‘1984’ in 2024 – Standing truth on its head

August 23, 2024

The author is editor of the Portuguese-language news site jornalmudardevida.net. His examples are from Portugal and from Western Europe, but the picture he paints could just as easily apply to the United States and its corporate media. Translation: John Catalinotto.

In Gaza, those who resist are terrorists, those who slaughter are exercising their right to defense, says the Ministry of Truth

When George Orwell wrote his most famous novel, many people thought that what he had in mind was a characterization of the Stalinist regime, or that he was motivated by it or by what was said about it at the time. But the quality and insight of the work, we can see today, goes far beyond this real or supposed intention directed at the USSR of that time. Forty years later, “1984” survives as a portrait of our daily lives.

The world of the concentration camp, the police state, the persecutor, the mystifier of truth, the shaper of individual and collective thought that Orwell fictionalizes, the perpetuation in power of the same forces at the cost of lies, the creation of virtual realities and brainwashing practiced on a large scale with the support of an extensive panoply of technical and scientific means — all of this, which is usually attributed to the “uncivilized” world, fits like a glove in today’s Western capitalist societies. 

The omnipresent gaze of Big Brother, history manipulated by the Ministry of Truth, the prophylactic action of the Thought Police are present and active, with resources never seen before, in the decadent world of the old European and North American imperialisms. For understandable reasons.

NATO in Ukraine and Israel in Gaza

Two major events mark current political developments and the daily lives of millions of people: the war that NATO is promoting in Ukraine and the genocide that Israel is carrying out in Palestine with the support of the U.S. and the European Union (EU).

These are confrontations in which the Western powers are asserting their hegemony and which are causing a watershed in the rest of the world. For this reason, all means of dominating public opinion are being put in place to prevent the power structures of Europe and the U.S. from being shaken by the possible refusal of populations to tolerate the wear and tear — material and moral — that prolonged conflicts always cause in the metropolitan colonialist countries that promote them. 

Remember the collapse of the Portuguese dictatorship as a result of 13 years of colonial war (1961-74); the change of regime in France following the Algerian war of independence (1954-62); the tremors in U.S. power resulting from the defeat in Vietnam (1955-75); etc.

The current situation is even more serious for the imperial and colonial powers concerned than were the examples cited above. In fact, today, on the other side of the barricade are not just peoples or nations in a more or less individualized struggle and relying only on their own strength, but a vast group of peoples and nations who see the real possibility of freeing themselves from the tutelage that colonialism and imperialism have exercised over them — and who are trying to coordinate efforts and act jointly to this end.

The U.S., the EU and their entire entourage of vassals are trying to prevent similar consequences for Ukraine and Palestine. The persecution of voices that disagree with the Orwellian Truth is crucial. Only the official opinion can be held by the public and individuals, and the only history that can be told is that which suits the powers that be.

Witch hunt. From [President Javier] Milei’s Argentina comes the news that a former member of the Buenos Aires autonomous parliament, Alejandro Bodart — now leader of the Socialist Workers’ Movement — has been accused of “antisemitism” for saying that Israel is a terrorist state and is committing genocide. 

The Delegation of Israel-Argentine Association (DAIA) filed the complaint and, at the first hearing, the court rejected it on the grounds of freedom of expression. However, DAIA appealed and is now seeking to exploit the political environment created by Milei’s presidency to obtain a more favorable decision, which would set a precedent against pro-Palestinian solidarity and, in general, against freedom of expression.

In the name of order. In Germany and Britain, which support Israel’s terrorist action with the (Orwellian) argument of the “right to defense,” demonstrations in support of Palestine have been banned under the (Orwellian) pretext that they cause a disturbance of public order.

Across Europe and in the U.S. — in an action worthy of Orwell’s Thought Police — the authorities have blocked Russian television broadcasts, news channels and websites, making only information from the Western side accessible. “Radio Moscow doesn’t speak the truth,” as [late Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira] Salazar used to say.

Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has just deleted The Cradle, a website dedicated to reporting and analyzing West Asian politics. Meta’s pretext is that The Cradle harbors terrorism and incites violence by disseminating information about Palestine, Lebanon or Yemen from Hamas, Hezbollah or Ansarallah.

“Fifth columns.” Among us, the persecution of Russian associations in Setúbal, Portugal, that supported the town hall in welcoming Ukrainian citizens is almost forgotten. An accusation of “espionage” on behalf of Putin was launched by an association of Ukrainians led by a known fascist, classified as a patriot by some Registry Office. The accusations turned out to be false, but were silenced Orwellian-style.

The presentation of Bruno Amaral de Carvalho’s book “The War to the East” — which shows the other side of the war in Ukraine, that is, it shows what the people of the Donbass have suffered under Ukrainian attacks — was disrupted in Lisbon, Coimbra and Porto, by boycott attempts organized by these Ukrainian organizations operating hand in hand with Portuguese fascists. The same organizations had dared to demand the outlawing of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), without anyone from the Portuguese state telling them to shut up.

Any voice that dares to analyze the war in Ukraine other than through the official prism of praising Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and despising Russian President Vladimir Putin, or who talks about the slaughter in Gaza without excusing Israel in some way, is systematically disregarded by “situationist” [co-opted, pro-imperialist] journalists and commentators who repeat ad nauseam the same phrases and falsehoods coming from Western chancelleries and intelligence services. Loyal to the Ministry of Truth, they all swear that 2+2=5.

The Portuguese spy Jorge Silva Carvalho — former director of the Defense Strategic Intelligence Service — was sentenced in 2016 to four years in prison with a suspended sentence for violation of state secrecy, abuse of power and illegitimate access to data. CNN rehabilitated him later and appointed him political commentator. This happened after he had been rehabilitated by another criminal, Isaltino Morais, as an employee of the Oeiras City Council. 

In one of his first interventions on CNN about the war in Ukraine, the ex-spy pointed the finger at those who didn’t go along with the official version as belonging to a Russian “fifth column” in Portugal, which should not be tolerated. The Thought Police have their agents meticulously distributed.

Antisemitism. Everywhere, accusations against Israel are quickly classified as evidence of “antisemitism.” This is a clear attempt not only to force compliance but also to bring those who dare to do so under the law. It deliberately confuses anti-Zionism with antisemitism; it insinuates that the only Semites are Israelis; it plays on the common ignorance of the fact that Palestinians are Semites; and it hides (with Orwellian skill) the fact that a large proportion of Jewish Israelis are not Semites, but come from various ethnic backgrounds. The book “The Invention of the Jewish People” by historian Shlomo Sand, a professor at Tel Aviv University, is itself a denunciation of this practice, starting right from its title.

On the pretext that he was guilty of “antisemitism,” Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labor Party, was sacked and expelled from the party in 2020, in a process as Orwellian as it was Kafkaesque. In fact, Corbyn was threatening the neo-liberal policy (common to both Conservatives and Labor) by proposing the renationalization of public services and the reduction of Britain’s military program, weakening NATO in favor of strengthening social policies. That was enough for Big Brother (in this case, a Conservative-Labor-Zionist symbiosis) to throw Corbyn out of the picture.

Proxies. Every time the news mentions Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis, it must add “terrorist group,” “supported by Iran” or “Iranian proxy.” But it never must admit that Israel is a proxy for the U.S. and the EU and that Israel’s conduct is obvious state terrorism. Or that Zelensky is a NATO proxy. However, the financing and supply of arms to Tel Aviv or Kiev by the Western powers cannot be compared to what Iran may offer to its Middle Eastern allies.

In the case of Israel, for decades the U.S. state budget has permanently included colossal sums to economically and militarily support Zionism in its mission to create chaos in the region. Orwellian truth says that the allies of others are mercenaries for hire, while allies of the U.S. and EU are good people with a will of their own.

The democrats and the others. In the West, by their own definition, democracy and full freedom for all reign, even when governments are made up of fascist forces, censorship stifles dissenting voices, mass protests are repressed and social services are degraded. On the other side, they insist, there are only tyrannies intent on destroying “our” way of life and “our” well-being. As the troglodyte Josep Borrell [vice president of the European Commission] put it: this is a garden, out there it’s the jungle.

Using this argument, the “Democracies” have been striving for 500 years to colonize everything outside Europe and the USA in order to guarantee “our” way of life and “our” well-being. The legitimacy they claim for destroying their opponents, exploiting other people’s resources and empowering governments to their liking is straight out of the universe painted by George Orwell.

A state of perpetual war. As determined by the Ministry of Truth, NATO is no more than a peaceful defensive organization, even if it extends its tentacles around the world. The war in Ukraine, which sacrifices hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in order to wear Russia down and threatens a world conflict, is reconfigured as a defensive battle for Western civilization. Imperialism’s policy of permanent war, which feeds the arms industry by consuming huge social resources, is sold to a gullible public as a necessary condition for a peaceful life.

Upside-down reality in Palestine

The most recent act of this upside-down reality is taking place in Palestine. Israel is nothing more or less than a terrorist state, but it bears the stamp of an irreproachable democracy. It is an agent maintained by imperialism for its dirtiest tasks, but it is granted the “right to defend itself” against those who defend themselves against it. It is the ultimate example of a pariah state that violates the rulings approved by the United Nations with impunity, but has a secure place in the so-called international community.

The Palestinians, even when they are recognized as having the right to organize themselves into a state of their own, must, from the point of view of the West, submit to the conditions that the West deems reasonable. This is what follows from the U.S. and European plans to “reshape” the Palestinian Authority, excluding Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and other resistance organizations from any possible government. In an attempt to perpetuate their status as colonizers, it is the Western regimes that arrogate to themselves the right to choose who should “represent” the Palestinians!

The asphyxiating universe of “1984” can only exist indefinitely if the world lives in a vicious cycle, eternally reproducing the same power relations. As it happens, reality feeds on contradictions and always ends up finding ways out and creating alternatives to the powers that may seem unbeatable at any given moment. This is the scenario in the two major conflicts of the moment. 

NATO’s impotence and inability to win the war it is sponsoring in Ukraine and Israel’s despair at its inability to dominate the balance of power in the Middle East are signs that imperialism is sinking in the muck of its own arrogance. Its weapons are no longer unbeatable. The world is tending to split into two camps. Time is running out for Big Brother.