنت تعرف أنهما لا يجتمعان ومع ذلك تصدق بهما .

أن تجهض المنطق بالمنطق ، أن ترفض الالتزام بالأخلاق فيما أنت واحد من الداعين إليها ، أن تعتقد أن الديمقراطية ضرب من المستحيل ، وأن الحزب وصي عليها ، أن تنسى كل ما يتعين عليك نسيانه ثم تستحضره في الذاكرة حينما تمس الحاجة إليه ثم تنساه مرة ثانية فوراً ذلك هو الدهاء الكامل ، أن تفقد الوعي عن عمد ووعي ثم تصبح ثانية غير واع بعملية التنويم الذاتي التي مارستها على نفسك .
04
اوبراين: "كيف يؤكد إنسان سلطته على إنسان آخر يا وينستون ؟"
قال وينستون بعد تفكير: "يجعله يقاسي الألم"
رد أوبراين: "أصبت فيما تقول. بتعريضه للألم , فالطاعة وحدها ليست كافية , وما لم يعانِ الإنسان الألم كيف يمكنك أن تتحقق من انه ينصاع لإرادتك لا لإرادته هو ؟
إن السلطة هي إذلاله و إنزال الألم به , وهي أيضا تمزيق العقول البشرية إلى أشلاء ثم جمعها ثانية وصياغتها في قوالب جديدة من اختيارنا.
هل بدأت تفهم أي نوع من العالم نقوم بخلقه الآن ؟ إنه النقيض التام ليوتوبيا المدينة الفاضلة التي تصورها المصلحون الأقدمون, إنه عالم الخوف و الغدر والتعذيب, عالم يدوس الناس فيه بعضهم بعضا.
عالم يزداد قسوة كلما أزداد نقاء , إذ التقدم في عالمنا هو التقدم باتجاه المزيد من الألم.
لقد زعمت الحضارات الغابرة أنها قامت على الحب والعدالة أما حضارتنا فهي قائمة على الكراهية, ففي عالمنا لا مكان لعواطف غير الخوف و الغضب والإنتشاء بالنصر وإذلال الذات, واي شيء خلاف ذلك سندمره تدميراً..
05
ليس هنالك غير أربع طرق لإزاحة فئة حاكمة عن سدة الحكم ، فإما يتم قهرها من قبل عدو خارجي ، أو أن تحكم بطريقة تعوزها الكفاءة وهو ما يدفع الجماهير للثورة ، أو تسمح لمجموعة من الطبقة الوسطى القوية والساخطة بالتشكل والظهور أو تتزعزع ثقتها بذاتها وتفقد الإرادة في الحكم

حدثني عن القهر
عن الاستعباد
عن الذل
ثم حدثني بأدق التفاصيل ‏
عن مراحل تقويض الكائن الانساني‏

حدثني كثيرا وطويلا كي أعي هذا الدمار
كي أتشربه
كي أدميه في لحمي وأعصابي نصلا حادا طويلا
كي أنزف روحي بكاء
كي أتعلم شيئا نافعا قبل أن أغادر هذا العالم البائس

حدثني يا أورويل فما أشهى وجع حديثك
وما أشهى ألم المعرفة النازف

‏الحرب هي السلام

ما المفترض علي فعله
الكتابة عن نفسي أم عن وطني أم عن وينستون
بمن أبدأ

ولكن مهلا
لما التفرقة..؟
كلنا واحد
أنا.. وينستون..جوليا..أنت..‏
بقعة الأرض التي تنتمي إليها روحك
وتدعوها وطن

الحريّة هي العبودية

كلنا كتلة معجونة بألف نوع من النزف
كلنا ذرات اجتمعت وتشكلت آدميين ونباتات وصخور

الجهل هو القّوة

كلنا غبار نجوم أراد له حظه السيئ أن يتشكل ليكون العائلة ‏الإنسانية على كوكب ملعون أسميناه الأرض

‏الأخ الكبير يراقبك

من نحن يا أورويل..؟
من نحن حتى نفعل ذلك بأنفسنا
من نحن حتى نهزم بعضنا البعض بهذه الطريقة
أي لعنة حلت بنا فأصبحنا بشرا يأكل بعضه بعضا بأبشع ‏الصور..؟

::::::::::::::::::::

الولاء يعني إنعدام التفكير .. بل إنعدام الحاجة للتفكير
الولاء هو عدم الوعي
____________

يقول أورويل أن الكتاب الأفضل
هو ما يخبرك بما تعرفه بالفعل
ولكننا باختلاف خبراتنا لم نكن نعرف أننا يمكن لنا كبشر أن ‏ننحط لهذه الدرجة
أن ننهزم لهذه الدرجة
كان هناك أمل أهوج يناطح بداخل كل واحد فينا بدرجة متفاوتة
يحاول الاحتفاظ بصورته الآدمية التي تمزقت أشلاء مرة تلو ‏المرة
بعد كل قراءة للتاريخ
أو معايشة لأحداث ثورة

ولكنه كان كذلك حقا بالنسبة لي
لقد أخبرني بما كنت أعرفه بالفعل
لكنني أنكر بعضه بعناد
أهوّن على نفسي بابتداعات دماغية ‏
بهلوسات أمل عن انتصار العدل ذات يوم

::::::::::::::::::::

من وجهة نظر الطبقة الدنيا ‏
فإن أي تغيير تاريخي لا يعدو أن يكون مجرد تغيير في أسماء ‏‏سادتها
ــــــــــــــــ

من منا نظر إلى ما حوله بنفس الطريقة بعد قراءة كتاب ‏كهذا..؟
من منا لم تتغير رؤيته لأشياء كثيرة كثيرة كان عنها غافل
أو متغافل
إن لم يكن هذا الكتاب ضربة الفأس التي تحدث عنها كافكا
والتي تهزك من الأعماق
فماذا يكون إذا..؟
::::::::::::::::::::

‏إن ألد أعدائك هو جهازك العصبي
ــــــــــــ

إنها الديستوبيا الأكثر سوادا في تاريخ الأدب
فيها يعيش الكائن الحي في خوف دائم
خوف من شرطة الفكر
من شاشات الرصد
من التفوه بكلمة قد تدمر حياته بأكملها
من تعبير وجه قد ينفلت منه دون قصد فيسحق بلا رحمة
من خطرٍ محتمل الوقوع
من عدو مجهول قد ينقض عليك في أي لحظة
من عيون الأخ الكبير
الإله..المخلص..المحبوب غصبا عن الكل.. وبرضا الكل
تلك العيون التي لم تترك شيئا لم تتواجد عليه‏
أغلفة الكتب ..الطوابع.. ‏الأعلام .. أغلفة الحلوى..لعملات ‏
إنه يلاحقك أينما تكون
وفي كل وقت

الأخ الأكبر ‏
الطاغية المعبود في كل زمان ومكان
هذا الذي قد يكون مستوحى من ستالين
ولكنه يجثم على أنفاس الخلائق منذ بدأ تاريخ الأرض‏

وأوقيانيا هي الدولة‏ التي اخترعها أورويل
ليبني على أرضها ‏هذه الديستوبيا المريعة

فيها شاشات الرصد تترصد كل ‏تحركاتك
فيها يحافظ الجميع على دقيقتي الكراهية
للتنفيس عن غضبهم من المعارض غولدشتاين
أو بمعنى آخر الشيطان الأعظم كما يصور له سادته

إنه مجتمع مصادر الحقوق منتهك الحريات ‏
‏محروم حتى من مجرد التفكير
مجتمع يقضي عمره كله تحت الرقابة
التي تحصي عليه أنفاسه ‏ وتحركاته ‏
مجتمع يعرف مصيره منذ أن يولد
يعرف أن الطاغية الأعظم قد حدد له كل شيء سلفا
طعامه.. شرابه .. نوع قهوته -بن النصر ‏
عدد ‏شفرات الحلاقة

‏فيه وزارة الحقيقة ‏ تزور الحقيقة وتختلق الأكاذيب ‏
وزارة ‏السلام تختص بشؤون الحرب والسلاح
وزارة الوفرة تجوع المواطنين
‏ ووارة الحب تعذب الخلائق وتناهض الجنس ‏

أهي تسميات ساخرة حقا..؟
أوزارة الحب تختلف عن الأمن الوطني أو أمن الدولة عندنا..؟
في الرواية تبررها فلسفة الحزب-الدولة للتفكير المزدوج

أما عندنا فما هو التبرير يا ترى

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‎إن جريمة الفكر لا تفضي إلى الموت إنها الموت نفسه‎
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يعتمد الحزب الميمون على ما أسماه بالتفكير الازدواجي
إنه يعني ببساطة أن تعي ‏الحقيقة كاملة ‏
ومع ذلك تصدق عكسها وبنفس القناعة
‏ أن ‏تؤمن برأيين متناقضين ‏
‏" أن تجهض المنطق بالمنطق‏
‏ أن ترفض الالتزام ‏بالأخلاق فيما أنت واحدٌ من الداعين إليها
‏ أن تعتقد أن ‏الديمقراطية ضربٌ من المستحيل في حين أن ‏الحزب وصيّ عليه
‏أن تنسى كل ما يتعين عليك نسيانه ثم تستحضره في الذاكرة ‏حينما ‏تمس الحاجة إليه
‏ ثم تنساه مرة ثانية فورًا.."‏

إنه ليس تجردا من الإنسانية فحسب‏
إنه إعادة تصنيع للمخ البشري
بعد محو كل ما بداخله
إنهم لا يكتفون بأن تخاف
بأن تصير كتلة ممزقة اللحم والأعصاب تستعطفهم الموت حتى ‏ينتهي عذابك
إنهم يحيلونك آخر
ليصير عقلك ألة
مجرد آلة صماء تنفذ الأوامر‏
وهذا الآخر أو الآلة يصير مقتنعا تمام الاقتناع بكل استبداد كان ‏يناضل لأجل زواله‏

إنهم يمسخونك ..‏
وهذا أشنع ما في الأمر
هذا أشنع ما في الأمر

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وأدرك أيضاً أن هذا هو ما يعتري الإنسان في كل المواقف ‏‏البطولية والمأساوية
ففي ميدان القتال أو في غرفة التعذيب أو على متن سفينة ‏تغرق
تغدو القضايا التي تحارب من أجلها طيّ النسيان دائما
ذلك لأن جسدك يظل يتضخم حتى يملأ عليك العالم فلا ترى ‏سواه
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يعمل وينستون سميث في وزارة ‏الحقيقة
يشاهد ويشارك يوميا في تزوير التاريخ ‏
كل السجلات تم إتلافها ‏
وكل كتاب أعيدت كتابته وكل ‏صورة أعيد رسمها
واسم كل تمثال وشارع وبناية جرى استبداله
وكل تاريخ جرى تحريفه ‏

‏“إننا نقوم بتدمير الكلمات –عشرات بل مئات الكلمات
"كل يوم ‏‏يجري تدميرها.. إننا نسلخ اللغة حتى العظام

ولكن وينستون ارتكب الجريمة العظمى
فقد بدأ في الشك‏
والتفكير في هذا الهراء الذي يعيش بداخله
لقد تمرد في عقله ثم على أرض الواقع
يقيم ‏علاقةً مع جوليا المتمردة كذلك‏
ينخرط معها في تنظيم للتآمر على الحزب ‏
أو هكذا خيل لهما

وهكذا يلقى تحت رحمة من لا يرحم

‏ "إننا ‏سنسحقك إلى درجة لا يمكنك بعدها أن تعود بحياتك إلى ‏سيرتها ‏الأولى وستحدث لك أشياء لن يمكنك أن تبرأ من ‏آثارها حتى لو ‏عشت ألف عام وأبدا لن تقدر ثانيةً على الشعور ‏بما يشعر به ‏الأحياء
إن كل شيء سيموت داخلك ولن تعود ‏قادرا على الحب أو ‏الصداقة أو الاستمتاع بالحياة أو الضحك أو ‏حب الاستطلاع أو ‏الشجاعة أو الاستقامة
"ستكون أجوف لأننا ‏سنعصرك حتى تصبح ‏خواء من كل شيء ثم نملأك بذواتنا

والتعذيب الرهيب الذي يتعرض له وينستون هو تعذيب ممنهج ‏
"نحن لا نحطم أعداءنا فحسب
‏وإنما نغير ما في أنفسهم"

لا بطش من أجل الانتقام
أو تلقين الخارجين عن قوانين الحزب ‏درسا قاسيا

إنهم لا يقبلون بالطاعة السلبية أو حتى بالخضوع‏ بمعناه المعروف
فعندما يخضع السجين في النهاية يجب أن يكون ذلك نابعًا من ‏إرادته الحرة‏
لا يكفي أن ‏‏تقول أن 2 ‏‏+ 2 =5‏
يجب أن تؤمن بها ‏

"إننا نبدد فكره ونجعله ‏واحدًا منا قبل أن نقتله
إننا نجري للدماغ غسيلا شاملاً قبل أن ‏نعصف به
نحن نختلف عن طغاة الماضي الذين يقولون: ‏
يجب ‏أن لا تفعل ذلك
‏ وعن الاستبداديين الذين يقولون: ‏
يجب أن تفعل ‏ذلك
"نحن نقول: كن..‏

إنهم لا يسمحون لأحد بأن يخرج ‏من سجنهم شهيدا‏

إنهم لن يسمعوا عنك أبدًا لأنّك ستُزال تمامًا من سجل ‏التاريخ"
سنحيلك إلى غاز ثم نطلقك في الهواء. سنجعلك نسيًا ‏منسيًّا. ‏ولن يبقى منك شيء لا اسمًا في سجل ولا أثرًا في ذاكرةٍ ‏حيّة
‏ستمحى كل علاقةٍ لك بالماضي كما بالمستقبل وستصبح ‏وكأنك ‏لم تكن "‏

‏-كم اصبعا تري يا ونستون ‏..؟
‏-أربعا.. خمسا ‏
الرقم الذي تريده ..كل ما أرجوه أن توقف ‏الألم‏...‏

تحت وطأة التعذيب يعترف وينستون "بجرائم" لم يرتكبها أصلا

‏وغدا همه الوحيد أن يكتشف ما يريدون أن يعترف به" ‏
حتى يبادر إلي الاعتراف قبل أن يلجأ المحققون لحمله علي ‏ذلك‏"

اغتيال ‏عدد من أعضاء الحزب البارزين ‏
وتوزيع ‏منشورات تحرض علي الفتنة ‏
واختلاس أموال عامة وبيع أسرار ‏عسكرية والاشتراك في ‏عمليات التخريب ‏
وبأنه كان ‏عميلا مأجورا لحكومة استاسيا ‏
وبأنه كان مؤمنا بالله ومعجبا ‏بالرأسمالية ‏
وبأنه انزلق الي الشذوذ الجنسي ‏
وأنه قتل ‏زوجته بالرغم من أنه يعرف مثلما يعرف المحققون ‏أن زوجته لا ‏تزال علي قيد الحياة
......

يمر وينستون بمراحل عدة حتى يصل لمرحلة القبول

لقد شعر في غحدى المراحل بأن بقاءه إنسانا
هو أمر يستحق ‏التضحية من أجله ‏
حتى لو لم يؤد ذلك إلى نتيجة فإنه يكون قد ‏ألحق بهم الهزيمة‏

وقد مرت عليه أوقات كانت رؤيته للحرية
هي أن يموت وهو يكرههم‏

ولكن ذلك كما نعلم.. لم يدم طويلا

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كان الذي استهواه من ذلك كله هو تلك الحركة
التي نزعت بها ‏‏ثيابها وطوحت بها أرضا
فبرشاقتها وعدم مبالاتها بدا كأنها ‏‏تقوض ‏ثقافة كاملة
وتنقض نظاما فكريا بكليته، كما لو لن الأخ ‏‏الكبير والحزب وشرطة الفكر يمكن أن تذهب أدراج الرياح ‏بحركة ‏بارعة ‏كحركة ذراعها ‏ ‏
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إنه هذا المزج العجيب الذي تمكن منه أورويل تمكن أستاذ
فبرغم كون الرواية تحمل عمقا وقوة تجعلها بلا جدال من ‏الطراز ‏الرفيع
إلا أنها تصل لجميع نوعيات القراء‏
ولا تحتاج فئة معينة كي تفهمها
هي موجهة للجميع
واستطاعت أن تصل إلى قلوب الجميع
لقد صنع المعادلة الصعبة بالفعل‏
فلا تدع براعتها السياسية تنسيك أنها رواية أدبية من أعلى ‏طراز

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السلطة عند الحزب الحاكم‏

اقرأ جيدا ما يقوله أورويل على لسان أوبراين

إن الحزب يسعى إلى بلوغ السلطة لذاتها تلك المطلقة. ‏السلطة ‏غاية وليست وسيلة. لا نسعى وراء الثروة ولا الرفاهية ‏ولا ‏العمر المديد ولا السعادة. إننا ندرك أنه ما من أحد يمسك بزمام ‏‏السلطة وهو ينتوي التخلي عنها. فالمرء لا يقيم حكما ‏استبداديا ‏لحماية الثورة وإنما يشعل الثورة لاقامة حكم ‏استبدادي. إن الهدف ‏من الاضطهاد هو الاضطهاد. والهدف ‏من التعذيب هو التعذيب ‏وغاية السلطة هي السلطة. والسلطة ‏هي سلطان على البشر، على ‏أجسامهم وعلى عقولهم قبل كل ‏شيء. أما أن يكون لك سلطان ‏على المادة فليس بالأمر الهام إذ ‏نحن نسيطر على المادة سيطرة ‏مطلقة.‏

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النهــــاية

وينستون يذبحنا بكلماته الأخيرة
أذكر أنني وقت القراءة الأولى ظللت أردد تلك الجملة ‏
بلا وعي وبانذهال تام

وهكذا انتصرت على نفسي ‏وصرت أحبّ الأخ الكبير
وهكذا انتصرت على نفسي ‏وصرت أحبّ الأخ الكبير
وهكذا انتصرت على نفسي ‏وصرت أحبّ الأخ الكبير
وهكذا انتصرت على نفسي ‏وصرت أحبّ الأخ الكبير
...

فاكتب معي الآن ضاحكا حتى ينخلع قلبك ‏

الحرب هي السلام
العبودية هي الحرية
الجهل هو القوة
2+2=5

وحاول معي أن تحل هذه الأحجية
:
:

لن يثوروا حتى يعوا
ولن يعوا إلا بعد أن يثوروا

!
-------------

هذه المراجعة أرهقتني
وعذبتني
وأضنت روحي تماما
أعتذر لطولها..كما أعتذر ‏ لكثرة الاقتباسات ولكثرة ثرثرتي

إنني فقط أحاول محاولات طفولية
أحاول كتابة ما يليق بعظمة مثل هذه الرواية

وأرجو أن أكون قد وفقت في أن أصف
ولو بعض مما اعتراني مع هذا العمل البديع
..