रामराजमध्ये खूनी अस्सी दशक की दस्तक कयामती और जार्ज आरवेल का 1984
सारा देश बुरी से बुरी खबरों के लिए अभ्यस्त है।बुरी से बुरी खबरों के लिए अच्छे, बेहद अच्छे दिन हैं।यह प्रायोजित टीआरपी समय है मूसलाधार। इसीलिए अखबारी खबरों की कतरने जोड़ने के बजाय सीधे अंतःस्थल से लिख रहा हूं आज का रोजनामचा।जो पढ़ लें,उनको भी सत श्री अकाल और जो न पढ़ें,उनको भी सत श्री अकाल। आखिरकार मेरा लिखा पढ़कर मोक्ष के रास्ते तो खुलने वाले नहीं है और न देहमुक्ति संभव है।
पलाश विश्वास
जार्ज आरवेल ने साम्यवादी व्यवस्था की परिणति का खाका खींचने के मकसद से 1984 और एनीमल फार्म जैसी रचनाएं लिखी हैं।
पूंजी के पीछे वामपंथ की अंधी दौड़ को रेखांकित करने और प्रतिरोध बतौर बंगाल में एनीमल फार्म का निषिद्ध प्रतिवादी मंचन चर्चित रहा है नंदीग्राम सिंगुर समय में।
अब मां माटी जमाने में वह एनीमल फार्म सूअर भगाओ अभियानमध्ये सांढ़ संस्कृति का ही धारक वाहक एपीसेंटर है।तो मुक्त बाजारी बंदोबस्त में सा्मयवादी व्यवस्था की परिणति बतौर बहुचर्चित आरवेल के उपन्यास 1984 का कथानक मुकम्मल सांढ़ संस्कृति का आइना है।
स्वतंत्र भारत में अस्सी का दशक सबसे खूनी रहा है।
हरित क्रांति के कारण साठ के मोहभंग और सत्तर के प्रतिरोध समय के आर पार भारतीय उत्पादन प्रणाली में विदेशी पूंजी और विदेशी हितों के डाबल डोज का जहरीला असर कृषि संकट के आत्मघाती हिंसा परिदृश्य में बदल जाने का आधार दशक है अस्सी तो इसी दशक के मध्य भोपाल गैस त्रासदी जैसी औद्योगिक दुर्घटना मध्ये जैविकी हथियारों का व्यापक विनाशकारी प्रयोग,पंंजाब और असम त्रिपुरा में गहराये कृषि संकट के धर्म क्षेत्रीयतावादी हिंसक महाविस्फोट,आपरेशन ब्लू स्टार,राममंदिर का ताला खोलने से शुरु बाबरी विध्वंस आंदोलन और मंडल कमंडल घनघोर,सिखों के संहार और अल्फाई उन्माद के अलावा देश व्यापी सांप्रदायिक दंगों,अभूतपूर्व आर्थिक संकट भुगतान का खूंखार कटखना कोलाज हैं।
ताजा हालात के मध्य विचारनियंत्रक,स्वप्न नियंत्रक केसरिया कारपोरेट रोबोटिक सैम जायनी अठारह अक्षयिनी सेनाओं के चक्रव्यूह के मध्य तिलिस्मी गैसीय अंधकारमध्ये वह अस्सी का दशक फिर जीवंत होने लगा है।
असम के दंगा परिदृश्य से बचपन से साक्षात्कार होता रहा,वहां दंगाग्रस्त जिलों में पिता और चिकित्सक चाचा की पीड़ितों के बीच सक्रियता के मध्य तो सिखी सोहबत में पले बढ़े नैनीताली तराई के साझा चूल्हा बचपन के लहूलुहान होते जाना दशकों का भोगा हुआ यथार्थ है।
अस्सी के दशक में बाकायदा दैनिक अखबार के संस्करण प्रभारी मुखय संवादददाता की बस से उतारकर मार देये जाने की खबर वारदात हो जाने से पहले छापने की अभिज्ञता भी है,जिसमें घटनास्थल और मारे जाने वाले लोगों की तादाद जैसे तमाम ब्यौरे हूबहू।
यह करिश्मा इसलिए संभव हुआ कि वे महामहिम संवाददाता स्वयं इस कांड के रचयिताओं में थे तो अपने संवाददाता की पट हम रोक नहीं सकते थे।
विडंबना यह कि,और उसी परिदृश्य में शहर में नये प्रतिद्वंध्वी अखबार की सुर्खियों से ही मलियाना और हाशिमपुरा की वारदातों को हमने जाना।
मीडिया के केसरिया हो जाने,उत्पादन प्रणाली के हिंदुत्वकरण जरिये कारपरेट हो जाने की यह कथा व्यथा मैंने अपने लघु उपन्यास उनका मिशन में लिखा।
महाश्वेता दी और नवारुणदा के कहने पर यह उपन्यास संपूर्ण लिखा बांग्ला में भी और वाम धर्मनिरपेक्ष जमाने के बांग्ला अकादमी की अलमारी में शायद वह पांडुलिपि अब भी कैद होगी।
इस उपन्यास को समकालीन परिदृश्य में पढ़ने के बाद पुस्तक के लिए कवर तैयार किया था मशहूर चित्रकार अशोकदा भौमिक ने।
हिंदी या बांग्ला में यह उपन्यास आज भी पुस्तकाकार अप्रकाशित है।
मेरा गांव बसंतीपुर बंगाली शरणार्थी उपनिवेश का सीमांत गांव है और आज भी हमारी ग्रामसभा में बंगाली और सिख प्रधान बारी बारी से बनते हैं।
जैसे बिना रक्त संबंध बसंतीपुर के सारे लोग हमारे परिजन आत्मीय अंतरंग हैं,वैसे ही मेरे गांव के बाद अर्जुनपुर अमरपुर रायपुर से लेकर रूद्रपुर से काशीपुर तक के सिख भूगोल में अनेक लोग मेरे परिजन रहे हैं।
इनमें सरदार भगत सिंह से लेकर शहीदे आजम भगतसिंह के परिजन भी शामिल रहे हैं।
बल्ली सिंह चीमा से हमारी सीधी मुलाकात नहीं है लेकिन हमारी टीम इतनी एकात्म रही है पहाड़ों और तराई में कि वह बिना किसी मुलाकात के मेरे परिवार में ही शामिल है।
कैप्टेन नजीर सिंह,अर्जुनपुर के सरदार वचन सिंह,सरदार तोता सिंह,सरदार हरदर सिंह,अमरपुर के सरदार शेर सिंह हमारे परिजनों के मध्य अभिभावक जैसे रहे हैं।
भूमि विवाद में बंसतीपुर के दस परिवारों के साथ अमरपुर वालों की लंबी मुकदमेबाजी हुई तो थी लेकिन दोनों गांवों के बीच मामला अदालत में निपटारा बंगालियों के हक में होने का बावजूद शुरु से लेकर आजतक रिश्ता मधुर कहें तो कम ही कहना होगा।
मेरे पिता बाजपुर के सरदार दलजीत सिंह और एसएन शर्मा के करीबी रहे तो उनके मुख्य प्रतिद्वंद्वी थे गदरपुर इलाके के सरदार भगत सिंह,जिनको पिताजी ने पहले तो ऱूद्रपुर के तराई विकास सहकारी संघ के चुनाव में सीधे मुकाबले में हरा दिया और अगले ही साल उन्हींके समर्थन से निर्विरोध चुने गये।
दोनों में आखिर तक बनी नहीं और दोनों तराई के दिग्गज नेता थे।
पिताजी से मेरी मित्रता जितनी रही है,उत्तरआधुनिक फिल्मी पिताओं के लिए वह भी ईर्षा का विषय हो सकता है।जब मैं कक्षा दो में था,पारिवारीिक,सामाजिक से लेकर राष्ट्रीय मसलों पर वे हमेशा मुझसे विचार विनिमय करते थे,ज्ञान नहीं देते थे।अपना अनुभव मीठा कड़वा शेयर करते थे।
तो उनके सबसे बड़े प्रतिद्वंद्वी भगतसिंह जी भी मुझसे सलाह मशविरा करने से चूकते न थे।हमारे प्रति उनका स्नेह किसी हाल में उनके अपने परिजनों के हिस्से से कम न था।
यही नहीं,बंगाली लड़कियों ने शायद ही मेरी तरफ घूमकर कभी देखा हो।इसके उलट मेरी सिख सहपाठिनों का स्कूल से लेकर डीएसबी तक मेरे साथ बेहतरीन दोस्ताना रहा है।स्कूल में भी सिख लड़किया मेरे प्रति नरम हुआ करती थीं।लेकिन बंगाली सिख समीकरण का दायरा तोड़कर बाहर निकलने की हिम्मत मुझमें तब थी ही नहीं।
लेकिन वह दायरा भी हमारे परिवार में ही टूटा,जब सरदार तोता सिंह के पोते और मेरे सहपाठी सुरजीत के भतीजे के साथ मेरी तहेरी बहन रानी ने भागकर शादी कर ली।
गांव बसंतीपुर वालों ने अब भी यह रिश्ता कबूल नहीं किया है।गांव के पंचायती फैसले सर माथे उस बहन से हमारे परिवार का कोई रिश्ता भी नहीं है।
यहां तक कि रानी अपने पिता,मां,अपने चाचा,चाची के निधन पर भी पारिवारिक शोक में शामिल हो न सकी।
लेकिन मैं उसके विलाप में शामिल होकर भी गांववालों के साथ रहा हूं।
जैसे तमाम सिख गांवों के लोग बाबा गणेशा सिंह और चौधरी नेपाल सिंह के नेतृत्व में ढिमरी ब्लाक किसान विद्रोह के वक्त पिता के हीरावल दस्ते में शामिल रहे हैं वैसे ही मेरे गांव के लोगों ने मेरी मां के नाम पर यह जो गांव बसाया,उसमें सारे लोग राणाघाट कूपर्स कैंप और बंगाल के दूसरे कैंपों से बंगाल में शरणार्थी आंदोलन में पिता के साथी रहे हैं,तो वे ओडीशा में भी एक ही कैंप में रहे औ रनैनीताल में बस जाने का उनका सामूहिक फैसला था अस्मिताओं के आर पार का।
वे मानसिकता में,रीति रिवाज,सामाजिक बंधन में अब भी पूर्वी बंगाल की उनीसवी सदी में हैं और गांव अब इक्कीसवी सदी में है।
इस विरोधाभास के खिलाफ कबी कभार भाई पद्दोलोचन तल्ख टिप्पणी भी कर देते हैं।लेकिन खुद लहूलुहान होते जाने के बावजूद साझा चूल्हा,अरक्त आत्मीयता और संघर्ष और आंदोलन के उस अटूट रिश्ते के लिहाज से गांव के फैसले के खिलाफ अबतक मैं कुछ भी नहीं कह पाया।शायद आगे भी यह असंभव होगा।
मैं जब बरेली में था तो आपरेशन ब्लू स्टार में रानी का वह पति पुलिस हिरासत में ले लिया गया और अब तक लौटा नहीं है।
जैसे कि अस्सी के दशक में सिख परिवारों में खूब हुआ है, रानी की शादी उसके गुमशुदा पति के भाई से कराकर उसके परिवार ने उसकी सुरक्षा बहाल की है।
यह निजी ब्यौरा इसलिए कि सिख राजनीति और राष्ट्र से उसके टकराव की वजह से हमारे भी लहूलुहान होने का इतिहास भूगोल रहा है और इस नाते इस बारे में मेरा भी बोलने का हक बनता है।
जब आपरेशन ब्लू स्टार हुआ तब हम रांची में अछपे प्रबात खबर के प्रकाशन का इंतजार करते हुए डमी निकाल रहे थे और आपरेशनटेबिल पर पड़े देश को लेकर राजेंद्र माथुर और माननीय प्रभाषजोशी की अद्भुत युगलबंदी देख रहे थे।
दोनों ने हैरतअंगेज ढंग से आपरेशन ब्लू स्चटार को निर्देशित किया था संपादक की कुर्सी से।हमने अस्सी के दशक में कमांडो की सुरक्षा में घिरे प्रभाष जी को भी देखा और उनके साथ संपादकीय में काम करते रहने के बावजूद रघुवीर सहाय के मुकाबले उन्हें पत्रकारिता का मसीहा मानने से इसीलिए उनके जीवनकाल में ही उनके संपादकत्व के मातहत ही बार बार इंकार करता रहा हूं।
अस्सी का दशक आरवेल के कथानक के भारतीय अध्याय का प्रारंभ है।
आपातकाल से देश का उतना बड़ा सर्वनाश नहीं हुआ,जितना आपरेशन ब्लू स्टार के दौरान जारी कर्फ्यू,स्वरण मंदिर में सेन्य कार्रवाई, उसके खिलाफ सेना में विद्रोह,इंदिरा गांधी की हत्या और सिखों के संहार से हुआ।
उसवक्त रोजनामचा दर्ज कराने की तकनीक हमारी थी नहीं।अखबार पूरी तरह तब भी केसरिया बन गये थे।
राष्ट्रपति भवन में देश के प्रथम नागरिक निर्वाक थे तो देश के गृहमंत्री सिख होने के बावजूद सिखों का कत्लेआम देखने को अभिशप्त और तब संघ परिवार पूरी तरह 1971 के मोड में इंदिरा के साथ।
आपातकाल के खिलाफ मीसाबंदी रहे संघियों की यह सामरसाल्ट इतिहास में कायदे से दर्ज भी नहीं है और इतिहास का कोई तीसरा अंपायर भी होता नहीं है।
मैं अब बार बार यही सोचता हूं कि संघ परिवार ने दरअसल बांग्लादेश मुक्ति संग्राम का समर्थन किया था या नक्सल दमन का या भूमि सुधार की सदियों पुरानी बहुजन समाज की मांग से उपजे कृषि विद्रोह के महाविस्फोट में जमींदारों,भूस्वामियों और राजे रजवाड़ों के हितों के लिए जनविद्रोह के विरुद्ध शुरु मौलिक सलवा जुडुम का समर्थन किया उन्होंने।
शक की गुंजाइश बहुत है,खास कर जल जंगल जमीन आजीविका की लड़ाई में सत्तावर्गकी राजनीति के दमनकारी राष्ट्र में तब्दील हो जाने के बाद उनके विरुद्ध संघी सलवा जुड़ुम और पंजाब में कृषि संकट को टालने के लिए जैल सिंह बूटा सिंह बनाम संत भिंडरावाला,लोंगोवाल और तलवंडी की आत्मघाती राजनीति की परिणति बतौर भारत के सर्वश्रेष्ठ किसानों के खिलाफ राष्ट्र की सैन्य कार्रवाई और आदिवासियों की अविराम बेदखली के लिए आदिवासी भूगोल के खिलाफ राष्ट्र के निरंतर युद्ध और सलवा जुड़ुम के प्रेक्षापट भले ही अलग अलग हैं,यह समूचा कथानक लेकिन या तो जार्ज आरवेल का 1984 है या फिर फिल्म अवतार का वह एकाधिकारवादी वैज्ञानिक कारपोरेट जायनी आक्रमण।
पंजाब में और बाकी देश दुनिया में सिख धर्म और राजनीति फिर उसी अस्सी के मोड़ पर है।अकाल तख्त और शिरमणि गुरुद्वारा प्रबंधक कमिटी के माध्यमे पंजाब और बाकी देश की सत्ता की राजनीति जो सिखों के कत्लेआम में धर्मनिरपेक्ष धर्मोन्मादी राजनीतिक पक्षों की युगलबंदी हिंदुत्व के ध्रूवीकरण के जरिये मुक्तबाजारी अर्थव्यवस्था की बुनियादी आचरणविधि प्राविधि बन गयी,वही राजनीति फिर सिखों और सिखी की तबाही का सबब बनती नजर आ रही है।
अभीतक भारत विभाजन की त्रासदी का सिलसिला जारी है हालांकि सिख और पंजाबी साझा चूल्हा उस त्रासदी के दायरे से बाहर हैं और पूर्वी बंगाल के स्थापित जनसमुदाय अब उस रक्तपात की यादों को भुला चुका है।
पंजाब और बंगाल विभाजनपीड़ितों की त्रासदी के मुखातिब होने से इकार कर रहा है विभाजन के तुंरत बाद से।
तो यह भी सच है कि सत्ता की राजनीति में बदलकर अकाली राजनीति अब केसरिया है और कांग्रेस विरोध की एक चक्षु राजनीति की वजह से वर्णवर्चस्वी नस्ली सिख विरोधी राजनीति की नब्ज पकड़ने में नाकाम वह फिर सिखों को ही नहीं,बाकी देश को भी फिर वहीं अस्सी के दशक की दहलीज पर खड़ा कर रही है।
सिखों के नरसंहार,मध्य भारत में और बाकी देश के आदिवासी इलाकों में संवैधानिक प्रावधानों,सुप्रीम कोर्ट के हुक्मनामा नागरिक मानवाधिकार व लोकतंत्र व कानून के राज के विरुद्ध आदिवासियों के विरुद्ध सलवा जुड़ुम,भोपाल गैस त्रासदी से शुरु स्मार्ट शहरी औद्योगीककरण,बाबरी विध्वंस आंदोलन और मंडस कमंडल मुक्तबाजारी 1984 के अलग अलग एनीमल फार्म ही हैं,जिन्हें हम अस्मिताओं के तिलिस्म में कैद मुक्तबाजारी हैलोजिन लाइट और कार्निवाल मुखौटों की वजह से एह उपन्यास के पाठ बतौर देख नहीं पा रहे हैं।
जबकि रामजन्म से पहले ही रामयण लिखा गया था,यह भी प्रचंड लोक आस्था है।
इसी परिप्रेक्ष्य में असम और पूर्वोत्तर में अस्सी के रक्ताक्त दशक और उल्फा समय को देखें तो हैरत अंगेज तरीके से आर्थिक सुधारों के दूसरे चरण के धर्मांध केसरिया ध्रूवीकृत जायनी समय में जैसे संकड ज्वालामुखी के मुहाने पर खड़े पंजाब पर गहराते संकट के बादल से मानसून समय का भारत अनजान है वैसे ही असम और त्रिपुरा समेत पूर्वोत्तर में नरसंहार संस्कृति के आवाहन बतौर घुसपैठियों के खिलाफ जिहाद के आवाहन को भी जनादेश की धूम में सिरे से नजरअंजदाज कर दिया गया है।हारे हुए असम के मुख्यमंत्री तरुण गोगोई,बंगाल की परिवर्तनकारी मुख्यमंत्री ममता बनर्जी और अच्छे समय़ के प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी समेत पूरी राजनीति शरणारथी कार्ड खेलकर विभाजन समय की पुनरावृत्ति दोहराकर अस्सी के दशक की वापसी पर आमादा है।
अब फिर अल्फा ने शरणार्थियों के हक में हिंदुत्व की राजनीति को खारिज करते हुए असम से हर घुसपैठिये को खदेड़ने का अल्टीमेटम जारी करके राष्ट्र के विरुद्ध युद्ध घोषणा कर दी है।यह कोई बंदरघुड़की है,ऐसा भी नहीं है,ऐसा अल्फा इतिहास भी है।
इस वक्त मैं यूपी में नहीं हूं।आपरेशन ब्लू स्टार के वक्त में रांची में था।इंदिरा ह्ता के वक्त मैं मेरठ में था तो मंडल कमंडल ध्रूवीकरण मध्ये खाडी़ युद्ध के समय बरेली में।
अयोध्या से यरूशलम तक व्याप्त वह जायनी समयफिर लौटकर आ रहा है कयामत बनकर,दबे पांव हत्यारों की यह बढ़त हमें नजर नहीं आती और कानों में संगीत ठूंसा है विकास कामसूत्र का।
इजरायली हमले में गाजापट्टी और भारत में दंगे एकात्म हैं।
मैं यूपी के दंगापीड़ित इलाकों से हजार मील दूरी पर हूं लेकिन आगजनी का उन्माद को अपनी आंखों के समाने घटित होते देख रहा हूं।
असहाय शरणार्थी स्त्रियों और बच्चों के विलाप मेरे कान बहरा रहे हैं और कलकाता की मानसूनी हवाओं में भी मुझे इंसानी हड्डियों की चिटखने की आवाजे सुनायी पड़ रही हैं।
मीडिया में व्यापे तेज डियड्रेंट और कामुक अमेरिकी वियाग्रा और जापानी तेल के मध्य कंडोमी विज्ञापनों और रियल्टी शो में मुझे खून की नदियां बहती नजर आ रही है।
सारा देश बुरी से बुरी खबरों के लिए अभ्यस्त है।
बुरी से बुरी खबरों के लिए अच्छे, बेहद अच्छे दिन हैं।
यह प्रायोजित टीआरपी समय है मूसलाधार।
इसीलिए अखबारी खबरों की कतरने जोड़ने के बजाय सीधे अंतःस्थल से लिख रहा हूं आज का रोजनामचा।
जो पढ़ लें,उनको भी सत श्री अकाल और जो न पढ़ें,उनको भी सत श्री अकाल।
आखिरकार मेरा लिखा पढ़कर मोक्ष के रास्ते तो खुलने वाले नहीं है और न देहमुक्ति संभव है।
हालात किस तेजी से बिगड़ रहे हैं,मुझे अक्सरहां मिलते रहे मेल में से एक यहां जरुर पढ़ लें और समझ लें कि क्या भयानक मंजर है।
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2014 7:09:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Akhouti vidvan] ਫੂਲਕਾ , ਕੰਵਰ ਸੰਧੂ , ਜੋਗਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਸਪੋਕਸਮੈਨ ਸਮੇਤ... "Dr Awatar Singh Sekhon (Machaki) writes to Sardar Gurbinder Singh on the Cancellation of Gathering of the 26th July, 2014"
Sardar Gurbinder Singh ji,
Waheguru ji ka Khalsa,
Waheguru ji ki Fateh!
WHO CANCELLED THE MEETING CALLED BY SIKH NATION'S, "robbed" PUNJAB, TRAITOR, CHIEF BAND LEADER (JATHEDAR) OR HIS APPOINTEE GADHAAR-e-AZAM, HANERA SINH BADAL?
Gurbachan Sinh, a member of the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat (the RSS of Sikhs), created by Hanera Sinh Badal, a "joe-boy" of the Brahmins-Hindus-Turbaned Brahmins' fundamentalists and militants, like a criminal AB Vajpayee, the then Wazir-e-Azam of thealleged Indian demo[n]cracy, his other bootlickers like LK Advani, Shushma Swaraj, Toagadia, Arun Jaitly (a defeated BJP candidate from Amritsar recently in the cabinet of the killer of Muslims of Gujarat State, Narendra MODI)) and likewiseBrahmins-Hindus, etc., has cancelled the meeting of 27th July, 2014, or directed by Hanera Sinh Badal? It leaves no doubt that the cancellation of this meeting has just been a face saving for Gurbanchan Sinh's master, Hanera Sinh Badal. The appointees of Hanera Sinh Badal to The Akal Takht Sahib's band leaders (jathedars), undoubtedly, have demonized The Darbar Sahib Complex, including all Gurdwaras under the control of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandhak Committee (SGPC). The SGPC which a majority of Sikhs of the Guru Khalsa Panth call in the 'mini parliament' of the Sikhs, although theydo not know the 'History of Sikhs, their religious and historical places, from the Sikh point of view'. These band leaders do not know their own history, but they are in the 'front line' to disobey Guru Granth Sahib, Sikh Rahit Maryada alias the Sikh Code of Conduct when an ordinary person comes to pay his respect (?) to The Darbar Sahib, and these all band leaders will stand up, disrespect the Sikh Traditions, Guru Granth Sahib and give this ordinary person and his wife, who worships 'Shiv ling' - the Hindus' God Shiva's sex organ ( see PTC of last week, as monitored in North America at the Mountain Standard Time). What can you expect and what can the Guru Khalsa Panth can expect from those people who are all out to demonize the Guru Khalsa Panth, Sardar Gurbinder Singh ji?
Hanera Sinh Badal, a traitor of the Guru Khalsa Panth and now seems to be acting like Vinobha Bhave, according to his photographs appeared at thewww.facebook.com/sikhgroups, is another stunt of Hanera Sinh to make the fool of the Sikhs of the "robbed" Punjab, Haryana and the Sikh Diaspora. Hanera Sinh's presentstunt may not work out as the 'Dham Yudh Morcha, Panth Khatre Vich Hai, etc.' , because he is a chapliachutt/bootlickers of the Brahmins-Hindus, a mukatdhari, bearing the Hindus-Brahmins' paint on his forehead. He did not do it once or twice but several times to please these Brahmins-Hindus, who had been "subservient" to the Afghans, Mughals, Sikhs, British, Portuguese, etc., for 3500 years before the 15th day of August, 1947. Watch out the Sikhs, this Hanera Sinh and his clan have forgotten the Sikh History and is asking you to forget your enriched history and follow this Turbaned Brahmin. His tactics may not work out, because he has lost the faith of the people who had put him in the office the Chief administrator of the "robbed" Punjab. How long will you, Hanera Sinh Badal and fellows, keep on playing with the future of the citizens of the "robbed" PUNJAB, the Sikhs' Holy and Historic Homeland PUNJAB? To say the least, the citizens, if they are for the interest of the Motheland PUNJAB, Hanera Sinh Badal, his joe boys and joe girls, are nothing but the fired guns. So is Gurbanchan Sinh and his band leaders (jathedars) wandering in the premises of The Darbar Sahib Complex, Amritsar ji.
What has happened in Haryana, had to happen and will happen in every state of the alleged Indian demo[n]cracy; because the Sikhs there have every right to control and look after the Gurdwaras, including the "Coffer" of the Haryana Gurdwara Prabhandhak Committee. Just watch out, Hanera Sinh Badal, it is not the Waheguru jialias the Almighty's ever given right for you to "control" the Sikhs' Darbar Sahib Complex and the Supreme Seat of Sikh Polity. Gurbachan Sinh must read the writings written on the wall. It is the "Guru-de-Sikh" who will be controlling and looking after their Gurdwaras and their coffers (Gohlak), too.
Because of the above, Hanera Sinh Badal and Company had no option but to direct Gurbachan Sinh to "cancel the meeting of the 26th July, 2014; for the interest of the Guru Khalsa Panth. Since when you Hanera Sinh and company started to care for the "robbed" PUNJAB alias the Sikh Nation? Did you and other turbaned Brahmins care of the "robbed" Sikh Nation, PUNJAB, when the alleged Indian demo[n]cracy waged an "Undeclared" war on the Sikh Nation, "robbed" PUNJAB in the form of "Operation Bluestar" of June, 1984? Why did you watch the entire act of "Operation Bluestar" by sitting in your farm house? Why did you send your 'kaka/Bachu' Sukhbir out of the "robbed" Punjab, during "Operation Bluestar" of June, 1984?
Why have you kept Bhai Balwant Singh Rajoana, on the death row. in a jail in Patiala? Why have you been keeping all 'innocent' Sikh infants, Bibis, male folks and paroled people in the jails of the "robbed" Punjab and outside Punjab, Hanera Sinh? You owe an answer to all these questions to the Guru Khalsa Panth and before the Guru Granth Sahib. Let the time come, your Brahmins-Hindus of the BJP, RSS, Bajrang Dal friends, including the killer, murderer and the organizer of the "Genocide of Muslims of Gujarat, 2002-2003", the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, will kick at your back.
Best wishes.
Your brother,
Awatar Singh Sekhon (Machaki)
*****
From: "Gurbinder Singh" <notification+oodgffo1@facebookmail.com>
To: "Akhouti vidvan" <Akhoutividvan@groups.facebook.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2014 5:18:27 AM
Subject: [Akhouti vidvan] ਫੂਲਕਾ , ਕੰਵਰ ਸੰਧੂ , ਜੋਗਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਸਪੋਕਸਮੈਨ ਸਮੇਤ...
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Nineteen Eighty-Four
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Orwell novel. For other uses, see 1984 (disambiguation).
| British first edition cover | |
Author | |
Cover artist | Michael Kennard |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre | |
Published | 8 June 1949 (Secker and Warburg, London) |
823/.912 22 | |
PR6029.R8 N647 2003 |
Nineteen Eighty-Four, sometimes published as 1984, is a dystopian novel byGeorge Orwell published in 1949.[1][2] The novel is set in Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain), a province of the superstate Oceania in a world ofperpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation, dictated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (or Ingsoc in the government's invented language, Newspeak) under the control of a privileged Inner Party elite that persecutes all individualism and independent thinking as "thoughtcrimes".[3] The tyranny is epitomized by Big Brother, the quasi-divine Party leader who enjoys an intense cult of personality, but who may not even exist. Big Brother and the Party justify their oppressive rule in the name of a supposed greater good.[1]Or rather in the name of subjugation and the party itself. The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, is a member of theOuter Party who works for the Ministry of Truth (or Minitrue), which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. His job is to rewrite past newspaper articles so that the historical record always supports the current party line.[4] Smith is a diligent and skillful worker, but he secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother.
As literary political fiction and dystopian science-fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Fouris a classic novel in content, plot, and style. Many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101,Telescreen, 2 + 2 = 5, and memory hole, have entered everyday use since its publication in 1949. Moreover, Nineteen Eighty-Four popularised the adjectiveOrwellian, which describes official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of the past by a totalitarian or authoritarian state.[4] In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.[5] It was awarded a place on both lists of Modern Library 100 Best Novels, reaching number 13 on the editor's list, and 6 on the readers' list.[6] In 2003, the novel was listed at number 8 on the BBC's surveyThe Big Read.[7]
Contents
[hide]
History and title[edit]
A 1947 draft MS of the first page ofNineteen Eighty-Four, showing the editorial development.
George Orwell "encapsulate[d] the thesis at the heart of his unforgiving novel" in 1944, the implications of dividing the world up into Zones of influence had been conjured by the Tehran Conference,[8] and three years later he wrote most of it on the Scottish island of Jura, from 1947 to 1948, despite being seriously ill withtuberculosis.[9] On 4 December 1948, he sent the final manuscript to the publisherSecker and Warburg and Nineteen Eighty-Four was published on 8 June 1949.[10][11] By 1989, it had been translated into sixty-five languages, more than any other novel in English at the time.[12] The title of the novel, its themes, theNewspeak language, and the author's surname are often invoked against control and intrusion by the state, while the adjective Orwellian describes a totalitarian dystopia characterised by government control and subjugation of the people. Orwell's invented language, Newspeak, satirises hypocrisy and evasion by the state: for example, the Ministry of Love (Miniluv) oversees torture and brainwashing, theMinistry of Plenty (Miniplenty) oversees shortage and famine, the Ministry of Peace(Minipax) oversees war and atrocity, and the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue) oversees propaganda and historical revisionism.
The Last Man in Europe was one of the original titles for the novel, but in a letter dated 22 October 1948 to his publisher Fredric Warburg, eight months before publication, Orwell wrote about hesitating between The Last Man in Europe and Nineteen Eighty-Four.[13] Warburg suggested changing the main title to a more commercial one.[14]
In the novel 1985 (1978), Anthony Burgess suggests that Orwell, disillusioned by the onset of the Cold War (1945–91), intended to call the book 1948. The introduction to the Penguin Books Modern Classics edition of Nineteen Eighty-Fourreports that Orwell originally set the novel in 1980, but he later shifted the date first to 1982, then to 1984. The final title may also be a permutation of 1948, the year of composition.[15] Throughout its publication history, Nineteen Eighty-Four has been either banned or legally challenged as subversive or ideologically corrupting, like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World(1932); We (1924) by Yevgeny Zamyatin; Kallocain (1940) by Karin Boye; and Fahrenheit 451 (1951) by Ray Bradbury.[16]In 2005, Time magazine included Nineteen Eighty-Four in its list of the one hundred best English-language novels since 1923.[17] Literary scholars consider the Russian dystopian novel We, by Zamyatin, to have strongly influenced Nineteen Eighty-Four.[18][19]
Copyright status[edit]
The novel will be in the public domain in the European Union and Russia in 2020, and in the United States in 2044[20]although it is already in the public domain in Canada,[21] South Africa,[22] Argentina,[23] Australia,[24] and Oman.[25]
Background[edit]
The banner of the Party in the 1984 film adaptation of the book
Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in Oceania, one of three inter-continental superstatesthat divided the world among themselves after a global war. Most of the action takes place in London, the "chief city of Airstrip One",[26] the Oceanic province that "had once been called England or Britain".[27] Posters of the Party leader, Big Brother, bearing the caption "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU", dominate the city, while the ubiquitous telescreen (transceiving television set) monitors the private and public lives of the populace. The social class hierarchy of Oceania has three levels:
(I) the upper-class Inner Party, the elite ruling minority, who make up 2% of the population.
(II) the middle-class Outer Party, who make up 13% of the population.
(III) the lower-class Proles (from proletariat), who make up 85% of the population and represent the uneducated working class.
As the government, the Party controls the population with four ministries:
the Ministry of Peace (Minipax) deals with war,
the Ministry of Plenty (Miniplenty) deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation),
the Ministry of Love (Miniluv) deals with law and order (torture and brainwashing),
the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue) deals with news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda).
The protagonist Winston Smith, a member of the Outer Party, works in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth as an editor, revising historical records to make the past conform to the ever-changing party line and deleting references tounpersons, people who have been "vaporised", i.e. not only killed by the state, but denied existence even in history or memory.
The story of Winston Smith begins on 4 April 1984: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen";[28] yet he is uncertain of the true date, given the régime's continual rewriting and manipulation of history. His memories and his reading of the proscribed book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emmanuel Goldstein, reveal that after the Second World War, the United Kingdom fell to civil war and then was absorbed into Oceania. Simultaneously, the USSR conquered mainland Europe and established the second superstate of Eurasia. The third superstate, Eastasia, comprises the regions of East Asia and Southeast Asia. The three superstates wage perpetual war for the remaining unconquered lands of the world, forming and breaking alliances as is convenient. From his childhood (1949–53), Winston remembers the Atomic Wars fought in Europe, western Russia, and North America. It is unclear to him what occurred first: the Party's victory in the civil war, the US annexation of the British Empire, or the war in which Colchester was bombed. However, his strengthening memories and the story of his family's dissolution suggest that the atomic bombings occurred first (the Smiths took refuge in a tube station), followed by civil war featuring "confused street fighting in London itself", and the societal postwar reorganisation, which the Party retrospectively calls "the Revolution".
Plot[edit]
Oceanian society: Big Brother atop, the Party in middle, the Proles at bottom, in 1984.
The story of Winston Smith presents the world in the year 1984, after a global atomic war, via his perception of life in Airstrip One (the former United Kingdom), a province of Oceania, one of the world's three superstates; his intellectual rebellion against the Party and illicit romance with Julia; and his consequent imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and re-education by the Thinkpol in the Miniluv.
Winston Smith[edit]
Winston Smith, a member of the Outer Party (middle class), lives in the ruins of an England already ravaged by World War II, civil conflict, and the revolution which brought the Party to power. At some point in the past he was separated from his family, placed in an orphanage, and trained as a civil servant by the state. Winston leads an austere existence, confined to a one-room apartment on a subsistence diet of black bread and synthetic meals washed down with Victory-brand gin. He begins retaining a journal criticising the Party and its enigmatic leader, Big Brother, which - if uncovered by the Thought Police - likely warrants certain death. The flat has an alcove, beside the telescreen, where Winston apparently cannot be seen, and thus believes he has some privacy, while writing in his journal: "Thoughtcrime does not entail death. Thoughtcrime IS death."The telescreens (in every public area, and the quarters of the Party's members), have hidden microphones and cameras. These devices, alongside informers, permit the Thought Police to spy upon everyone and so identify anyone who might endanger the Party's régime; children, most of all, are indoctrinated to spy and inform on suspected thought-criminals – especially their parents.
At the Ministry of Truth, Winston is an editor responsible for historical revisionism, concording the past to the Party's ever-changing official version of the past; thus making the government of Oceania seem omniscient. As such, he perpetually rewrites records and alters photographs, rendering the deleted people as "unpersons"; the original documents are incinerated in a "memory hole". Despite enjoying the intellectual challenges of historical revisionism, he becomes increasingly fascinated by the true past and tries to learn more about it.
Julia[edit]
One day, at the Minitrue, as Winston is assisting a woman who has fallen down, she surreptitiously hands him a folded paper note; later, at his desk, he covertly reads the message: I LOVE YOU. The woman is "Julia", a young dark haired mechanic who repairs the Minitrue novel-writing machines. Before that occasion, Winston had loathed the sight of her, since women tended to be the most fanatical supporters of Ingsoc. He particularly loathed her because of her membership in the fanatical Junior Anti-Sex League. Additionally, Julia was the type of woman he believed he could not attract: young and puritanical. Nonetheless, his hostility towards her vanishes upon reading the message. As it turns out, Julia is a thoughtcriminal too, and hates the Party as much as he does.
Cautiously, Winston and Julia begin a love affair, at first meeting in the country, at a clearing in the woods, then at the belfry of a ruined church, and afterwards in a rented room atop an antiques shop in a proletarian neighbourhood of London. There, they think themselves safe and unobserved, because the rented bedroom has no apparent telescreen, but, unknown to Winston and Julia, the Thought Police were aware of their love affair.
Later, when the Inner Party member O'Brien approaches him, Winston believes he is an agent of the Brotherhood, a secret, counter-revolutionary organisation meant to destroy the Party. The approach opens a secret communication between them; and, on pretext of giving him a copy of the latest edition of the Dictionary of Newspeak, O'Brien gives Winston the Book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emmanuel Goldstein, the infamous and publicly reviled leader of the Brotherhood. The Book explains the concept of perpetual war, the true meanings of the slogans WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, and how the régime of the Party can be overthrown by means of the political awareness of the Proles.
The Thought Police capture Winston and Julia in their bedroom and deliver them to the Ministry of Love for interrogation. Charrington, the shop keeper who rented the room to them, reveals himself as an officer of the Thought Police. Soon after his arrival at Miniluv, Winston is greeted by O'Brien. It turns out that O'Brien is also a Thought Police agent; he was part of afalse flag operation used by the Thought Police to root out suspected thoughtcriminals. After a prolonged regimen of systematic beatings and psychologically draining interrogation, O'Brien, now Smith's interrogator, tortures Winston withelectroshock, showing him how, through controlled manipulation of perception (e.g. seeing whatever number of fingers held up that the Party demands one should see, whatever the apparent reality, i.e. 2+2=5), Winston can "cure" himself of his "insanity" – his manifest hatred for the Party. In long, complex conversations, he explains the Inner Party's motivation: complete and absolute power, mocking Winston's assumption that it was somehow altruistic and "for the greater good". Asked if the Brotherhood exists, O'Brien replies that this is something Winston will never know; it will remain an unsolvable quandary in his mind. During a torture session, his imprisonment in the Ministry of Love is explained: "There are three stages in your reintegration ... There is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance," i.e. of the Party's assertion of reality.
Confession and betrayal[edit]
In the first stage of political re-education, Winston Smith admits to and confesses to crimes he did and did not commit, implicating anyone and everyone, including Julia. In the second stage, O'Brien makes Winston understand that he is rotting away; by this time he is little more than skin and bones. Winston counters: "I have not betrayed Julia." O'Brien agrees Winston had not betrayed Julia because he "had not stopped loving her; his feelings toward her had remained the same." One night, in his cell, Winston awakens, screaming: "Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!" O'Brien rushes into the cell and sends him to Room 101, the most feared room in the Ministry of Love, where resides each prisoner's worst fear, which is forced upon him or her. In Room 101 is Acceptance, the final stage of the political re-education of Winston Smith, whose primal fear of rats is invoked when a wire cage holding hungry rats is fitted onto his face. As the rats are about to reach Winston's face, he shouts: "Do it to Julia!" thus betraying her and relinquishing his love for her.
Re-encountering Julia[edit]
Some time after being restored to orthodox thought and reintegrated into Oceania society, Winston encounters Julia in a park. Julia reveals that she has endured a similar ordeal to Winston, and each admits betraying the other:
"I betrayed you," she said baldly.
"I betrayed you," he said.
She gave him another quick look of dislike.
"Sometimes," she said, "they threaten you with something – something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, 'Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.' And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself."
"All you care about is yourself," he echoed.
"And after that, you don't feel the same toward the other person any longer."
"No," he said, "you don't feel the same."
Throughout, a song recurs in Winston's mind:
Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me—
The lyrics are an adaptation of "Go no more a-rushing", a popular English campfire song from the 1920s that had been a popular success for Glenn Miller in 1939.[29][30][31]
Conversion[edit]
An alcoholic Winston sits by himself in the Chestnut Tree Cafe, still troubled by false memories which he is convinced are indeed false. He tries to put them out of his mind when suddenly a news bulletin announces Oceania's "decisive victory" overEurasian armies in Africa. A raucous celebration begins outside, and Winston imagines himself a part of it. As he looks up in admiration at a portrait of Big Brother, Winston realises that "the final, indispensable, healing change" within his own mind had only been completed at just that moment. He engages in a "blissful dream" in which he offers a full, public confession of his crimes and is executed. He feels that all is well now that he has at last achieved a victory over himself, ending his previous "stubborn, self-willed exile" from the love of Big Brother – a love Winston now happily returns.
Characters[edit]
Characters Constellation
Principal characters[edit]
Winston Smith—the protagonist who is a phlegmatic everyman.
Julia—Winston's lover who is a covert "rebel from the waist downwards" who publicly espouses Party doctrine as a member of the fanatical Junior Anti-Sex League.
Big Brother—the dark-eyed, mustachioed embodiment of the Party who rules Oceania.
O'Brien—a member of the Inner Party who poses as a member of The Brotherhood, the counter-revolutionary resistance, in order to deceive, trap, and capture Winston and Julia.
Emmanuel Goldstein—ostensibly a former leader of the Party, counter-revolutionary leader of the Brotherhood, and author of The Book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, Goldstein is the symbolic Enemy of the State—the national nemesis who ideologically unites the people of Oceania with the Party, especially during the Two Minutes Hate and other fearmongering. While Winston eventually learns that The Book is the product of an Inner Party committee that includes O'Brien, whether Goldstein or his Brotherhood are real or fabrications of Party propaganda is something that neither Winston nor the reader is permitted to know.
Secondary characters[edit]
Aaronson, Jones, and Rutherford—Former members of the Inner Party whom Winston vaguely remembers as among the original leaders of the Revolution, long before he had heard of Big Brother. They confessed to treasonable conspiracies with foreign powers and were then executed in the political purges of the 1960s. In between their confessions and executions, Winston saw them drinking in the Chestnut Tree Café — with broken noses, suggesting that their confessions had been obtained by torture. Later, in the course of his editorial work, Winston sees newspaper evidence contradicting their confessions, but drops it into a memory hole. Eleven years later, he is confronted with the same photograph during his interrogation.
Ampleforth—Winston's one-time Records Department colleague who was imprisoned for leaving the word "God" in a Kipling poem; Winston encounters him at the Miniluv. Ampleforth is a dreamer and an intellectual who takes pleasure in his work, and respects poetry and language, traits and qualities which cause him disfavour with the Party.
Charrington—An officer of the Thought Police posing as a sympathetic antiques-shop keeper.
Katharine—The emotionally indifferent wife whom Winston "can't get rid of". Despite disliking sexual intercourse, Katharine continued with Winston because it was their "duty to the Party". Although she was a "goodthinkful" ideologue, they separated because she could not bear children.
Tom Parsons—Winston's naive neighbour, and an ideal member of the Outer Party: an uneducated, suggestible man who is utterly loyal to the Party, and fully believes in its perfect image. He is socially active and participates in the Party activities for his social class. Although friendly towards Smith, and despite his political conformity, he punishes his bully-boy son for firing a catapult at Winston. Later, as a prisoner, Winston sees Parsons is in the Ministry of Love, because his daughter had reported him to the Thought Police after overhearing him speak against the Party whilst he slept.
Mrs. Parsons—Parsons's wife is a wan and hapless woman who is intimidated by her own children, who are members of the Party Youth League and represent the new generation of Oceanian citizens, without memory of life before Big Brother, and without family ties or emotional sentiment; the model society moulded by the Inner Party.
Syme—Winston's colleague at the Ministry of Truth, whom the Party "vaporised" because he remained a lucidly thinking intellectual. He was a lexicographer who helped develop the language and the dictionary of Newspeak, in the course of which he enjoyed destroying words, and wholeheartedly believed that Newspeak would replace Oldspeak (Standard English) by the year 2050. Although Syme's politically orthodox opinions aligned with Party doctrine, Winston noted that "He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly". After noting that Syme's name was deleted from the members list of the Chess Club, Winston infers he became an unperson who never had existed. Goldstein's book says that "Between the two branches of the Party there is a certain amount of interchange, but only so much as will ensure that weaklings are excluded from the Inner Party and that ambitious members of the Outer Party are made harmless by allowing them to rise." It is unknown whether Syme has been killed or promoted in the Inner Party in another province.
The world in 1984[edit]
Ingsoc (English Socialism)[edit]
Main article: Ingsoc
In the year 1984, Ingsoc (English Socialism), is the regnant ideology and pseudophilosophy of Oceania, and Newspeak is its official language, of official documents.
Ministries of Oceania[edit]
In London, the Airstrip One capital city, Oceania's four government ministries are in pyramids (300 metres high), the façades of which display the Party's three slogans. The ministries' names are antonymous doublethink to their true functions: "The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation". (Part II, Chapter IX — The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism)
Ministry of Peace (Newspeak: Minipax)
The Ministry of Peace supports Oceania's perpetual war.
The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when few human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work.
Ministry of Plenty (Newspeak: Miniplenty)
The Ministry of Plenty rations and controls food, goods, and domestic production; every fiscal quarter, the Miniplenty publishes false claims of having raised the standard of living, when it has, in fact, reduced rations, availability, and production. The Minitrue substantiates the Miniplenty claims by revising historical records to report numbers supporting the current, "increased rations".
Ministry of Truth (Newspeak: Minitrue)
The Ministry of Truth controls information: news, entertainment, education, and the arts. Winston Smith works in the Minitrue RecDep (Records Department), "rectifying" historical records to concord with Big Brother's current pronouncements, thus everything the Party says is true.
Ministry of Love (Newspeak: Miniluv)
The Ministry of Love identifies, monitors, arrests, and converts real and imagined dissidents. In Winston's experience, the dissident is beaten and tortured, then, when near-broken, is sent to Room 101 to face "the worst thing in the world" — until love for Big Brother and the Party replaces dissension.
Doublethink[edit]
Main article: Doublethink
The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink. Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
— Part II, Chapter IX — The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism
Political geography[edit]
Perpetual War: The news report Oceania has captured Africa, 1984.
Three perpetually warring totalitarian super-states control the world:[32]
Oceania (ideology: Ingsoc, i.e., English Socialism); its core territories are theWestern Hemisphere, the British Isles, Australasia, and Southern Africa.
Eurasia (ideology: Neo-Bolshevism); its core territories are Continental Europeand Russia, including Siberia.
Eastasia (ideology: Obliteration of the Self, i.e., "Death worship", also likened to the doctrine of Juche); its core territories are China, Japan, Korea, andIndochina.
The perpetual war is fought for control of the "disputed area" lying "between the frontiers of the super-states", it forms "a rough parallelogram with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin and Hong Kong",[32] thus Northern Africa, the Middle East, India and Indonesia are where the super-states capture and utilise slave-labour. Fighting also takes place between Eurasia and Eastasia in Manchuria, Mongolia and Central Asia, and all three powers battle one another over various Atlantic and Pacific islands.
Goldstein's book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, explains that the superstates' ideologies are alike and that the public's ignorance of this fact is imperative so that they might continue believing in the detestability of the opposing ideologies. The only references to the exterior world for the Oceanian citizenry (the Outer Party and the Proles) are Minitrue maps and propaganda ensuring their belief in "the war".
The Revolution[edit]
Winston Smith's memory and Emmanuel Goldstein's book communicate some of the history that precipitated the Revolution;Eurasia was established after World War II (1939–45), when US and Imperial soldiers withdrew from continental Europe, thus the USSR conquered Europe against slight opposition. Eurasia does not include the British Empire because the US annexed it, as well as Latin America, thus establishing Oceania and gaining control over a quarter of the planet. The annexation of Britain was part of the Atomic Wars that provoked civil war; per the Party, it was not a revolution but a coup d'état that installed a ruling élite derived from the native intelligentsia. Eastasia, the last superstate established, comprises the Asian lands conquered by China and Japan. Although Eurasia prevented Eastasia from matching it in size, its larger populace compensate for that handicap. Precise chronology is unclear, but most of that global reorganisation occurred between 1945 and the 1960s.[citation needed]
The War[edit]
See also: Perpetual war
In 1984, there is a perpetual war among Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, the superstates which emerged from the atomic global war. "The book", The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Emmanuel Goldstein, explains that each state is so strong it cannot be defeated, even with the combined forces of two superstates—despite changing alliances. To hide such contradictions, history is re-written to explain that the (new) alliance always was so; the populaces accustomed todoublethink accept it. The war is not fought in Oceanian, Eurasian or Eastasian territory but in the arctic wastes and a disputed zone comprising the sea and land from Tangiers (northern Africa) to Darwin (Australia). At the start, Oceania and Eastasia are allies combatting Eurasia in northern Africa and the Malabar Coast.
That alliance ends and Oceania allied with Eurasia fights Eastasia, a change which occurred during the Hate Week dedicated to creating patriotic fervour for the Party's perpetual war. The public are blind to the change; in mid-sentence an orator changes the name of the enemy from "Eurasia" to "Eastasia" without pause. When the public are enraged at noticing that the wrong flags and posters are displayed they tear them down—thus the origin of the idiom "We've always been at war with Eastasia"; later the Party claims to have captured Africa.
"The book" explains that the purpose of the unwinnable, perpetual war is to consume human labour and commodities, hence the economy of a superstate cannot support economic equality (a high standard of life) for every citizen. By using up most of the produced objects like boots and rations the "proles" are kept poor and uneducated so that they will not realize what the government is doing and they will not rebel. Goldstein also details an Oceanian strategy of attacking enemy cities with atomic rockets before invasion, yet dismisses it as unfeasible and contrary to the war's purpose; despite the atomic bombing of cities in the 1950s the superstates stopped such warfare lest it imbalance the powers. The military technology in 1984 differs little from that of World War II, yet strategic bomber aeroplanes were replaced with Rocket Bombs, helicopters were heavily used as weapons of war (while they did not figure in WW2 in any form but prototypes) and surface combat units have been all but replaced by immense and unsinkable Floating Fortresses, island-like contraptions concentrating the firepower of a whole naval task force in a single, semi-mobile platform (in the novel one is said to have been anchored between Iceland and the Faroe Islands, suggesting a preference for sea lane interdiction and denial).
Living standards[edit]
The society of Airstrip One and, according to "The Book", all of the world, lives in poverty; hunger, disease and filth are the norms. Ruined cities and towns are commonplace—the consequence of the civil war, the atomic wars, and purportedly enemy (but quite possibly self-serving Oceanian) rockets. Social decay and wrecked buildings surround Winston; aside from the ministerial pyramids, little of London was rebuilt. Members of the Outer Party consume synthetic foodstuffs and low-quality luxuries such as oily gin and loosely packed cigarettes, distributed under the "Victory" brand (taken from low-quality Indian-made "Victory" cigarettes that were widely smoked in Britain (Although other brands were available. Spike Milligan said in his War Memoirs that his parents always sent him a brand called "Passing Cloud" which had a flat Turkish Shape) and by British soldiers during World War II (through the regular NAAFI Ration) when American cigarettes could not easily be imported across the U-boat-infested North Atlantic). Winston describes something as simple as the repair of a pane of broken glass as requiring committee approval that can take several years. All Outer Party residences include telescreensthat serve as both outlets for propaganda and devices through which to monitor the Party members; they can be turned down, but they cannot be turned off.
In contrast to their subordinates, the Inner Party upper class of Oceanian society reside in clean and comfortable flats in their own quarter of the city, with pantries well-stocked with foodstuffs such as wine, coffee, and sugar that are denied to the general populace.[33] Winston is astonished that the lifts in O'Brien's building function, that the telescreens can be switched off, and that O'Brien has an Asian manservant, Martin; indeed, all of the Inner Party are attended to by slaves captured in the disputed zone, and "The Book" suggests that many have their own motorcars or even helicopters. Nonetheless, "The Book" makes clear that even the conditions enjoyed by the Inner Party are only relatively comfortable and would be regarded as austere by the standards of the pre-revolutionary elite.[34]
The proletariat, or "proles," live in poverty and are kept sedated with alcohol, pornography and a national lottery (whose actual winnings are never paid out, a fact obscured by propaganda and lack of communication between various parts of Oceania). At the same time, the proles are freer and less intimidated than the middle class Outer Party; they are subject to certain levels of monitoring but are not expected to be particularly patriotic, lack telescreens in their own homes, and often jeer at the telescreens that they see. "The Book" indicates that this state of things derives from the observation that the middle class, not the lower class, traditionally started revolutions. The model demands tight control of the middle class, with ambitious Outer Party members neutralised via promotion to the Inner Party or "reintegration" by Miniluv, while proles can be allowed intellectual freedom because they lack intellect. Winston nonetheless believed that "the future belonged to the proles".[35]
The standard of living of the populace is low overall. Consumer goods are scarce, and those available through official channels are invariably of low quality; for instance, despite the Party regularly reporting increased boot production, upwards of half of the Oceanian populace goes barefoot. The Party claims that this poverty is a necessary sacrifice for the war effort, and "The Book" confirms this is partially correct, since the purpose of perpetual war is consuming surplus industrial production. Outer Party members and proles occasionally gain access to better-quality items through the black market, dealing in goods pilfered from the residences of the Inner Party.[citation needed]
Themes[edit]
Nationalism[edit]
Nineteen Eighty-Four expands upon the subjects summarised in the essay Notes on Nationalism (1945)[36] about the lack of vocabulary needed to explain the unrecognised phenomena behind certain political forces. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Party's artificial, minimalist language 'Newspeak' addresses the matter.
Positive nationalism: Oceanians' perpetual love for Big Brother; Neo-Toryism, Celtic nationalism and British Israelism are (as Orwell argues) defined by love.
Negative nationalism: Oceanians' perpetual hatred for Emmanuel Goldstein; Stalinism, Anglophobia and antisemitism are (as Orwell argues) defined by hatred.
Transferred nationalism: In mid-sentence an orator changes the enemy of Oceania; the crowd instantly transfers their hatred to the new enemy. Transferred nationalism swiftly redirects emotions from one power unit to another (e.g., Communism, Pacifism, Colour Feeling and Class Feeling). This happened during a Party Rally against the original enemy Eurasia, when the orator suddenly switches enemy in midsentence, the crowd goes wild and destroys the posters that are now against their new friend (Eurasia) and many say that this must be the act of an agent of their new enemy (and former friend) Eastasia. Even though many of the crowd must have put up the posters before the rally, they now say that the enemy has always been Eastasia.
O'Brien concludes: "The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
Futurology[edit]
In the book, Inner Party member O'Brien describes the Party's vision of the future:
There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.
—Part III, Chapter III, Nineteen Eighty-Four
This contrasts the essay "England Your England" (1941) with the essay "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius" (1941):
The intellectuals who hope to see it Russianised or Germanised will be disappointed. The gentleness, the hypocrisy, the thoughtlessness, the reverence for law and the hatred of uniforms will remain, along with the suet puddings and the misty skies. It needs some very great disaster, such as prolonged subjugation by a foreign enemy, to destroy a national culture. The Stock Exchange will be pulled down, the horse plough will give way to the tractor, the country houses will be turned into children's holiday camps, the Eton and Harrow match will be forgotten, but England will still be England, an everlasting animal stretching into the future and the past, and, like all living things, having the power to change out of recognition and yet remain the same.
The geopolitical climate of Nineteen Eighty-Four resembles the précis of James Burnham's ideas in the essay "James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution"[37] (1946):
These people will eliminate the old capitalist class, crush the working class, and so organize society that all power and economic privilege remain in their own hands. Private property rights will be abolished, but common ownership will not be established. The new 'managerial' societies will not consist of a patchwork of small, independent states, but of great superstates grouped round the main industrial centres in Europe, Asia, and America. These superstates will fight among themselves for possession of the remaining uncaptured portions of the earth, but will probably be unable to conquer one another completely. Internally, each society will be hierarchical, with an aristocracy of talent at the top and a mass of semi-slaves at the bottom.
Censorship[edit]
A major theme of Nineteen Eighty-Four is censorship, especially in the Ministry of Truth, where photographs are doctored and public archives rewritten to rid them of "unpersons" (i.e., persons who have been arrested, whom the Party has decided to erase from history). On the telescreens figures for all types of production are grossly exaggerated (or simply invented) to indicate an ever-growing economy, when the reality is the opposite. One small example of the endless censorship is when Winston is charged with the task of eliminating reference to an unperson in a newspaper article. He proceeds to write an article about Comrade Ogilvy, a fictional party member, who displayed great heroism by leaping into the sea from a helicopter so that the dispatches he was carrying would not fall into enemy hands.
Surveillance[edit]
The inhabitants of Oceania, particularly the Outer Party members, have no real privacy. Many of them live in apartments equipped with two-way telescreens, so that they may be watched or listened to at any time. Similar telescreens are found at workstations and in public places, along with hidden microphones. Written correspondence is routinely opened and read by the government before it is delivered. The Thought Police employ undercover agents, who pose as normal citizens and report any person with subversive tendencies. Children are encouraged to report suspicious persons to the government, and some even denounce their parents. Surveillance controls the citizenry and the smallest sign of rebellion, even something so small as a facial expression, can result in immediate arrest and imprisonment. Thus, citizens (and particularly party members) are compelled to obedience.
The Newspeak appendix[edit]
Main articles: Newspeak and list of Newspeak words
"The Principles of Newspeak" is an academic essay appended to the novel. It describes the development of Newspeak, the Party's minimalist artificial language meant to ideologically align thought and action with the principles of Ingsoc by making "all other modes of thought impossible". (For linguistic theories about how language may direct thought, see the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.) Note also the possible influence of the German book LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii, published in 1947, which details how the Nazis controlled society by controlling language.
Whether or not the Newspeak appendix implies a hopeful end to Nineteen Eighty-Four remains a critical debate, as it is in Standard English and refers to Newspeak, Ingsoc, the Party, et cetera, in the past tense (i.e., "Relative to our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, and new ways of reducing it were constantly being devised", p. 422); in this vein, some critics (Atwood,[38] Benstead,[39] Milner,[40] Pynchon)[41] claim that, for the essay's author, Newspeak and the totalitarian government are past. The countervailing view[by whom?] is that since the novel has no frame story, Orwell wrote the essay in the same past tense as the novel, with "our" denoting his and the reader's contemporaneous reality.
Sources for literary motifs[edit]
Nineteen Eighty-Four uses themes from life in the Soviet Union and wartime life in Great Britain as sources for many of its motifs.
The statement "2 + 2 = 5", used to torment Winston Smith during his interrogation, was a Communist party slogan from the second five-year plan, which encouraged fulfilment of the five-year plan in four years. The slogan was seen in electric lights on Moscow house-fronts, billboards and generally.[42]
The switch of Oceania's allegiance from Eastasia to Eurasia is evocative of the Soviet Union's changing relations with Nazi Germany, who were open adversaries until the signing of the Treaty of Non-Aggression. Thereafter, and continuing until the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, no criticism of Germany was allowed in the Soviet press, and all references to prior party lines stopped.
The description of Emmanuel Goldstein, with a goatee beard, evokes the image of Leon Trotsky. The film of Goldstein during the two-minutes hate is described as showing him being transformed into a bleating sheep. This image was used in a propaganda film during the Kino-eye period of Soviet film, which showed Trotsky transforming into a goat.[43] Goldstein's book is redolent of Trotsky's highly critical analysis of the USSR "The Revolution Betrayed", published in 1936.
The omnipresent images of Big Brother, a man described as having a mustache, evokes the cult of personality built up around Joseph Stalin.
The news in Oceania emphasised production figures, just as it did in the Soviet Union, where record-setting in factories (by "Heroes of Socialist Labor") was especially glorified. The best known of these was Alexey Stakhanov, who purportedly set a record for coal mining in 1935.
The tortures of the Ministry of Love evoke the procedures used by the NKVD in their interrogations,[44] including the use of rubber truncheons, being forbidden to put your hands in your pockets, remaining in brightly lit rooms for days, and the victim being shown a mirror after their physical collapse.
The random bombing of Airstrip One is based on the Buzz bombs, which struck England at random in 1944–1945.
The Thought Police is based on the NKVD, which arrested people for random "anti-soviet" remarks.[45] The Thought Crime motif is drawn from Kempeitai, the Japanese wartime secret police, who arrested people for "unpatriotic" thoughts.
The confessions of the "Thought Criminals" Rutherford, Aaronson and Jones are based on the show trials of the 1930s, which included fabricated confessions by prominent Bolsheviks Nikolai Bukharin, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev to the effect that they were being paid by the Nazi government to undermine the Soviet regime under Leon Trotsky's direction.
The song "Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree" ("Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you, and you sold me") was based on an old English song called "Go no more a-rushing" ("Under the spreading chestnut tree, Where I knelt upon my knee, We were as happy as could be, 'Neath the spreading chestnut tree."). The song was published as early as 1891. The song was a popular camp song in the 1920s, sung with corresponding movements (like touching your chest when you sing "chest", and touching your head when you sing "nut"). Glenn Miller recorded the song in 1939.[46]
The "Hates" (two-minutes hate and hate week) were inspired by the constant rallies sponsored by party organs throughout the Stalinist period. These were often short pep-talks given to workers before their shifts began (two minutes hate), but could also last for days, as in the annual celebrations of the anniversary of the October revolution (hate week).
The contractions of words, in which "Ministry of Truth" was shortened to "Minitrue" and "English Socialism" to "Ingsoc" was inspired by the Soviet habit of combining words. Smert Shpionam ("death to spies", a sub-division of the NKVD) was shortened to "Smersh". Dialectical Materialism was similarly shortened to "DiaMat", and The Communist International was referred to as the Comintern.[citation needed]
Nikolai Yezhov walking with Stalin in the top photo from the mid 1930s. Following his execution in 1940, Yezhov was edited out of the photo by Soviet censors.[47] Yezhov became an "unperson".
Winston Smith's job, "revising history" (and the "unperson" motif) are based on the Stalinist habit of airbrushing images of 'fallen' people from group photographs and removing references to them in books and newspapers.[48] In one well-known example, the Soviet encyclopaedia had an article about Lavrentiy Beria. When he fell in 1953, and was subsequently executed, institutes that had the encyclopaedia were sent an article about the Bering Strait, with instructions to paste it over the article about Beria.[49]
Big Brother's "Orders of the Day" were inspired by Stalin's regular wartime orders, called by the same name. A small collection of the more political of these have been published (together with his wartime speeches) in English as "On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union" By Joseph Stalin.[50][51] Like Big Brother's Orders of the day, Stalin's frequently lauded heroic individuals,[52] like Comrade Ogilvy, the fictitious hero Winston Smith invented to 'rectify' (fabricate) a Big Brother Order of the day.
The Ingsoc slogan "Our new, happy life", repeated from telescreens, evokes Stalin's 1935 statement, which became a CPSU slogan, "Life has become better, Comrades; life has become more cheerful".[45]
Influences[edit]
During World War II (1939–1945) Orwell believed that British democracy as it existed before 1939 would not survive the war, the question being "Would it end via Fascist coup d'état (from above) or via Socialist revolution (from below)
Later he admitted that events proved him wrong: "What really matters is that I fell into the trap of assuming that 'the war and the revolution are inseparable.'"[53] Thematically Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and Animal Farm (1945) share the betrayed revolution; the person's subordination to the collective; rigorously enforced class distinctions (Inner Party, Outer Party, Proles); the cult of personality; concentration camps; Thought Police; compulsory regimented daily exercise and youth leagues. Oceania resulted from the US annexation of the British Empire to counter the Asian peril to Australia and New Zealand. It is a naval power whose militarism venerates the sailors of the floating fortresses, from which battle is given to recapturing India, the "Jewel in the Crown" of the British Empire. Much of Oceanic society is based upon the USSR underJoseph Stalin—Big Brother; the televised Two Minutes Hate is ritual demonisation of the enemies of the State, especiallyEmmanuel Goldstein (viz Leon Trotsky); altered photographs and newspaper articles create unpersons deleted from the national historical record, including even founding members of the regime (Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford) in the 1960s purges (viz the Soviet Purges of the 1930s, in which leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution were similarly treated). A similar thing also happened during the French Revolution in which many of the original leaders of the Revolution were later put to death, for example Danton who was put to death by Robespierre, and then later Robespierre himself met the same fate.
In his 1946 essay "Why I Write", Orwell explains that the serious works he wrote since the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) were "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism".[2][54] Nineteen Eighty-Four is a cautionary tale about revolution betrayed by totalitarian defenders previously proposed in Homage to Catalonia (1938) and Animal Farm (1945), while Coming Up for Air (1939) celebrates the personal and political freedoms lost in Nineteen Eighty-Four(1949). Biographer Michael Shelden notes Orwell's Edwardian childhood at Henley-on-Thames as the golden country; being bullied at St Cyprian's School as his empathy with victims; his life in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma and the techniques of violence and censorship in the BBC as capricious authority.[55] Other influences include Darkness at Noon (1940) and The Yogi and the Commissar (1945) by Arthur Koestler; The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London; 1920: Dips into the Near Future[56] by John A. Hobson; Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley; We (1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin which he reviewed in 1946;[57] and The Managerial Revolution (1940) by James Burnham predicting perpetual war among three totalitarian superstates. Orwell told Jacintha Buddicom that he would write a novel stylistically like A Modern Utopia (1905) byH. G. Wells.[citation needed]
Extrapolating from World War II, the novel's pastiche parallels the politics and rhetoric at war's end—the changed alliances at the "Cold War's" (1945–91) beginning; the Ministry of Truth derives from the BBC's overseas service, controlled by theMinistry of Information; Room 101 derives from a conference room at BBC Broadcasting House;[58] the Senate House of the University of London, containing the Ministry of Information is the architectural inspiration for the Minitrue; the post-war decrepitude derives from the socio-political life of the UK and the USA, i.e., the impoverished Britain of 1948 losing its Empire despite newspaper-reported imperial triumph; and war ally but peace-time foe, Soviet Russia became Eurasia.
The term "English Socialism" has precedents in his wartime writings; in the essay "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius" (1941), he said that "the war and the revolution are inseparable ... the fact that we are at war has turned Socialism from a textbook word into a realisable policy" – because Britain's superannuated social class system hindered the war effort and only a socialist economy would defeat Adolf Hitler. Given the middle class's grasping this, they too would abide socialist revolution and that only reactionary Britons would oppose it, thus limiting the force revolutionaries would need to take power. An English Socialism would come about which "will never lose touch with the tradition of compromise and the belief in a law that is above the State. It will shoot traitors, but it will give them a solemn trial beforehand and occasionally it will acquit them. It will crush any open revolt promptly and cruelly, but it will interfere very little with the spoken and written word".[59]
In the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four, "English Socialism" — contracted to "Ingsoc" in Newspeak — is a totalitarian ideology unlike the English revolution he foresaw. Comparison of the wartime essay "The Lion and the Unicorn" with Nineteen Eighty-Four shows that he perceived a Big Brother régime as a perversion of his cherished socialist ideals and English Socialism. Thus Oceania is a corruption of the British Empire he believed would evolve "into a federation of Socialist states, like a looser and freer version of the Union of Soviet Republics".[60][verification needed]
Critical reception[edit]
When first published, Nineteen Eighty-Four was generally well received by reviewers. V. S. Pritchett, reviewing the novel for the New Statesman stated: "I do not think I have ever read a novel more frightening and depressing; and yet, such are the originality, the suspense, the speed of writing and withering indignation that it is impossible to put the book down".[61] P. H. Newby, reviewing Nineteen Eighty-Four for The Listener magazine, described it as "the most arresting political novel written by an Englishman since Rex Warner's The Aerodrome".[62] Nineteen Eighty-Four was also praised by Bertrand Russell, E. M. Forster and Harold Nicolson.[62] On the other hand, Edward Shanks, reviewing Nineteen Eighty-Four for The Sunday Times, was dismissive; Shanks claimed Nineteen Eighty-Four "breaks all records for gloomy vaticination".[62]
Cultural impact[edit]
See also: Nineteen Eighty-Four in popular media
"Happy 1984" stencilgraffiti, denoting mind controlvia video games, on a standing piece of the Berlin Wall, 2005.
Wall of an industrial building in Donetsk, Ukraine
The effect of Nineteen Eighty-Four on the English language is extensive; the concepts of Big Brother,Room 101, the Thought Police, thoughtcrime,unperson, memory hole (oblivion), doublethink(simultaneously holding and believing contradictory beliefs) and Newspeak (ideological language) have become common phrases for denoting totalitarian authority. Doublespeak and groupthink are both deliberate elaborations of doublethink, while the adjective "Orwellian" denotes "characteristic and reminiscent of George Orwell's writings" especiallyNineteen Eighty-Four. The practice of ending words with "-speak" (e.g. mediaspeak) is drawn from the novel.[63] Orwell is perpetually associated with the year 1984; in July 1984 an asteroid discovered by Antonín Mrkos was named after Orwell.
In 1977 The British rock band The Jam released the album 'This Is The Modern World'. The album includes the track 'Standards' by Paul Weller. This track concludes with the lyrics... "...and ignorance is strength, we have god on our side, look, you know what happened to Winston."
In September 2009, the English alternative rock band Muse released The Resistance, which included songs influenced by1984.[64]
References to the themes, concepts and plot of Nineteen Eighty-Four have appeared frequently in other works, especially in popular music and video entertainment. An example is the worldwide hit reality television show Big Brother, in which a group of people live together in a large house, isolated from the outside world but continuously watched by television cameras.
In November 2011, the United States government argued before the US Supreme Court that it wants to continue utilizing GPS tracking of individuals without first seeking a warrant. In response, Justice Stephen Breyer questioned what this means for a democratic society by referencing Nineteen Eighty-Four. Justice Breyer asked, "If you win this case, then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States. So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984... "[65]
In 1984, the book was made into a movie which starred John Hurt as the central character of Winston Smith. In 2006, the movie version of V for Vendetta was released, which has many of the same running themes and principles as 1984 and, coincidentally, also stars John Hurt taking on the role of the leader of a totalitarian party, though the film is based on thegraphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.[66][67] An episode of Doctor Who called "The God Complex" depicts an alien ship disguised as a hotel containing Room 101-like spaces, and quotes the nursery rhyme as well.[68]
Orwell wrote the book in 1948 as a satire criticizing Stalinism. The cultural impact of this book (Big brother) can be seen in today's world. The book touches on the invasion of privacy and ubiquitous surveillance. From mid 2013 it was publicized that the NSA has been secretly monitoring and storing global internet traffic, including the bulk data collection of email and phone call data. Sales of Nineteen Eighty-Four increased by up to 7 times within the first week of the 2013 mass surveillance leaks.[69][70][71] It is also seen in the book how mass media was a catalyst for the intensification of destructive emotions and violence. Since the 20th century news and other forms of media has been publicizing violence more.[72][73]
Adaptations and derived works[edit]
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In art[edit]
Good Morning, Mr. Orwell (1984) by Nam June Paik
Direct adaptations in film, radio, television, and stage[edit]
1984 (1949 radio programme), broadcast on NBC University Theater, with David Niven as Winston Smith
1984, 1953 CBS television broadcast in theWestinghouse Studio One series
1984 (1953 radio programme), broadcast on the The Theatre Guild on the Air, with Richard Widmark as Winston Smith and Marian Seldes as Julia
Nineteen Eighty-Four, the 1954 BBC Televisionprogramme
1984, the 1956 film
Theatre 625: The World of George Orwell: 1984[74]
Nineteen Eighty-Four, the 1984 film
Nineteen Ninety-Four (1985), a BBC Radio 4 radio comedy series and book (1986)
1984, a 2005 opera by Lorin Maazel
1984[75] (2013 radio programme), a two-part adaptation by Jonathan Holloway as part of BBC Radio 4's The Real George Orwell season, with Christopher Eccleston as Winston Smith, Pippa Nixon as Julia and Tim Pigott-Smithas O'Brien
1984, a 2014 play by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan.[76]
In film[edit]
THX 1138 (1971)
Brazil (1985)
Equilibrium (2002)
In literature[edit]
The genre of dystopian fiction
1985, by Anthony Burgess
1985: What Happens After Big Brother Dies, by Gyorgy Dalos[77]
Translations[edit]
into French by Aurélie Audiberti
into German by Kurt Wagenseil
into Vietnamese by Đặng Phương-Nghi
into Romanian by Mircea Gafița[80]
into Esperanto by Donald Broadribb[81]
into Polish by Tomasz Mirkowicz[82]
In music[edit]
Artists[edit]
Albums[edit]
1984 (1973) by Hugh Hopper
1984 (1981) by Rick Wakeman
1984 (1981) by Anthony Phillips
Diamond Dogs (1974) by David Bowie
DoubleThink (2010) by Akala
Obsolete (1998) by Fear Factory
The Battle of Los Angeles (1999) by Rage Against The Machine
The Resistance (2009) by Muse
Unpersons (2011) by The Pack A.D.
Welcome to 1984 (2007) by Jens Wennberg
Year Zero (2007) by Nine Inch Nails
Songs[edit]
"1977" by The Clash
"1984" by David Bowie
"1984" (1984) by New Model Army (band)
"1984" by Adestria
"1984" by Anais Mitchell
"1984" by Spirit
"1984" by The Kooks
"1984" by Sneaky Sound System
"1.9.8.4" by Louna
"A Bright Cold Day in April" (2009) by Sonic Boom Six
"Big Brother" by David Bowie
"Big Brother" (1972) by Stevie Wonder
"Big Brother" by Susumu Hirasawa
"Cult Of Personality" by Living Colour
"Citizen Erased" by Muse
"Doublespeak" by Thrice
"Doublethink" by Sean Nelson (recorded by theUniversity of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band on Lab 2011)
"Electric Eye" by Judas Priest
"Faceless" by Behind Enemy Lines
"Hey Big Brother" (1971) by Rare Earth
"Kill The Eye" (2014) by Medicine Maze
"Monitor" (1981) by Siouxsie and the Banshees
"Ministry of Love" (2012) by IO Echo
"Not 1984 (Give Me Some Love)" (2013) by Brother
"Nineteen-Forty-Eightish" by Roy Harper and Jimmy Page
"Oceania Will Fall" by Dryvel
"Orwell 1984" By Eminent Remains
"Resistance" By Muse
"RM. 101" by Chrome
"Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)", by Eurythmics
"Sons of 1984" by Todd Rundgren
"Talk Shows on Mute" (2004) by Incubus[84]
"Thought Criminal" by Velvet Acid Christ
"Two-Minutes Hate" (2004) by Betty X
"Two Plus Two Equals Five" by Star One
"Victory Gin" by The Menzingers
"Wake Up (It's 1984)" by Oingo Boingo
"Welcome to 1984" by Anti-Flag
"Watch Yourself" by Ministry
"Winston Smith" by Dogs
"Winston Smith Takes It On The Jaw" (1984) by Utopia
In television and radio[edit]
1984, a famous Apple Computer advertisement
Big Brother, a reality TV show based on the premise that the audience acts as Big Brother by watching the participants at all times
Room 101, a BBC television series
1985 (episode of the Goon Show), BBC radio comedy the Goon Show, released in 1955, features Winston Seagoon working for the Big Brother Corporation [85]
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
^ Jump up to:a b Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition (1996). HarperCollins:New York. p. 734.
^ Jump up to:a b Aaronovitch, David (8 February 2013). "1984: George Orwell's road to dystopia". BBC News Magazine (United Kingdom: The BBC). Retrieved 8 February 2013.
Jump up^ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition, Columbia University Press: 1993, p. 2030.
^ Jump up to:a b The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Sixth Edition. University of Oxford Press: 2000. p. 726.
Jump up^ Grossman, Lev; Lacayo, Richard (6 October 2005). "ALL-TIME 100 Novels. 1984 (1949), by George Orwell". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 19 October 2012
Jump up^ "100 Best Novels". Modern Library. Retrieved 19 October 2012
Jump up^ "BBC – The Big Read". BBC. April 2003, Retrieved 19 October 2012
Jump up^ Letter to Roger Senhouse, 26 December 1948, reprinted in Collected Works:It Is What I Think, p.487
Jump up^ Bowker, Chapter 18. "thesis": pp. 368–9
Jump up^ Bowker, pp. 383, 399
Jump up^ "Charles' George Orwell Links". Netcharles.com. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
Jump up^ John Rodden. The Politics of Literary Reputation: The Making and Claiming of "St. George" Orwell
Jump up^ CEJL, iv, no. 125.
Jump up^ Crick, Bernard. Introduction to Nineteen Eighty-Four(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984)
Jump up^ Nineteen Eighty-four, ISBN 978-0-14-118776-1; p. xxvii (Penguin)
Jump up^ Marcus, Laura; Nicholls, Peter (2005). The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature. Cambridge University Press. p. 226. ISBN 0-521-82077-4. "Brave New World [is] traditionally bracketed with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four as a dystopia ..."
Jump up^ "Full List — All Time 100 Novels". Time. 16 October 2005. Retrieved 25 March 2010.
Jump up^ "Freedom and Happiness" (a review of We by Yevgeny Zamyatin) by Orwell, Tribune, 4 January 1946.
Jump up^ "1984 thoughtcrime? Does it matter that George Orwell pinched the plot?", Paul Owen, The Guardian, 8 June 2009.
Jump up^ Hirtle, Peter B. "Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States". Retrieved 25 March 2010. As a work published between 1923 and 1963 with renewed notice and copyright, it remains protected for 95 years from its publication date
Jump up^ Canadian protection covers the author's life and 50 years from the end of the calendar year of his or her death.
Jump up^ South African copyright law protects literary works for the author's life plus fifty years; see the Copyright Act, No. 98 of 1978, as amended.
Jump up^ "1984, de Orwell, 60 años después – 25.07.2009 – lanacion.com". Lanacion.com.ar. 25 July 2009. Retrieved 20 June 2014.
Jump up^ Australian law stipulates life plus 70 years, since 2005. The law is not retroactive, and excludes works published in the lifetime of the an author who died in 1956 or earlier
Jump up^ Omani law provides for a copyright duration of 70 years after the death of the author since 2008, prior to this the copyright duration was only 50 years after the death of the author, and as the new law explicitly provides that it does not apply to works already in the public domain, this work remains in the public domain.
Jump up^ Part I, Ch. 1.
Jump up^ Part I, Ch. 3.
Jump up^ "striking thirteen" (1:00 pm). In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the24-hour clock is modern, the 12-hour clock is old-fashioned, Part I, Ch. 8.
Jump up^ "Under the spreading chestnut tree". .online-literature.com. Retrieved 8 June 2011.
Jump up^ Anne Gilchrist said it is "a version of an old English tune called 'Go no more a-rushing', which was arranged forvirginals by William Byrd and Giles Farnaby – by the latter under the title of 'Tell mee, Daphne' ... So 'Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree' is really an Old English – perhaps originally a dance – tune, preserved traditionally and lately modernized."
Jump up^ Anne G. Gilchrist, "'Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree': The Adventures of a Tune." The Musical Times, Vol. 81 (Mar. 1940), pp. 112–113.
^ Jump up to:a b Part II, Ch. 9
Jump up^ Reed, Kit (1985). "Barron's Booknotes-1984 by George Orwell". Barron's Educational Series. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
Jump up^ {{cite lines 29-35, page 229, Chapter X, Part II of the Penguin paperback edition of 1984: "The proles were immortal, you could not doubt it when you looked at that valiant figure in the yard. In the end their awakening would come. And until that happened, though it might be a thousand years, they would stay alive against all the odds, like birds, passing on from body to body the vitality which the Party did not share and could not kill."}}
Jump up^ "George Orwell: "Notes on Nationalism"". Resort.com. May 1945. Retrieved 25 March 2010.
Jump up^ George Orwell – James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution – Essay. George-orwell.org.
Jump up^ Margaret Atwood: "Orwell and me". The Guardian 16 June 2003
Jump up^ Benstead, James (26 June 2005). "Hope Begins in the Dark: Re-reading Nineteen Eighty-Four".
Jump up^ Andrew Milner: Locating Science Fiction. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012, pp. 120-135.
Jump up^ Thomas Pynchon: Foreword to the Centennial Edition toNineteen eighty-four, pp. vii–xxvi. New York: Plume, 2003. In shortened form published also as The Road to 1984 inThe Guardian (Analysis)
Jump up^ Tzouliadis, Tim (2008). The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia. New York: Penguin Press. pp. 48–49. ISBN 978-1-59420-168-4.
Jump up^ Vertov, Dziga (1985). Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05630-5.
Jump up^ Senyonovna, Eugenia (1967). Journey into the Whirlwind. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
^ Jump up to:a b Fitzpatrick, Sheila (1999). Everyday Stalinsm. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505001-0.
Jump up^ "Go No More a-Rushing (Riddle Song)". Sniff.numachi.com. Retrieved 2 January 2012.
Jump up^ "Newseum: The Commissar Vanishes". Retrieved 19 July 2008.
Jump up^ King, David (1997). The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia. Metropolitan / Holt. ISBN 0-8050-5294-1.
Jump up^ Schacter, Daniel L.; Scarry, Elaine, eds. (2001). Memory, Brain, and Belief (Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.ISBN 978-0-674-00719-2.
Jump up^ Stalin, Joseph (1944). On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. Moscow: Foreign Languages Press.
Jump up^ "Order of the Day, No. 130, May 1st, 1942". Retrieved 14 December 2011.
Jump up^ Stalin, Joseph (1970). On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. FOREIGN LANGUAGE PRESS — PEKING.
Jump up^ "London Letter to Partisan Review, December 1944, quoted from vol. 3 of the Penguin edition of the Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters.
Jump up^ "George Orwell: Why I Write". Resort.com. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
Jump up^ Shelden, Michael (1991). Orwell – The Authorized Biography. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-092161-7.; pp 430–434
Jump up^ John A. Hobson, 1920: Dips into the Near Future
paraphrasing Rayner Heppenstall, he reportedly said "that he was taking it as the model for his next novel". Bowker, p. 340.
Jump up^ "The real room 101". BBC. Archived from the originalon 5 January 2007. Retrieved 9 December 2006.
Meyers (2000), p. 214.
Jump up^ Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian (eds). The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 2: "My Country Right or Left" (1940–43; Penguin)
Jump up^ Orwell, George (2000). Orwell, Sonia; Angus, Ian, eds.George Orwell: the Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters (1st Nonpareil ed.). Boston: Nonpareil Books. p. 91. ISBN 978-1-56792-134-2. "The third was to develop apositive imperial policy, and aim at transforming the Empire into a federation of Socialist states, like a looser and freer version of the Union of Soviet Republics."
Jump up^ Irving Howe, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four : Text, Sources, Criticism. New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. ISBN 0-15-565811-5 (pp. 290–3).
^ Jump up to:a b c "First Bites: Nineteen Eighty-Four. Nigel Fountain,The Guardian, June 14, 1994.
Jump up^ Keyes, Ralph (2009). I Love It When You Talk Retro. St Martins. p. 222.
Jump up^ "Muse Discuss The Resistance, Their 'Very Personal' New Album". MTV. Retrieved 19 October 2012
Jump up^ "Justice Breyer warns of Orwellian government". The Hill. 8 November 2011. Retrieved 9 November 2011.
Jump up^ "Resistance and Power". Stanford University. 2 November 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
Jump up^ Adams, A. A. (1 September 2006). "From 1984 to V for Vendetta via Minority Report". University of Edinburgh School of Law. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
Jump up^ Mulkern, Patrick (18 September 2011). "Doctor Who: The God Complex". Radio Times. Retrieved 20 May 2012.
Jump up^ '1984' sales skyrocket in wake of US spy scandal,AFP, 11 Jun 2013. Retrieved 30 Jun 2013.
Jump up^ Sales of Orwell's '1984' Increase as Details of NSA Scandal Emerge, ABC News, 11 June 2013. Retrieved 30 Jun 2013.
Jump up^ George Orwell's '1984' Book Sales Skyrocket In Wake Of NSA Surveillance Scandal, Huffington Post, 11 June 2013. Retrieved 30 Jun 2013.
Jump up^ Savage, Robert (1989). The Orwell Moment. London: University Arkansas Press.
Jump up^ Gleason,"On nineteen Eighty Four"
Jump up^ "Headlong's 1984 to take over Spamalot at the Playhouse Theatre". bestoftheatre.co.uk. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
Jump up^ Dalos, Gyorgy (1983). 1985: What Happens After Big Brother Dies. Pantheon Books. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-394-53780-1.
Jump up^ Homenagem póstuma a Wilson Velloso (Tribute to Wilson Velloso), Daniel Silva. In Portuguese. Duplipensar.net, 7 December 2006. Retrieved 17 June 2013
Jump up^ Wilson Velloso; OAS News Officer and Foreign Reporter (Obituary). The Washington Post, 17 October 2006. Retrieved 17 June 2013
Jump up^ O mie noua sute optzeci si patru (in Romanian).Polirom. 2012. ISBN 978-973-46-3202-2.
Jump up^ Mil naŭcent okdek kvar. (ISBN 978-1-59569-249-8)
Jump up^ "Rok 1984 - George Orwell". lubimyczytac.pl. Retrieved 20 June 2014.
Jump up^ New Muse album 'inspired' by 1984 BBC. Retrieved 8 November 2011
Jump up^ Knodel, Lisa (27 February 2004). "[Compact Disks]". Dayton Daily News.
Jump up^ "The Goon Show Site - Script - Nineteen Eighty-Five (Series 5, Episode 20)". Thegoonshow.net. 4 January 1955. Retrieved 20 June 2014.
Further reading[edit]
Aubrey, Crispin; Chilton, Paul, eds. (1983). Nineteen Eighty-four in 1984: Autonomy, Control, and Communication (Repr. ed.). London: Comedia Pub. Group. ISBN 0-906890-42-X.
Bowker, Gordon (2003). Inside George Orwell: A Biography. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-23841-X.
Hillegas, Mark R. (1967). The Future As Nightmare: H.G. Wells and the Anti-Utopians. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-8093-0676-X
Howe, Irving, ed. (1983). 1984 Revisited: Totalitarianism in Our Century. New York: Harper Row. ISBN 0-06-080660-5.
Meyers, Jeffery. Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation. W.W.Norton. 2000. ISBN 0-393-32263-7
Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. A novel. London: Secker & Warburg.
Orwell, George (1984). Davison, Peter, ed. Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Facsimile Manuscript. London, United Kingdom: Secker and Warburg. ISBN 0-436-35022-X.
Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. A novel. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
Orwell, George (1977). 1984. Erich Fromm (Foreword) (reissue ed.). Signet Classics. ISBN 0-451-52493-4.
Orwell, George (2003 (Centennial edition)). Nineteen Eighty-Four. Thomas Pynchon (Foreword); Erich Fromm (Afterword). Plume.ISBN 0-452-28423-6.
Afterword by Erich Fromm (1961)., pp. 324–337.
Orwell's text has a "Selected Bibliography", pp. 338–9; the foreword and the afterword each contain further references.
The Plume edition is an authorised reprint of a hardcover edition published by Harcourt, Inc.
The Plume edition is also published in a Signet edition. The copyright page says this, but the Signet ed. does not have the Pynchon forward.
Copyright is explicitly extended to digital and any other means.
Orwell, George. 1984 (Vietnamese edition), translation by Đặng Phương-Nghi, French preface by Bertrand Latour ISBN 0-9774224-5-3.
Shelden, Michael (1991). Orwell: The Authorised Biography. London: Heinemann. ISBN 0-434-69517-3.
Smith, David; Mosher, Michael (1984). Orwell for Beginners (1st ed.). [London], Eng.: Writers and Readers Pub. Cooperative.ISBN 0-86316-066-2.
Steinhoff, William R. (1975). George Orwell and the Origins of 1984. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-87400-4.
Tuccille, Jerome (1975). Who's afraid of 1984? The case for optimism in looking ahead to the 1980s. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House Publishers. ISBN 0-87000-308-9.
West, W. J. (1992). The Larger Evils – Nineteen Eighty-Four: the Truth Behind the Satire. Edinburgh: Canongate Press. ISBN 0-86241-382-6.
External links[edit]
| Find more about Nineteen Eighty-Fourat Wikipedia's sister projects | |
| Definitions and translations from Wiktionary |
Media from Commons | |
Quotations from Wikiquote | |
Textbooks from Wikibooks | |
Database entry Q208460 on Wikidata |
Nineteen Eighty-Four at the Internet Book List
Nineteen Eighty-Four at the Open Library
Nineteen Eighty-Four title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
1953 Theatre Guild on the Air radio adaptation at Internet Archive
Electronic editions
George Orwell – Complete works, Biography, Quotes, Essays (missing chapter 10 of part 2)
George Orwell – Eric Arthur Blair (English)
Nineteen Eighty-Four, full text (public domain in Canada)
Charles' George Orwell Links – Biographies, Essays, Novels, Reviews, Images (with publication data)
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