George Orwell and the American complex terror

By Nicolas Bonnal

When Orwell wrote his most famous novel, which happened to be the most emblematic of dramatic past century, he was not writing about Soviet Union and Stalin. He was basically writing a dystopia about Britain, the ruined Britain of Churchill and Lord Beveridge, a desperate country ruled now by conservative nihilism, social security services and the ideology of iron curtain and cold war. Orwell gave to his republic the cromwellian name of Oceania, in reference to the dictator of the British puritan revolution who murdered his king and the catholic peasants of Ireland; but at least Cromwell created the patterns of a future imperial grandeur: the navy, the bank and the secret services. Cromwell believed too like the puritans he was a synthetic Hebrew. He devised modern democratic fanaticism, a long time before French Revolution. Read Orwell better: 

What was required in a Party member was an outlook similar to that of the ancient Hebrew who knew, without knowing much else, that all nations other than his own worshipped 'false gods'... He knew Jehovah and the commandments of Jehovah: he knew, therefore, that all gods with other names or other attributes were false gods.

Let us talk about fake terror. It is too present in 1984 and was recycled by the Washowski bothers in their strange and provocative movie Vendetta.

The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, 'just to keep people frightened'.

Frightened people are easily submitted and cheated. Possessed and traumatized by the screens, people believe like children in any conspiracy, in any theory, especially in a time we have to analyze - to swallow- simultaneously so many sources of images. So the people will accept any official conclusion and in the future any rule, any state of exception, any patriot act and the militarization of society, including a coup d'état organized by the omnipresent secret services and the most powerful military force in the world. Here too Orwell had predicted the authoritarian future of the west, which would be the opposite of Soviet Union (the later being so sweet and tolerant at the end...)

It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism.

Naomi Klein has very well described he reality (and not the theory) of the shock therapy. A shock therapy may be economical, psychological, and military. In order to impose a shock therapy you have to invent a false enemy or to increase his size: the worker in England (at the time of Thatcher), the communist contaminator of water (remember Dr Strangelove!), the Islamic wild man hidden in Afghani mountains (or in deep Russia now), the internet sceptic (dubbed a conspiracy theorist, someday a terrorist). Orwell has predicted us the future of the big game:

The tales about Goldstein and his underground army, she said, were simply a lot of rubbish which the Party had invented for its own purposes and which you had to pretend to believe in.

Orwell too knew the necessary democratic strong replica: as wrote last great French Marxist, Guy Debord, this society has been too good so far; so she needs no gloves now. Speaking of Afghanistan or Chechnya:

He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army... 

Always the religious fear of the heartland! Debord added that our new elites (this is obvious in this century) know now of what enemy they are rid of: shrewdness, courage, sense; Debord adds too they have nothing to do, these new elites, with enlightened despotism of Russian times: ask Libya, Syria or Serbia to see. They will use terror as a political tool to devise their shock therapies: the debt-crisis for instance in order to steal any account in Cyprus and impose food or health shortage like in Spain.

With Boston we are entering the dark ages of democracy, the times of zombie economics -10% of deficit financed by the Fed's indefatigable printing machine- and a time of global cultural voodoo (just watch one night of MTV to see). Once resilient (during Bush mandate) Hollywood has been turned into a propaganda machine and a war agency: see Bigelow or Argo. We may predict continuous and rabid attacks against our lives and against our liberties. Self-provoked Terror is the best weapon in the hand of our broke democracies ruled by a handful of humanitarian billionaires and their active agents. This is how Italy got rid of communism during infamous 'lead years'.

At the end of 1984, O'Brien quietly confesses his best crime:

You have read the book, Goldstein's book, or parts of it, at least. Did it tell you anything that you did not know already?'

'You have read it?' said Winston.

'I wrote it. That is to say, I collaborated in writing it.

Orwell writes this confession with a cold indifferent style, as if he knew we could not believe him, preferring the mainstream media thrash. And he was right: truth has become a moment of falsehood (Debord). We have to stand now this 'green-eyed monster' of mass disaster capitalism and I don't know where he is getting us to: to a world that will be a mix of Texas, Benghazi and Damas.

'I am with you,' O'Brien seemed to be saying to him. 'I know precisely what you are feeling. I know all about your contempt, your hatred, your disgust. But don't worry; I am on your side!'

Nicolas Bonnal