25-Nov-2007: 1984
One of the most important books of the 20th century is George Orwell's 1984. It should be compulsory reading
in all secondary schools. When I taught senior secondary school English it was on my curriculum every year. Not only is it a
structurally sound book, but the symbolism is clear and consistent throughout. That makes it ideal for teaching that there is
much more to a book than the words on the page. (One of my students wrote in an essay, "I never knew there were
cymbals in books before." Oh, but it was tempting to write a margin note: "What? No drums?")
But far and beyond the mechanically importance of the book is its overwhelming message. A totalitarian government
controls its population by keeping them impoverished and uneducated. It deliberately redefines words so that they become to
assume their antonyms' meanings. It continually rewrites history, tearing away any sense of continuity and meaning from daily life.
Constant survellance and the promotion of betrayal as a virtue have crushed any sense of family and belonging.
Every now and then some pundit will note the increasing use of surveillance of the population by police and government
agencies and tie it to the novel. We know, instinctively what "Big Brother is Watching" means, but we do little about it,
generally agreeing that surveillance is a great way to fight terrorists and criminals. We even accept that argument when the
surveillance is deeper, nastier, more personal, and clearly in violation of constitutions and bills of rights that the governments are supposed
to be upholding and being ruled by. How do governments get away with this? Simple, just like in 1984 they play the fear card.
The "enemy" in the novel is shown to be a fraud created by the government itself. The population is never quite sure with whom their
country is at war or why, but it doesn't matter. The "enemy" is the reason they are living in poverty. It is the reason for the
constant surveillance and the "sacrifices" of the populace. I often think of 1984, especially when I hear the speeches of
George Bush's, Stephan Harper's, John Howard's, or Tony Blair's henchmen.
Case in point: almost half of American citizens believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks on the USA in September 2000. Even among
those who realize that the attackers were Saudi-sponsored, many believe that Hussein shielded and promoted international terrorism. The truth of the
matter is that Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks against the USA and any "terrorists" found in Iraq under his rule
would have been imprisoned, tortured and killed. And the growth in terrorism has been fuelled by one single factor: the United States' Iraq "incursion.".
Iraq is now overrun by "insurgents" (another word for "terrorists") that weren't there before the president of the United States launched an illegal invasion
of that country. Remember the book: War is Peace? How about The undertaking in Iraq is spreading peace and democracy throughout
the Middle East?—or words to that effect.
Now most of us realize that George W. Bush is a fool and probably the worst president that the United States (and the world) has endured. In fact, I doubt that anyone reading my
blog would disagree with that. It's easy to pin everything on him, but the roots of what we are seeing played out today are very deep.
Now what prompted this digression from the computing world in the 1980's is the front page headline in yesterday's Ottawa Citizen: "U.S. crime policy
failure raises alarm." Alright, so the editors of the Citizen have just discovered something that most of us have known for a long time: "tough"
laws are against crime do not lower the crime rate. You see, fear of capture and the consequences might possibly be responsible for preventing one crime in, say,
10,000, but most crimes are committed out of passion, desperation, or idiocy. You can't legislate against stupid brutes or greed. Would be nice, but we're not
there yet. Meanwhile, what happens when the state becomes as brutal as the criminals? It loses respect, at best, and earns contempt. Throw a man in prison and
what do his wife and children do? We certainly don't, as a society, do anything for them. That would be "coddling criminals," or something like that. If a man's
children are hungry and marginalized and the police and courts are just as ignorant and brutal as those around him, then his best bet lies with the protection of a gang.
In parts of the United States, the "golden rule" that children are being taught from the cradle is: "Don't snitch." That is so sad, so tragic, and is a direct result of
conservative attitudes towards crime and the people involved with it. If the state is seen as your enemy, then all the capital punishment and life sentences to hard labour
aren't going to change a thing. It'll just make you fight the enemy all the harder.
The Citizen was reporting on a report by the JFA Institute out of Washington. "Tough measures similar to Tories' omnibus bill are costly and pointless,
report finds," according to the newspaper. Apparently there are now eight times as many people in prison in the US today than there were in 1973, and yet the
crime rate is about the same. And now, Canada's Prime Minister, Stephan Harper, is determined to repeat the American experience. Throw more people in prison and give them
longer sentences and crime will...? What? Go poof! in a cloud of smoke?
The reality in Canada is that the crime rate has been in steady decline for the past ten years. Homicides are down 14%, sexual assault by 26%, aggravated sexual assault by
44%. Robbery with a firearm? Down 51%. Break and Enter? Down 43%. What sort of crimes have increased since 1996? Bail violations, by 40%; drug offences by 33%;
and counterfeiting by 426%. Now skipping bail and printing counterfeit bills are not socially-responsible things to do, but they are not the sort of crimes people worry
about when they think about crime. They think of murder, rape, robbery—the very crimes that have been in steady decline. So, why do we need to get
tough on crime at this point in our history? Could it have something to do with George Orwell's novel?
One way to look at it is to ask who can benefit from a general perception that crime is out of control and that we need to "get tough?" First up: politicians who
spread this message. It is easy to scare people and the "solution" they propose is easy to understand. Front page story: teenage girl stabs rival. Why should that scare
people who do not feud with deranged teenage girls? It does. It adds to the general unease of people who feel that the world is not a safe place.
And, it is politicians who have a lot to gain by convincing voters that the world is not safe and that only they can protect us. Remember in 1984 that the enemy
of the people who was behind every conspiracy, Goldstein, never really existed; he was an invention of the government. Governments need boogie-men in order to control
populations. There's always an "enemy."
But who, specifically, benefits from more people in prison with longer sentences? Could it possibly be the people who build prisons and supply the equipment needed to run a modern
prison? Silly? Name the two biggest products that keep the Texas economy booming. Yes, oil is number one. Number two is prison supplies and gear. It is a very big business, and
is headquartered, in the main, in Texas which has the harshest penal system in North America. The United States, the self-declared world champion of democracy and
individual freedom, has more people behind bars than any other country in the world, including China and Russia. 2.2 million Americans are behind bars; China, with more than
triple the US population, has 1.5 million
prisoners. One third of all black males of working age in the United States will spend time in prison sometime during their lives; one-sixth of Latino men will suffer
a similar fate. (By comparison, a white working-aged American male has a one in 17 chance of being a prisoner of the state during his lifetime; a figure I still find
outrageous.) A side-effect of a prison-happy state: increased poverty and family breakdowns. Just what the government in 1984 wanted in order to
maintain a strangle-hold over its citizens.
Of course politicians decry poverty and family breakdown, even as they slash funding for the very programs that try to alleviate some of the suffering. They
cut funding to programs that intervene with troubled youth and that do manage to lower the crime rate. They also cut funding to schools and other educational institutions.
The situation is so bad in some American school districts that schools are being run with no properly qualified staff and have 100% turnover every term. What
do such schools produce? Fodder for the prison system.
Now, of course, no politician would ever say he was in favour of expanding prison populations and, as a result, ignorance, poverty, poor health, broken families, and
alienated neighbourhoods, but that is precisely what they have been doing in the United States and what the government of Canada is trying to
emulate. Remember the Ministry of Truth that spread lies; the Ministry of Love that spread hatred? This is not just the stuff of speculative fiction; it is the reality of
the world we, in the West, have built for ourselves.