1984 Revisited
By Paula Johanson

 

This article first appeared in the St. Albert (Alberta) Gazette, August 27, 2002 I was pregnant in 1984, and now my daughter is studying George Orwell.   Orwell wrote a lot more than the novel 1984, but that's the one people remember best, and it's the one studied in schools. These days, if you've read anything political, or sociological, you've read 1984. It's one of the classics in our brave new world. It's worth re-reading, which I've been doing in between back-to-school shopping and putting what harvest I can glean from our garden into Mason jars and the freezer.

George Orwell

Oh, that and reading newspapers and Internet news services. It's strange to read the novel of Winston Smith earnestly re-writing old press releases so that the enemies mentioned conform with the current Enemy of the State, and then turn to actual news stories from far away. Who is the real-life Enemy of the State this month? Is it a cowering figurehead, or one who stockpiles weapons? Is it the government leaders who oppress and starve their own citizens, or the prisoners held without trial by a democracy? And are they enemies of our state, or our state of mind?

I find it even more unsettling to read the news from closer to home. It's always a lot easier to believe that a time of war will not destroy everything, once the harvest comes in. But the harvest isn't bringing good news this year, except about the sharing that some people are doing. My friend's Arabian horses will be boarded by a generous man, so that these gentle, imperial animals will not starve or be shot for dog meat. I thought about that while turning the pages of 1984. No animals appear in that bleak, totalitarian novel. There is no room for anything but the State. 

At least our own government is sending experts from Winnipeg to Europe, where the Elbe River is flooding. The Great Flood in Manitoba was a reminder to us all, like the Ice Storms back East and the Blizzard of '98 in Victoria, that there are great deeds to be done by soldiers and civilians alike in disasters. Heroes do not need to take up arms against our fellow humans to be heroes.

"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour," says Orwell.. "War is a way of shattering to pieces materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed...." If that angered me half as immediately as the housefly which persists in landing on my right arm, I should summon up the resolve to remove War from the world as effectively as I have dealt with the housefly.

It's hard to solve all the world's problems, but I wonder just how much War would go on if everyone had a full belly and a safe home, as I do here in Canada, even in a year of lean harvest. I wonder how much fighting and terrorism is caused by greed and hatred, and how much is due to hunger and insecurity which are more easily cured. I've read some sociology texts and political works; pretty dry stuff in general. Far more accessible is Orwell's novel, or one of the movies based on it. The newer film version of 1984 was filmed in England in the late weeks of August, 1984, just the time Orwell set his novel, which was as much about 1948 and the aftermath of World War I and II as it was about Orwell's beliefs on sociology, politics and the future.

And now, in the late weeks of August 2002 when the children born in 1984 are old enough to vote and to serve in our Armed Forces, it really is time to look seriously into issues of war and wealth, peace and prosperity, and ignorance and strength. We can look in the national newspapers or in novels to see greed and dominance, but we will have to look into our hearts to find the confidence and industry needed by all people.