The purpose of this week's discussion is twofold.
Firstly, you'll begin to start thinking about the world you live in, and the world Winston lives in. Secondly, you'll learn how to focus a search by using specific keywords, or combinations of keywords. Consider using combinations of words rather than asking a question or typing a sentence.
I put together a short document on the course website that explains how to make an effective search. It's in the ENG4U1 files page, under the heading 'Technology', look for search_guide.pdf. It's here.
Search the Internet and find a legitimate newspaper, magazine, or scholarly article that deals with the reality (social or political) portrayed in 1984. Consider articles which deal with comparing aspects of our world with that of Orwell's dystopia.
Your article cannot be older than NOVEMBER 2007.
Once you've found an article, write a summary or response to the article. Your summary must follow the criteria set out for our class's blog.
Copy and paste the original article after your summary / response. Be sure to include the URL underneath your copy of the article.
NO DUPLICATED ARTICLES. ONE ARTICLE PER STUDENT.
Reserve your article by posting a comment to this thread, and state the URL, article title and author.
Search Engines of noticeable consideration:
Google - http://www.google.ca/
Google News - http://news.google.ca/
Google Scholar - http://scholar.google.ca/
Search Engine tips:
Read this amazing explanation http://www.google.ca/intl/en/help/basics.html#keywords
Use keywords
Use combinations of keywords
Do not type sentences or questions
Use quotations to force a word order
Use the + sign to force a connection
USE THE ADVANCED GOOGLE SEARCH
Keywords (I didn't think that I needed to do this, but given the responces ...)
1984
George Orwell
Orwellian
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58 comments:
Smile, Big Brother is watching you.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080324.wlsurveillance24/BNStory/Technology/home
London of 2008 gets closer to '1984,' troubling some Britons
By:Laurie Goering
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/article/london-of-2008-gets-closer-to-1984-troubling-some-britons/
Keeping an eye on Big Brother
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20080603/ai_n25482212?tag=content;col1
The Cost Of Resisting Chinas Big Brother
By: Bill Allan
http://www.sundayherald.com/mostpopular.var.2466653.mostviewed.the_cost_of_resisting_chinas_big_brother.php
Tracked with our cellphones
http://privacycouncil.org/tracked-with-our-cell-phones/
I always feel like somebody's watching me
-Leonard Pitts
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-pitts_17edi.ART.State.Edition1.458b79f.html
When Surveillance Cameras Talk
By: Thomas K. Grose
11 Feb 2008
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1711972,00.html
Forgotten Lessons of 1984 - Communication Breakdown in the 21st Century
link:
http://historyphilosophybooks.suite101.com/article.cfm/forgotten_lessons_of_1984
Big Brothers living legacy.
http://entertainment.times.online.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5212649.ece
George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-445897/George-Orwell-Big-Brother-watching-house.html
Does anyone know where to find the post-modern literary criticism information?
Where is it on the ENG4U site?
You think you are free?
By Linda S. Heard
Response
You think you are free? Is an article that clearly relates to George Orwell’s novel, 1984. While describing the control the government applies to Great Britain, Linda S. Heard uses Orwell’s words to explain the atrocities, which are often disguised as security, to offer an explanation of how the government is trying to control the British society.
The first point she makes is how Britain “currently holds a data base containing the DNA of 4.5 million people”, who were arrested for both serious and minor crimes. Under the excuse of ‘safety’ the government has taken the right to extract a person’s DNA- a person’s whole genetic information- and make it government property. But how is it that people are giving their identity so easily away?. “Ignorance is strength“ wrote George Orwell, and really, ignorance is strength when viewed from the government prospective.
The media is free of speech and is responsible for informing the populations of what is really happening in the world, but what happens when the media itself is run by the government?. Canada’s BBC News is an example. In this case our information is controlled and limited by the government itself, and we become ignorant beings, fearful of what we see in the news and “fearful populaces will do their bidding without question and willingly subject themselves to control” and this ignorance in itself is what makes the government so powerful or strong, as interpreted from George Orwell.
George Orwell’s Party policy “doublethink” can better describe this situation. Doublethink is the malleability of true in a person’s mind without the person‘ awareness. This holds true in our minds today where “RFID chips have been embedded on every packet of cigarettes manufactured in the UK since October last year”, and where we are not even aware of this happening, or where we are injected with ideas that make it acceptable for it to happen. Radio-Frequency Identification or RFID, is used for the purpose of identification and tracking of a person or object using radio waves. This demonstrates how our identity and privacy are taken away while the government exercises doublethink in our mind, portraying democracy and justice, where in reality “how could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept of freedom has been abolished” (pg. 56). Indeed no democracy or justice can exist where the limitations of our privacy and identity already exist.
But Linda S. Heard informs “not only do authorities want to control Briton’s movements, they are also after their thoughts”, she gives the shocking information of how “people can expect to be caught on camera up to 300 times per day and where their phone calls and internet browsing is routinely monitored”, this is easily related to 1984 where the masses where watched and where “the instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely” (Pg 2). Scary to belief that we are not only been watched, but we are also been persecuted. Linda writes about how five young Muslims were arrested purely for browsing “extremist propaganda”. In other words, there were arrested purely based on thought crime.
Violations of our identity, privacy and thoughts do exist. Britain may be a great example of it, but we can easily find examples in our own day to day life. We are all given a number of identification since the day we are born (SIN), and when we go to the mall or even to school we are been watched and captured in cameras. Our information is also monitored and regulated, where the government controls the media and where even on MSN we are asked to agree to having our conversations constantly watched. Of course most of us do not read the small letters, or take no notice of the infractions of our privacy and our own ignorance makes the government strong because we willingly subject ourselves to control.
In order to avoid this, we need to realize that although George Orwell’s book was written in 1948, the realities of what he talks about have persevered more than 60 years and will probably not size to exist until we “tear ourselves away from our pretty toys and distractions” and start looking deeper into our social reality.
You think you are free?
By Linda S. Heard, Special to Gulf News
Published: February 25, 2008, 23:41
Watching old movies makes me sad. I'm inevitably reminded of a kindlier, gentler world without cameras that spy on populations, where overseas traveling was pleasurable and privacy was an individual's right.
Nowadays, states are usurping responsibilities that are rightfully those of their citizens. Western so-called democracies, in particular, are supposed to have governments that are servants of the people, whereas, in fact, the opposite is true. Under the guise of doing what's best for us or ensuring our security, governments are exercising more and more control over our lives. And, tragically, we are facilitating this erosion of our own freedoms, mostly because we're not even aware it's happening.
The US and Britain are leading the pack in this encroaching Orwellian nightmare. "War is peace; Freedom is slavery; Ignorance is strength," wrote George Orwell in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four. In recent years, they have waged wars in the name of peace, put entire populations under their thumb in the name of freedom while government spin and a compliant media serve to keep people ignorant about their leaders' true motives.
If we only knew it we are being indoctrinated to offer up our personal freedoms to save ourselves from a horrible fate at the hands of nicotine, calories and Al Qaida. We are being taught to fear asylum seekers, climate change, crazed terrorists and even each other. Western governments are perfecting the politics of fear because fearful populaces will do their bidding without question and willingly subject themselves to control.
Britain has become a master of this technique. It currently holds a data base containing the DNA of 4.5 million people, arrested for both serious crimes and minor infractions. The police have found this tool so useful they are pushing to expand it to cover everyone in the country although the Home Office has rejected the idea for the moment.
By 2012 Britons over 16 will be required to hold biometric ID cards checkable by police, immigration and customs officials as well as public and private bodies such as travel agencies, airlines, banks and even retailers.
By 2010, Britain is also expected to incorporate Radio Frequency Identification memory chip in passports designed to carry a wealth of personal data on travelers.
Embedded
Further, there is a plan to embed RFID chips in vehicle number plates allowing authorities the capability of identifying any vehicle anywhere in all weathers. RFID chips have been embedded on every packet of cigarettes manufactured in the UK since October last year, while others have been fitted to trash cans officially to boost the rate of garbage recycling. Pets entering Britain from abroad are also chipped.
Apparently, the government is also considering injecting prisoners with RFID tags. If that goes ahead it's surely the slippery slope to babies being chipped at birth.
US has forced European airlines to hand over 19 pieces of information on travelers prior to their departure and wants to extend this one-way data flow to passengers over-flying the US en route to Central America and the Caribbean. UK wants the system to be used throughout Europe and domestically.
Not only do authorities want to control Britons' movements, they are also after their thoughts. Remember the Orwellian Thought Police, who used surveillance methods and psychological profiles to interpret the future goals of potential dissenters and deviants? This is already happening in the UK where people can expect to be caught on camera up to 300 times per day and where their phone calls and internet browsing is routinely monitored.
Earlier this month, three British Appeal judges had the good sense to quash the convictions of five young Muslims, prosecuted for simply downloading "extremist propaganda" from the internet. There was no other evidence against them and no proof they intended to act on any message contained in such material. In other words, their initial conviction was purely based on thought crime. The judgment read: "Literature may be stored in a book or on a bookshelf, or on a computer drive, without any intention on the part of the possessor to make any future use of it all."
Big Brother Britain isn't working. Indeed, the prisons are full to over-flowing and violent crime is on the up-and-up, much of it fuelled by drugs and alcohol. You've surely heard the expression "give a dog a bad name ..." Could it be that when law-abiding citizens are pre-judged as criminals some of them might conclude "What the heck"?
But Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four isn't exactly where Britain is headed. The reality is a combination of Orwell's theories and those set-out in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
As the American author Neil Postman wrote in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death whereas "Orwell feared the truth would be concealed from us, Huxley feared the truth would be droned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture" consumed by "an almost infinite appetite for distractions".
In a way they were both right. Unless we tear ourselves away from our pretty toys and distractions just long enough to remove our rose-colored specs, freedom will be obsolete except as a slogan above the gate of the Ministry of Truth.
LINK :
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/world/10192662.html
While reading George Orwell’s 1984, the initial reaction is that it is impossible to live in a society that Winston Smith lives in. After reading it closely and analyzing the novel, there is a realization that nearly everything can be related back to life today. The story in the novel depicts societies today all across the world. In the article, “Orwell’s Children,” Bruce Walker explains how similar society today is with the society of Orwell’s 1984.
In the novel, the party INGSOC realizes that they need to eliminate the idea of God in order to keep their people brainwashed. They can’t have the idea that God, or anything, came before Big Brother. Big Brother is the beginning of everything, and everything came from Big Brother. The idea is that the figure of God is replaced with Big Brother. Bruce Walker states that, “In Oceania, God simply does not exist.” In today’s society, this is shown through Nazi Germany attempting to eliminate the Sermon on the Mount, the Ten Commandments, and the Golden Rule. They attempted to replace God with the Nazi government just as INGSOC replaces God with Big Brother.
In order to keep the people of Oceania brainwashed, INGSOC needs to do something to keep different ideas from coming into their heads. Language and literature keeps the mind thinking, and lets the imagination go wild. The Party cannot have that because it puts ideas in the head, and thinking is wrong. Syme explains to Winston about the creation of the 11th edition of the Newspeak Dictionary, “We’re destroying words—scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050,” (Orwell, 53-54). This is seen through the Nazis creating “Aryan Science.” They tried to create their own ways, eliminating the old ones out of existence. Both the Party and the Nazis wanted everyone to believe that it is not right to speak or write in politically correct language, that “Politically correct language is rampant,” (Walker).
Symbols and images were also replacing words and ideas. The portraits of Big Brother seen all across Oceania are similar to the portraits of Stalin that could be seen all across the Soviet Union when he was in power.
The idea that something should be blamed for the flaws in the society is also reoccurring throughout the societies we live in today. The Jewish were blamed for anything that went wrong in Adolf Hitler’s life. He blamed them for everything, and they were severely punished. Across North America today, the Arabs are being discriminated against. Many Arab people are being accused of terrorism and are denied certain rights because of their descending background. In Orwell’s novel, the idea of Emmanuel Goldstein is portrayed as the one to be blamed. The society even created a time for the people to hate on Goldstein for all his wrong doings, called the Two Minutes Hate, “The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had become an actual sheep’s bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep,” (Orwell, 17).
Walker believes that we are living among Orwell’s children now. We live in a society that is identical to the society of Orwell’s 1984. Before long, we may even have an INGSOC of our own, followed by the Thought Police, and possibly even a room similar to that of Room 101.
Orwell's Children
By: Bruce Walker
November 16, 2008
URL: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/orwells_children.html
It has been sixty years since George Orwell wrote his chilling dystopian classic, 1984, and it has been thirty years since we saw the creepiest example of educated and free people willingly walking into a living dystopia. November 18, 1978, three decades ago, 918 people drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. Jim Jones, the communist leader of Jonestown, Guyana, had become "Big Brother." Soviet and Communist Chinese propaganda films and condemnations of capitalist and imperialist America blared continually to the subjects of this island of Leftist Hell.
Jonestown ended in mass suicide, but the real horror was that ordinary people, Americans like you and I, had become so decoupled from reality and morality that they could be led to surrender everything, even their lives, intoxicated only with the venom of modern Leftism. These were Orwell's Children.
We are drifting into the sort of horrific future he described. Too many of us for comfort or solace have become just like the denizens of Jonestown: Orwell's children -- a new generation of creature enraged into constant militancy against eternal enemies, oblivious to the notion of a Blessed Creator, melded into the consciousness of the party hive, divorced from history, hypnotized by images, inoculated against reason, stripped of family, and existing only to serve the cause.
Orwell did not write his book in a vacuum. 1984 describes the Soviet Union (the book describes Stalinist Russia so well so that subjects of that evil empire wondered when Orwell had lived there, though he had just described what he saw from the outside.) 1984 also describes Nazism and every other odious totalitarianism, which its secret police and propaganda machine and atomized subjects. But Orwell was very much also writing about the democratic western nations. His book was a warning of what could happen here. Oceania, the only totalitarian superstate actually descried in 1984, was largely America and the British Empire.
There were specific elements necessary for nations with a heritage of freedom to slide into the most absolute and abject slavery. These elements existed in Nazi Germany, they existed in Soviet Russia, and they exist in our free democracies today. What are the characteristics of the Orwellian state?
Start with God. He must go. The great Russian novelists knew this: "Without God, everything is permitted." In Oceania, God simply does not exist. The Nazis bragged that they would raise a generation "...without ever having heard of the Sermon on the Mount or the Golden Rule, to say nothing of the Ten Commandments." The Soviet persecuted anyone who followed the God of Jews and Christians. God is hounded in our world today. A generation of Orwell's Children are growing up without thinking about God at all or thinking that God is a silly idea cherished by sillier old fogies.
Truth must go too. Nazis embraced the "Big Lie." Soviets denied that honesty, per se, mattered. In Orwell's Oceania, the Inner Party members learn to even lie to themselves and to hold utterly contradictory beliefs at the same time. Truth and honesty have little meaning to Orwell's Children in our world. All truth is relative, all honesty a sham.
Language must be brought to heel. The Nazis did this by inventing meaningless words like "Aryan science." Marxism foisted upon us words like "capitalism," which means nothing at all but which has so infected our minds that we reflexively use this silly nonsense word instead of freedom. Politically correct language is rampant. We come to view words like "discriminate" as inherently evil, and other words like "viable fetal mass" have replaced the reality of murdered babies.
Image and symbols replace words. Hitler, whose disciples seldom recalled what Hitler said, always recalled the raw imagery of their leader. Stalin's portrait was as inescapable in the Soviet Union as the portrait of Big Brother in Oceania. We live in a word of symbols and images. Conservatives succeed in books and talk radio, media that deal in words. Orwell's Children live in the realm of symbols and images.
The books of the Nazis and Soviets were unreadable tomes like Mein Kampf, The Myth of the Twentieth Century (the two Nazi "masterpieces") or vast empty volumes of Marxist-Leninism. Is it an accident that the giant who most resisted this evil, Solzhenitsyn, was a devout Christian who mastered the written word better than any stooge of Hitler or the Politburo ever could?
Immutable oppressors are the final nasty element in dystopia. Hitler blamed Jews for everything. Stalin blamed kulaks and his enemies in the party for everything. Subjects of Orwell's Oceania saw Emmanuel Goldstein as the eternal, immutable enemy of the party. Today there is a drearily predictable list of oppressors. Christians, men, white people, the "rich" (whatever that is supposed to mean), America, and Israel are oppressors and nothing can ever change that.
Orwell even told us, by name, the professionals who would lead us into the nightmare of 1984: "sociologists," "teachers," "bureaucrats," "journalists," "professional politicians," "scientists," "trade union organizers," "publicity experts," and "technicians." (The term "community organizer" was unknown to him.) Those who enslave were those who taught students, who created the news, who sat in the halls of government power, and who defined official "truth" (at least truth de jour.)
Orwell's Children live among us now, not in tiny numbers in weird Marxist cults like Jim Jones' People Temple, but as leaders of Congress, as the establishment of academia, as the producers of news and entertainment, as the administrators of public schools, as the "experts" in a thousand myriad and odd fields of putative "expertise." They infatuate our bored children with the only reality and the only diversion that many can find. They wait for the rest of us to grow older and to die.
Will these children inherit the earth? History, not theology, has shown a single defense against the spreading contagion of Orwell's Children. Solzhenitsyn found God in the godless Gulag. Michael Power in early 1939 wrote: "In the Christianity of the German people, the National Socialist has found the one enemy it could not vanquish" - and Christians in Germany, alone, chose to voluntarily seek death before selling their souls to Nazism.
The Jewish refusniks proved indigestible to the brutal Soviet police state. When all else failed the Jewish people under the Nazis, devout Jews like my wife's mother clung to the Blessed Creator and survived the Holocaust. God can touch us all. God can protect us all from evil (not from harm - we all suffer and we all die - but from the much greater danger of the sort of evil Orwell described.)
Education, science, technological gadgetry, good medical care - all of this can not stop us from sliding into a massive Jonestown, a realized Oceania, a place marked by Dante's grim caution "Abandon hope, all you who enter here." We are all anchored in belief, but it is what we believe that matters. We can believe in the lies of Big Brother, which change each day with the needs of the party or we can believe in the truth of a living God. We can become the children of Orwell or the special creatures of God. Everything -- our nation, our world, our families, our communities -- flows from that choice.
George Orwell wrote the book 1984 based on his life going though the second World War. Thougn, some people may not know but he was inspired by much more than the war. Allan Browns article ‘Big Brothers Legacy’ tells of the place where George Orwell was inspired to create the dystopia in the novel based on this place in the real world. George Orwell’s life also plays a role in building the reality of Nineteen Eighty Four. Lastly the article tells of how his legacy is lived on in the reality of today. My article is about parts of the world which inspired the story of 1984 and how it is still cherished by one of Orwell’s own children today . George Orwell wrote one of the most well written works in ones opinion. This article written by Allan Brown of Times Online and talks about the very place on Earth that inspired the writer of Nineteen-Eighty Four. George Orwell spent the last of his days on the Island of Jura in The British Isles where he wrote the concluding sentence of his masterpiece. “He won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”(1). On the island George Orwell experienced its harsh climate and he often said he felt like a sucked orange according to the article although he wrote that he thought it was the most beautiful island in the British Isles although it rained a lot. One doctor who had Orwell as a patient told of “ The Dream of Jura” , which was Orwell’s belief that he has found the place of sustainability and moral hardiness”(1). This description is the complete opposite of what the world is in Nineteen Eighty Four as Airstrip One it is a place of the complete opposite.
Some believe that George Orwell was driven to the island by his dislike of post war London and his wife’s inability to conceive a child. One would say that this is very similar to Winston as readers would know that he too was not going to be able to have a child and that he is also depressed by the world around him. The greatest connection would be how just like Winston uses Charrington loft to escape Oceania and create there own paradise in the apartment George Orwell also leaves the world he knows and him and his wife create their own paradise on Jura. This island was huge part f George Orwell’s life and it is part of his estate which was inherited by his adopted son Richard Horatio Blair. Richard visits the Island frequently and has inherited it along with his cottage. Richard says that this island has become his “spiritual home” and says that he enjoys it very much. The article goes on to talk about how Orwell raised young Richard from there time in Barnhill which is on the island of Jura . Barnhill was where Orwell raised his adopted son and it is what many believed to be a glum place which there would be one disaster after another making it a world that could also have played a role in 1984. Today, Richard still visits the world of Jura with his family and says he is glad for what George Orwell did for him as he is the proud owner of his estate. The main thesis of this article is that George Orwells 1984 is started from the world around him and that even today the legacy of big brother is passed on to another. This article talks about how the world he lived in possibly inspired his dystopia and how his legacy is carried out today. . From reading this article it is obvious that the reality of the world George Orwell lived in inspired the dystopia of Nineteen Eighty-four. This island in our world inspired the story for a fictional world in one of the greatest works of literature made The fact that one of his own children lives there now beckons the question as to what the “paradise on earth” might inspire in him.
Big Brother’s living legacy
Page 1(There are too many pages )
Allan Brown
http://entertainment.times.online.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5212649.ece
Give or take the slippage occasioned by the vagaries of Hebridean Mean Time, it was 60 years ago this fortnight that, in a freezing, halfderelict attic room at the northern tip of Jura, George Orwell typed the closing sentence — “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother” — of the novel that has colonised the contemporary imagination like no other.
Never has there been a fiction that anticipated and condemned as definingly as Nineteen Eighty-Four a world in which political obedience replaces free will; that monolithic fever-dream of Big Brother, the Ministry of Truth, Hate Week and public hangings in Victory Square — all written, paradoxically, at a window with views straight from the front of the island’s tourist pamphlet.
Orwell died in 1950, picked off finally by the tuberculosis that had plagued him for years and that had been worsened beyond measure by the howling inhospitality of Jura’s climate; he felt at the time, he said, like “a sucked orange”, although he had also written to one acquaintance that “these islands are one of the most beautiful parts of the British Isles. Of course, it rains all the time, but if one takes that for granted, it doesn’t seem to matter.” His sister, Avril, his nursemaid and helpmate on Jura, followed him to the grave in 1978. The few locals with whom Orwell had dealings, to learn how to generate his own electricity or to snare rabbits, were already getting close to their makers when Orwell landed across the Sound of Islay at Port Askaig after his 48-hour journey from a blitzed London.
The last living link with the composition of history’s most unlikely blockbuster, fashioned in the least plausible of settings, is Richard Horatio Blair, the son Orwell adopted as a baby in 1944. Blair is the inheritor of Orwell’s estate, a thriving concern benefiting from its subject’s immortal renown as the laureate of austere fretfulness; annually, the estate earns Blair a six-figure sum, he says, “though I wouldn’t like to specify whether it’s at the high or low end of that spectrum”.
The less tangible dividend of the association, however, has been Blair’s indelible and life-long connection to the place that inspired, sustained but exhausted his illustrious father. Orwell’s doctor once spoke disparagingly of “the dream of Jura”, his patient’s belief that finally he had found an idyll of self-sustainability and moral hardiness, a terrain equal to his suspicion of comfort and privilege.
The dream ended when Orwell was shipped off the island in 1949, to expire in London after a calamitous prescription of streptomycin. But his son continues to live the dream on Orwell’s behalf. Though based in Warwickshire and retired after a career in farm machinery, Blair retains a cottage funded by his father’s royalties at Ardfern, and visits Jura several times a year. The island, he says, has become his “spiritual home”.
Perhaps the most infamous tale of Orwell’s time on Jura concerns his disastrous attempt to pilot a small craft through the perilous Gulf of Corryvreckan, the world’s third-largest whirlpool, a tumultuous, boiling passage off the island of Scarba. Hopelessly ill-prepared, the writer and his son ended up drenched and shipwrecked on Eilean Mor: “I try not to think about that one too often,” Blair says, “because with a legend like my father, fact and fiction get mixed so readily. People sometimes add details. It’s better to keep a little distance between yourself and your memories.”
In recognition of this event in the Orwell mythology, though, Blair has stipulated in his will that, when the time comes, his ashes are to be scattered in the whirlpool. Because Corryvreckan so nearly claimed him in life, he says, it’s welcome to have him in death: “It will be my final farewell, having them cast into that Gulf,” says Blair. “I put my uncle Bill’s ashes there, my father’s brother-in-law, and I’m going to go the same way. I shall always be very proud of my father and our trip there, ill-fated as it was.”
It’s difficult to overstate the inaccessibility of Barnhill, the imposing five-bedroom crofthouse that Orwell leased from a local family, the Fletchers. His diaries of the stay reveal the impish delight he derived, when friends threatened to visit, from itemising the endless stages of travel involved. Once you’re at Craighouse, the island’s biggest settlement, you follow 25 miles of looping single-track roads, fearing collision at any moment with the many red deer who use the road as a footpath. But that’s the easy bit. The final seven miles are along a track of rock and rubble that rattles down the flank of a hill to sea level. Only 4x4s can survive it; Orwell’s doctor forbade him from riding his motorbike on the track lest the exertion bring on a haemorrhage in the lungs. Orwell ignored him.
Similarly, the Corryvreckan story is so well-remembered, one suspects, because it feels so emblematic of Orwell’s Jura project. It seems the bloody-minded last hurrah of the man who all but founded the awkward squad, a suicidal pilgrimage.
There are various strands of theory among Orwellites as to why he alighted on Jura. It’s one of the great question-marks of literary history. It was perhaps because he was invited by his old Etonian friend, David Astor, then editor of The Observer, whose grave lies next to Orwell’s in an Oxfordshire churchyard. Others speculate that the writer had been driven to despair by the squalor of post-war London. Fatherhood had been an ambition long denied to him by the medical shortcomings of his first wife, Eileen; having adopted Richard, Orwell may have been typically overzealous in his quest for a safe and wholesome environment for the boy, albeit one that was 30 miles from the nearest copy of The Beano; in its place, Orwell taught himself carpentry and made Richard a wooden toy.
Blair thinks the real reason for his father’s exile probably contained a grain of each of these motives. But it mustn’t be forgotten, he adds, that for a figure so commonly seen as dour and sour, Orwell harboured a strong romantic streak, a restless penchant for adventurism. Jura joined the ranks of colonial Burma, civil war Spain, the coal mines of Wigan and the kitchens of Paris as the locales in which the writer tested the limits of human tolerance.
“It started as a holiday with the Astors, who have an estate on Jura,” says Blair, “and my father liked it so much he decided to live there. I don’t think he ever fully worked out why he was there. But he had the germ of this novel in his head. He wanted to get started and Jura would allow him to get away from distraction. Of course, the problem then became the distraction of learning how to run a household. The winter of 1947 was a cracker, desperately bad, and the hardships perhaps became trickier than he’d anticipated. One wonders if he fully appreciated the practicalities of living there. Even if he had, I doubt it would have made much difference. For some reason, my father loved privation — he liked to get into the role a bit.”
“1984” is full of challenging ideas. In the novel, constant surveillance through “telescreens” is very difficult to hide from. Orwell explains surveillance as a government activity. The theory of semiotics applies to the telescreens because the message behind it, which is the aggressive Inner Party, keeps the society in order, certainly not the telescreen physically. The Inner Party relates to fascism and dictatorship because it rules the country militarily and monitors the entire country for its leader, Big Brother. Today, surveillance and being constantly watched disturbs people’s privacy. This applies to the world in the post 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center era. Society, not only in the United States but all around the world, is being watched. Governments use email, internet, wireless systems, and security cameras everywhere to monitor any suspicious actions. Fear is one of the biggest emotions a person can’t show because of the semiotically based ideas the governments feed into society.
Freedom and privacy are what all human beings demand. Freedom cannot exist if the governments constantly watch people. Freedom and privacy are not found in “1984”, especially with the severe brutality the Inner Party enforces on its people if they break the law. Technology is evolving so rapidly that people are being watched by private government agents and telephone companies constantly. The creation of the GPS system is one of the biggest advances in technology today, pinpointing a person within a few meters. Verizon Wireless employees accessed President-elect Barack Obama’s cell phone records, which is an unauthorized action. In “1984”, the ideas behind the telescreens force people to stand orderly in line. The subjects in “1984” are so brainwashed that they must report on one another if a person is acting “abnormally”. Facebook and Myspace are the biggest Web sites in the world that expose data. Pictures, videos, emails and phone numbers are viewed by a lot of people, even hackers. Adults or parents ask why teens expose their data on these websites. The answer remains uncertain, but it is still a wrong thing to do. All information is being tracked in the real world with the evolution of technology. In the same way, people in “1984” are being watched and fed information by the party, in comparison to the internet today.
The use of propaganda by governments causing citizens to fear them creates problems. There is no war in “1984”. It is just propaganda used by the Inner Party to maintain order, such as posters and telescreens. Fear doesn’t lie in the fact that there is somebody watching constantly, but fear lies in the fact that they could be watched at any time. It has come to a level that people can get fed up with propaganda and fear, that they team up and build humanity. Moreover, governments feed people with lots of useless information and a lot of false ones too. For example, North Korea has already sent out doctored pictures of Kim Jong. Several countries in the Middle East have also unveiled doctored images of what is suspected to be long range missiles that are bought from Russia and modified. Propaganda can be used as threats too, which relate with Iran and Israel. Iran has tested long range missiles and some of them have had launch failures, which were also doctored. This comes back to “1984” with the false wars going on and the posters of Big Brother.
Article:
What would Orwell do?
By Brian Kernighan
Columnist
Published: Monday, November 24th, 2008
George Orwell delivered the final manuscript of "Nineteen Eighty-Four. A novel" almost exactly 60 years ago. The book has had a strong influence on language through words like newspeak, doublethink, Big Brother and of course the adjective "Orwellian," but fortunately Orwell's dystopia didn't materialize in the real year 1984.
One of the technological ideas in "1984" was pervasive surveillance and monitoring through the "telescreen," a two-way communication device that was very difficult to hide from. In Orwell's novel, surveillance was a government activity. That's still true today, especially since Sept. 11, 2001, with ubiquitous cameras and greatly increased monitoring of communications like e-mail, sometimes within the law and sometimes arguably well outside. Orwell could have written a fine new edition exploring how governments might use today's technology.
I've been struck, however, by a different kind of surveillance that was not part of Orwell's worldview at all, at least as I remember the book. (I had planned to re-read "1984," but the three or four shelves of Orwelliana in the depths of Firestone hold but a single copy, in Polish.)
The surveillance I have in mind is not governmental but commercial. The march of technology has given us ever smaller and cheaper gadgets, especially computers and cell phones, and pervasive communication systems, notably the internet and wireless. As an almost accidental byproduct of this progress, we have voluntarily given up an amazing amount of our personal privacy, to a degree that Orwell might well have found incredible.
In my class I sometimes ask whether people would willingly carry a device that can track their every movement and report exactly where they are at every moment. Of course no one would ever do that, but in fact everyone does, since every student carries a cell phone that is never turned off. Older phones only know to within a few hundred meters where you are, but newer phones with GPS have you pinpointed within a few meters.
So phone companies know where your phone is. Would they reveal that information? As I write this, we have just learned that Verizon employees have been checking out President-elect Barack Obama's cell phone records. Clearly this was unauthorized, but it's not hard to imagine ways in which your physical location could be used commercially, for example to send location-dependent advertising to your phone. Would you be willing to let the phone company use your location in return for lower rates or a sexier phone? Experience suggests that most people would be quite happy with such a trade - privacy is good but it is often given away or sold off quite cheaply.
On the internet, students are astonishingly willing to broadcast the most intimate details of their lives on myspace.com and facebook.com, though this pendulum may be swinging back as it becomes clear that more than just your friends are watching: Prospective employers check out candidates, as do college admissions offices.
Facebook and similar sites have an enormous amount of data about relationships among people, though their attempts to make a profit from it have met with mixed results. There was real pushback a year ago when Facebook exposed purchases made by members on third-party sites; this was deemed going too far. On the other hand, when Facebook added a "news" mechanism a couple of years back, a surprising number of people didn't mind having their changes of relationships and other facts broadcast far and wide without explicit consent - privacy given away again.
Most websites use cookies to track repeat visitors; companies like DoubleClick, recently acquired by Google, sell this information to advertisers. We were talking in class last week about how cookies work. I was faced with the usual wall of open laptops (in some ways a sore subject, to which we may return some day), but for once they provided a teachable moment. I asked everyone to pause in their chatting, surfing, twittering, mailing and similarly crucial activities and count the cookies on their computers. "How many do you see?",I asked. The first answer, quite representative, was a shocked "I can't count them!" That led to a discussion of whether the benign uses of cookies outweigh their privacy-invading role of monitoring what sites you visit. Most people seemed a bit taken aback at all of this, and I'll bet that a fair number of cookies were subsequently deleted. This is one place where you can recapture some privacy at no cost - if you stop accepting cookies from third parties (the advertising companies), the web keeps right on working.
Scott McNealy, at the time CEO of Sun Microsystems, once said "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." Sadly, it's pretty close to true these days. The remarkable thing is that we seem to have given it away, and continue to do so, for pretty much nothing at all in return. Orwell could have written a book about it.
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/11/24/22217/
Google's New Flu Tracker: A Public Service or Shades of Big Brother?
By: Irene Jones--HispanicBusiness.com
Google is now keeping track of how many times you search for illnesses and disease. And it's sharing this data with the government.
Some people are calling Google's launch of its Flu Tracker a good thing -- it supposedly will help those who need to know to see what locales the flu seems most prevalent and where it appears to be spreading. It also is supposed to serve as an early warning system for health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), based in Atlanta.
However, not everyone agrees. Opinion blogs around the world are questioning the ethics of such a "tracker." The principal questions concern an individual's right to remain anonymous and the ominous idea that George Orwell's "Big Brother" is watching every move you make -- in this case, every click you click. Google claims that it is only tracking "trends," not individuals who are ill.
Google insists it doesn't keep track of confidential, personal data, only search engine trends, which, it states, remain anonymous because of the way they are structured. However, the Flu Tracker is one way Google executives thought it could share its data beyond "simple trends," according to its corporate site.
Quoting from the company's own blog, Google wanted "to explore if we could go beyond simple trends and accurately model real-world phenomena using patterns in search queries. After meeting with the public health gurus on Google.org's, we decided to focus on outbreaks of infectious disease, which are responsible for millions of deaths around the world each year."
As Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt explained to journalists in London last May, that company's objective is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." One way to do this is to gather personal information and statistically organize it to see what trends emerge -- or, in the case of the Flu Tracker – what illnesses emerge.
In its own defense, Google adds that its Flu Tracker could not be used to identify individuals because it only uses "aggregated counts" about weekly search queries. However, the site also claims to be working in "real time."
Apparently the Flu Tracker has been working longer than its Nov. 11 public launch. The CDC states that a test completed last year showed that Google's new tool found flu outbreaks two weeks quicker than the CDC's tracking devices, which include hospital and state health department reports.
"The sooner we have indication that flu is in a community, the earlier public health officials can take action," said Glen Nowak, spokesperson from CDC. To check the accuracy of last's year's test, five years of search data was contrasted with CDC reports, showing comparable flu incidents in various regions. "The comparison showed that the tracking from both sources coincided, but both parties acknowledge that more testing is needed," Mr. Nowak added.
However, Google has tried to reassure everyone that this sensitive data is in good hands. Its corporate site adds, "Of course, we're keenly aware of the trust that users place in us and of our responsibility to protect their privacy. Flu Trends can never be used to identify individual users . . . The patterns we observe in the data are only meaningful across large populations of Google search users."
Meanwhile, M.I.T. professor Thomas Malone, indicated, "I think we are just scratching the surface of what's possible with collective intelligence," while Google's Eric Schmidt, in his own words, admits, "From a technological perspective, it is the beginning."
The burning question is: the beginning of what?
Response: In the world of George Orwell’s 1984, the people are constantly under surveillance so that their imagination and humanity is dissolved to nothing. The Party is in total control over the people and the outer members and proles are unable to revolt because of fear of being prosecuted by the Thought Police. A world like this seems hard to imagine, but after a close analysis of this novel, it is hard to miss the similarities that our society has to Orwell’s fictional one.
After 9/11, the security of one’s country has become of utmost importance to the government. Now there are security cameras in every building or store and even on the streets. In order to travel anywhere one must bring identification and be searched multiple times to make sure that nothing can harm others. Also there are trackers on phones and wireless internet that allows Government workers access to your everyday activities. The amount of security is similar to Orwell’s fictional world and it is just as intense and petrifying as it is in the novel.
With the release of the Flu Tracker, Google is able to see which areas are highly populated with flu searches and help people to be informed about the flu. Although the Flu tracer was just released to the public this November, it has been working without our knowledge for over a year and now that it is flawless we are introduced to it. But if this trend tracker works, what will stop Google and companies like the CDC from retrieving all Google search records. This is a major invasion of privacy and if used on a larger scale for something more serious, then our world will just as bad as the 1984 world. Even with the assurance that in the present no individual will be identified, what stop them from looking at that in the future?
“The M.I.T. professor Thomas Malone, indicated, ‘I think we are just scratching the surface of what's possible with collective intelligence,’ while Google's Eric Schmidt, in his own words, admits, ‘From a technological perspective, it is the beginning.’” Why is it necessary for our world to be technology based, so that in the future people will be afraid to react to a situation wrong without being spied upon or worse, killed? Maybe our world is more like Oceania then we think.
Response:
There’s no doubt that George Orwell’s 1984 is a masterpiece. What is hard to accept is the fact that the novel is a consummate manifestation of today’s society. Orwell’s ideas may be stretched, but it is clear without ambiguity, that some aspects of our society mimic the novel flawlessly while others are rapidly moving in that direction. Constant surveillance, unjust imprisonment, manipulation of thought; alarming is the fact that these terms are not difficult to comprehend for the generations of present society. One element of 1984 I had hoped would remain fictional was the conformity enforced by the Thought Police. With the slightest indication of unorthodoxy—a flicker of the eyes, a whispered mumble—these officers have, according to the Party, reasonable grounds for incrimination. Unfortunately, this concept is not as alien as I had first thought.
In November 23, 2008’s edition of The Province, an article was published entitled, “Thought Cops on Campus”. The article defines a program established at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario this past September. The program consists of six students employed as “dialogue facilitators”. Hired to intrude and meddle in conversations of their fellow students, specifically ones based on issues regarding “social justice”, the employees and employers have been repeatedly criticized. Those counter-arguing the motives and political incorrectness behind the program have justly dubbed the six “Thought Police”, labeling the operation Orwellian.
Vice-Principle of the University, Patrick Deane, has defended the program, stating, “The program has a very simple goal: to foster amongst students, in their ordinary interactions, a spirit of mutual respect and understanding, especially where they might potentially be divided by differences of racial identity, religious commitment, sexual orientation or ethnicity”. In his attempt to defend it, Deane has managed to further illustrate the parallels between the program and Orwellian concepts. Certainly the University is not intentionally attempting to diminish individuality, or so one would hope, but by eliminating the differences amongst its students, that is exactly what the University is doing.
Manipulated by Queen’s Intergroup Dialogue is one of the most basic rights granted to citizens: the freedom of speech. People have—or so they should—the right to their own opinions, regardless of whether or not it is contrary to the commonly-accepted views of society. Unless these contradictory opinions generate violence or illicit hatred towards a group of people, they are, in no way, a problem in need of a resolution.
With the program introduced at Queen’s University at the start of the 2008-2009 school year, today’s society gets one step closer to the seemingly outrageous privacy and freedom-eliminating society planted in Orwell’s 1984. We are under constant surveillance, the information we receive is biased and manipulated, cases of the wrongfully accused are no longer a rarity, and now, thanks to the educators at Queen’s University, our freedom of speech has been altered and compromised in order to create a state of conformity. It is unnerving, to come to the realization of the speed in which our society is becoming totalitarian.
Article:
Thought cops on campus
The Province
Published: Sunday, November 23, 2008
Recently, word got out that Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., had hired six students to work as "dialogue facilitators" responsible for intervening in conversations around such "social justice" issues as race, sexual orientation, social class, etc.
The ball was put on the tee and Ontario's opinion leaders hit it out of the park -- "thought police," "KGB" and "Orwellian" are only a few of the nicer comments directed at Queen's.
Patrick Deane, vice-principal at the university, struck back with a memo to the alumni that said in part, "Queen's Intergroup Dialogue, a modest pilot program initiated in the residences this September, has attracted a good deal of attention in the press, where its nature, goals and operation have been seriously misrepresented."
Deane's memo stated "the program has a very simple goal: to foster amongst students, in their ordinary interactions, a spirit of mutual respect and understanding, especially where they might potentially be divided by differences of racial identity, religious commitment, sexual orientation or ethnicity."
Deane denies this means the institution of higher thinking wants to become an institution of higher thinking-like-us.
Sorry, but we don't see your motives here as pure.
But more importantly, why the hell does Queen's University feel the need to facilitate casual dialogue?
The whole idea of having trained buttinskis walking around campus is at once juvenile and terrifying.
If you really are that concerned about facilitating proper dialogue, we suggest you spend more time investigating the musings of tenured staff members decades beyond their past-due date.
© The Vancouver Province 2008
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/editorial/story.html?id=6dc58dec-65a6-4572-997f-00f2b326ae6f
In response to his book, George Orwell once said: "I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe that something resembling it could arrive. Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere." In today’s world people often accept the excuses from the government (Big Brother), and are manipulated into accepting the perpetration of their freedoms and privacy in the name of security and safety. That is the common excuse given to people, when there are more cameras in the streets and when their information is being recorded, such as the speed they are going when they drive on highway ramps. However, these excuses are only given to people in response to the evident things they notice, though they’re much more invasions of privacy that people are just oblivious to.
In 1984, Big Brother was always watching and was the idea behind the telescreens. The telesreens were able to receive as well as transmit, which meant it was possible for Big Brother to watch and survey you at anytime. Today, while technology progresses this telescreen idea gets closer and closer to reality. A device that continues to get more and more common is the cell phone. People young and old have cell phones, but what they all might be oblivious to, is that they can be tracked through them.
Many cell phones today come with a GPS feature that allows the user to find his or her way around unfamiliar territory. The problem with this is they can be monitored through their whereabouts because of the signals the cell phones send out. For a scientific experiment the cell phones of 100,000 users were tracked. Every time a call or text was made the carrier recorded the location (to within 3 km) that the user was in at the time. After six months of data, the study authors found that, by and large, humans are creatures of habit.
Just like in 1984, these people were tracked unknowingly and their rights of freedom were clearly violated. These people were (experimented with), and this would sound familiar to someone who read 1984. The purpose of the experiment was to track human characteristics such as their movements and habits. In 1984 Big Brother also experiments with human beings such as Winston in order to make INGSOC flawless. Big Brother does this by surveying Winston’s life, in order to pin point human characteristics and eliminate them.
Furthermore there is a company in the UK called (Path Intelligence), who has created a device that will be used in shopping centers. The device is able to track people who are wandering the shops, as long as there phones are on. The system can monitor when people enter the shopping center, how long they stay, what stores they visit, and even what route they take through the building. The system is similar to watching a dot move around a screen.
So people can be tracked through malls, and they will be watched and surveyed, appearing as dots on a screen. This sounds pretty similar to the telescreens, the telescreens in 1984 were used to view people and they’re actions. This system does this to an extent, and (Big Brother) is able to view people as dots on a screen and see their every move. This is pretty amazing, because it’s not like we are talking about cameras viewing people, but something people are completely oblivious to. Cell phones are watching people.
To conclude, 1984 is not the past neither is it the present, but it is a place that people may be heading to in the future, if they continue to be oblivious to things such as cell phone tracking. Furthermore, whether you know it or not you are being watched, and 1984 is not just a book, but it is the interpretation of future reality. Today people are not living in 1984, but they continue to become closer and closer with the world George Orwell envisioned, and 1984 continues to get more authentic in the reality of life today.
Work Cited:
http://www.orwelltoday.com/1984'smessage.shtml
Many cell phones today come with a convenient GPS feature that allows the user to find his or her way around unfamiliar territory. What some people don’t realize, though, is that others can monitor YOUR whereabouts because of the signals your cell phone sends out.
The June 4, 2008 issue of Nature featured an article about humans and where their daily movements take them. Tracking the movements of human populations over time can be vital to understanding and preparing for concepts like controlling disease outbreaks and designing urban areas. The study’s authors followed Europeans for 6 months to collect data about where they went, what patterns emerged from their travels, etc. How did the authors track the people? By tracking their cell phones.
The cell phones of 100,000 users sent data to the an unnamed European cell carrier, which then shared the anonymized data with the study authors. Every time a call or text was made (and the cell users made millions of them), the carrier recorded the location (to within 3 km) that the user was in at the time. After six months of data, the study authors found that, by and large, humans are creatures of habit. Most people found themselves in the same places, day after day, making calls or texts from those places. It’s a fairly obvious conclusion, but the authors determined that “people devote most of their time to a few locations.” And our cell phones, as well as the ease at which we are tracked, provide the proof.
The use of cell phone data to keep tabs on the public doesn’t stop with determining call locations for the benefit of science. That technology has existed for years, albeit in a less-than-precise form. But now, a UK-based company called Path Intelligence is taking cell phone signal monitoring to a new level. A shopping center can place a Path Intelligence FootPath(tm) device on its wall and track users who are wandering the shops, even if they’re not making a call at the time (a cell phone that’s turned on will emit silent pings back to the network when it’s not in use, and those pings can be tracked). The system can monitor when people enter the shopping center, how long they stay, what stores they visit, and even what route they take through the building, all to within a few meters of distance. It can also keep track of the country in which a given phone is registered. As of May 16, 2008, two shopping centers in the UK had installed the Path Intelligence system, with three more planning to install it in the next month.
Is this a bad thing? Privacy watchdogs say it might be. Path Intelligence claims that its system can’t record information from a user’s cell phone, such as personal identity, phone numbers, account information or other sensitive material. But even supporters of the system do caution that it would be inappropriate if the system were to be linked to other systems that contain personal information. While getting a good idea about the shopping interests and habits of customers might be extremely helpful to shopping centers, intruding on personal privacy is not a responsible means to gain that information.
In addition, many people dislike the idea of being monitored in their movements. When an article about this system was posted at the Times Online, comments on the article from readers included concerns that the monitoring could extend into private homes if the homes were located close enough to the shopping centers. Questions were also raised about whether customers in the shopping centers were informed of the monitoring when they entered, or whether this monitoring was a form of forced “market research” (the article did not address this question). In short, many cell phone users might be uncomfortable with the thought that someone else is watching their movements, especially without their consent.
Path Intelligence, however, counters these concerns by saying that their FootPath(tm) technology is less invasive than closed-circuit televisions or other monitoring devices currently in place in many shops. “All we do is log the movement of a phone around an area,” they say in their website FAQ, which is less intrusive than methods that collect more personal information, such as your image. They insist that their system does not collect or keep personal information, and they say that their monitoring is similar to watching a dot move around a screen (or many dots, in the case of a shopping center). They currently encode the information that they receive in order to further protect the privacy of customers, as well.
Do you feel better, or are you feeling “watched”? One way to address this concern is simple: turn off your cell phone if you don’t want to be tracked. It makes it more difficult for people to reach you, of course, but if you don’t want the cell phone companies (or anyone else) to know your physical whereabouts, it’s the only way to be invisible. Other than total technological disconnect, there’s not much that average cell phone users can do about being tracked if the cell providers deem it worthwhile. For now, our technology, by its very nature, makes it possible for us to be a dot on a screen.
http://privacycouncil.org/tracked-with-our-cell-phones/
One June 11, 2008, Paul Blumer's article—Forgotten Lessons of 1984—was published to open our eyes to the breakdown of communication in the 21st century, through 1984. 1984, a novel written by George Orwell, introduces us to Newspeak—the breakdown of language—in the society depicted.
In the society contained within 1984, the language has collapsed to the point that a simple phrase such as, “very, very good”, is substituted with, “doubleplusgood”. According to our class discussions and this article, this only breaks down our intelligence. Words such as: extravagant, vibrant, exhilarating, allow us to express our thoughts; they allow us to project our own ideas, or views about many objects, sights, or situations. Combinations of words, such as: snow white, emerald green, festive lights, illuminated image, allow us to speak of certain objects or places with such vivid description that when we use a combination of words, we can draw out an exact picture of what we are thinking, in another person’s mind. However, in 1984, Oceania—the society in the novel—reduces the meaning of certain words to reduce its peoples’ ability to use their imagination, and think for themselves.
Just as the words are broken down in 1984, through Newspeak, we are also unconsciously dumbing down our society in its slang. As mentioned in the article, “People lose the knowledge of the distinction between ‘your’ and ‘you’re;’ between ‘there,’ ‘their,’ and ‘they’re’”. When I read this, I just chuckled in realization of the truth. To be honest, that statement is actually an understatement. It is not only confusion within our minds, but a severe crash in our language. For example, when people are texting each other on their cell phones, they don’t even complete a word; they break a word down to a point where they are only using consonants. Also, when people are chatting online, they use abbreviations and slang, and even make up their own ways of saying certain expressions. I know I do all of that. Whenever I text people, I would try to text a sentence like: “I’m going to text you a little less now because I don’t want my bill to be too high”, would end up looking like: “im gna txt u a lil less nw cuz I dnt wnt my bill 2 b 2 high”. Then as soon as I get home from school, I’d go online to talk to my friends on msn and then end up coming out with a phrase like: “yo, I gtg now. I don’t want my rents to get mad at me for not getting my hw done before eleven.” First of all, when I really look at it, it is really pathetic on how people can even make those words out, and understand the sentence. Second of all, it is even more pathetic on how the first thing that I would find myself doing after school is using the internet. Third of all, my first priority when I’m using the internet is to chat online on MSN.
Our language has been so broken down that we don’t even use proper punctuation or formats unless we are asked to for essays or assignments Then, when we talk to our friends online, or text message them, we take away the apostrophe’s, commas, capitals, vowels, and it is as if we never left kindergarten. After reading this article and looking back to class discussions, I can’t help, but wonder: has our century depleted our language to a point where, like 1984, the language has become Newspeak?
Forgotten Lessons of 1984
Communication Breakdown in the 21st Century
© Paul Blumer
Jun 11, 2008
Set in the future, now 24 years in our past, 1984 illustrated the darker side of human society. Now, there is a severe danger of missing the point of Orwell's 1984
Subtle Censorship
Written in a time of the Great Red Scare, people had the impression that the supposed sci-fi novel, 1984, was about the dangers of communism. In numerous literature classes around the country, George Orwell’s work was lauded as a great anti-communism rant. In modern times, however, the book is astonishingly and frighteningly fitting when applied to language.
In the days of widespread internet communication and unfettered net communication, people have become rather comfortable in their freedom of speech. Ignoring the more subtle forms of censorship—ratings, network standards, obscenity clauses, etc—people have flexed their communicative muscles in a way never before seen in our society.
With 1984 fading into the quiet background of classic literature, people have quickly begun committing the very wrongs Orwell sought to illuminate. The advent of internet communication has given every Joe Schmo the opportunity to become an online orator. The double-edged sword, which many people fail to see, is a severe breakdown of language—the means of communication.
Why Talk?
Today, people think of communication as a tool for only one use: getting the point across. While they may be correct to a certain degree, there has been a sharp decline in the wonderful specificity that our language—a combination of literally dozens of other tongues—heretofore provided. People give up on complicated—or even unambiguous—words because they are too lazy to learn them.
Orwell somehow predicted the breakdown of language. He called the nouveau communication Newspeak. Throughout 1984, Orwell describes the development of the new language. It seeks to eliminate “unnecessary” verbiage. In other words, Newspeak is a dumbing-down of the language, so that people are not forced to think of the possible connotations and multiple meanings of different word combinations.
The new language enables the sadistic government to control people. Because Newspeak seeks to eliminate thinking from communication, people are less apt to consider the meanings of words, making them less likely to think of rebellion and the forces of change.
A Sobering Lesson
More and more, modern society is facing a breakdown of communication. People lose the knowledge of the distinction between “your” and “you’re;” between “there,” “their,” and “they’re.” And yes, while the point is still made, there is a severe lack of specific understanding. One can only hope humanity doesn’t de-evolve to the point of grunting. It’s much more pleasant to say, “Look how that painting evokes an emotional excitement for the vitality of bygone days,” than it is to point and grunt. The idea comes across, but the beauty is lost. One can only hope people today don’t overlook the lessons of Orwell.
ARTICLE:
Forgotten Lessons of 1984
Communication Breakdown in the 21st Century
© Paul Blumer
Jun 11, 2008
Set in the future, now 24 years in our past, 1984 illustrated the darker side of human society. Now, there is a severe danger of missing the point of Orwell's 1984
Subtle Censorship
Written in a time of the Great Red Scare, people had the impression that the supposed sci-fi novel, 1984, was about the dangers of communism. In numerous literature classes around the country, George Orwell’s work was lauded as a great anti-communism rant. In modern times, however, the book is astonishingly and frighteningly fitting when applied to language.
In the days of widespread internet communication and unfettered net communication, people have become rather comfortable in their freedom of speech. Ignoring the more subtle forms of censorship—ratings, network standards, obscenity clauses, etc—people have flexed their communicative muscles in a way never before seen in our society.
With 1984 fading into the quiet background of classic literature, people have quickly begun committing the very wrongs Orwell sought to illuminate. The advent of internet communication has given every Joe Schmo the opportunity to become an online orator. The double-edged sword, which many people fail to see, is a severe breakdown of language—the means of communication.
Why Talk?
Today, people think of communication as a tool for only one use: getting the point across. While they may be correct to a certain degree, there has been a sharp decline in the wonderful specificity that our language—a combination of literally dozens of other tongues—heretofore provided. People give up on complicated—or even unambiguous—words because they are too lazy to learn them.
Orwell somehow predicted the breakdown of language. He called the nouveau communication Newspeak. Throughout 1984, Orwell describes the development of the new language. It seeks to eliminate “unnecessary” verbiage. In other words, Newspeak is a dumbing-down of the language, so that people are not forced to think of the possible connotations and multiple meanings of different word combinations.
The new language enables the sadistic government to control people. Because Newspeak seeks to eliminate thinking from communication, people are less apt to consider the meanings of words, making them less likely to think of rebellion and the forces of change.
A Sobering Lesson
More and more, modern society is facing a breakdown of communication. People lose the knowledge of the distinction between “your” and “you’re;” between “there,” “their,” and “they’re.” And yes, while the point is still made, there is a severe lack of specific understanding. One can only hope humanity doesn’t de-evolve to the point of grunting. It’s much more pleasant to say, “Look how that painting evokes an emotional excitement for the vitality of bygone days,” than it is to point and grunt. The idea comes across, but the beauty is lost. One can only hope people today don’t overlook the lessons of Orwell.
url: http://historyphilosophybooks.suite101.com/article.cfm/forgotten_lessons_of_1984
George Orwell’s 1984 is full of ideas and visions of the future. “Keeping an eye on Big Brother” demonstrates quite clearly that the vision Orwell has predicted is coming true in 2008. Stuart Crainer has done a considerable job in describing how nearly a quarter of a century later, “the global surveillance society has truly arrived.” He goes into detail about the work of Dr. Kirstie Ball, and how certain countries, specifically the United Kingdom, have taken the surveillance of its citizens to a whole new level. Tracking people’s internet preferences, their television viewing habits, and recording their phone calls at work are just a few very real examples of the frightening reality that Orwell illustrated fifty years ago. According to Dr. Ball, one of the UK’s most obvious surveillance eruptions is its use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras. The article mentions how there are about 4.2 million of these cameras scattered across the UK, one for every 14 people. Dr. Ball, whose job it is to research into this surveillance explosion, says that the UK is in fact the world’s exemplary surveillance society because it is the leader in civil surveillance.
This article mentions the initial reasoning behind this was primarily because it was “seen to have a beneficial effect on crime figures.” Crime did appear to decrease, but what was really happening was the criminals were going where there weren’t any CCTV cameras. Sound familiar? Orwell’s version of this is in 1984, when Winston resides in Mr. Charrington’s shop with Julia where there is not a telescreen to watch him. Like the criminals in the UK, Winston moves to a place where INGSOC cannot arrest him for his crimes. Also relating to 1984, Ball believes that CCTV does not reduce crime as a whole, but has a positive effect on the fear of crime. After all, the fear that someone could be watching has a far greater effect than someone actually watching. Ball later admits that “surveillance is taking an unprecedented leap into people’s personal lives,” if it hasn’t done so already. Orwell demonstrates this in 1984 once again. INGSOC has placed a telescreen in every Inner and Outer Party home, so that the fear of the phrase “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” becomes reality. As Crainer says, no one wants to let Big Brother into their home, but do they have a choice? Orwell predicted there would not be a choice, and that someone could always be watching you.
Ball defines surveillance as not “wire-tapping or CCTV,” but rather “the mass processing of personal data used to influence everyday life.” A term used by experts to express this opinion is “dataveillance,” which is, as Crainer says, “an Orwellian phrase if there ever was one.” George Orwell developed many ideas in his novel, 1984, and this article, “Keeping an eye on Big Brother,” describes that his ideas regarding the surveillance are definitely starting to become reality. The “nightmarish” future was set in 1984, and the idea of Big Brother watching over the shoulders of society still appeared a distant reality. But now, in 2008, it is very real, it a very large concern.
Keeping an eye on Big Brother
The Independent (London), June 3, 2008 by Stuart Crainer
OU academics are monitoring the level of surveillance in society.
In 1984 there were muted celebrations to mark the year in which George Orwell's nightmarish novel of the future was set. The Orwellian world in which Big Brother looked ominously over the shoulder of every citizen still appeared a distant spectre. Computers were in their infancy, satellites still held a certain novelty and the only cameras you saw were on holiday.
Nearly a quarter of a century later and Orwell's vision is starting to look more real. Accelerated by the threat of terrorism, popularised by reality TV, the global surveillance society has truly arrived.
HTTP cookies communicate between websites and your computer. They save your preferences and help you shop online. Of course, there are other uses for such information. Sitting comfortably at home you can enjoy the benefits of technology such as TiVo and Sky+, which know all about your viewing habits. At work, calls are routinely recorded. If you work in a call centre, your boss could well be listening in to ensure you stick to the sales script rather than indulge in time-wasting conversations.
And there is much, much more. Credit card transactions, store loyalty cards and mobile phones can all help pinpoint where we are and what we're doing. CCTV cameras have spread throughout towns and cities in the developed world. The UK has 4.2 million CCTV cameras - one camera for every 14 people. There are even tracking devices in shopping tags. Radio frequency tags mean that retail chains can monitor stock levels. They can also be used for other purposes. The UK retail chain Tesco has been trialling a radio frequency identification (RFID) tracking system to trigger CCTV coverage. The moment a customer picks up a pack of Gillette Mach 3 razor blades, for example, the tag activates a camera.
Dr Kirstie Ball of the Open University Business School is one of those leading academic research into the surveillance explosion. She is part of an academic team called the Surveillance Project. The project, based at Queens University, Kingston, Canada, is a multi- disciplinary and international attempt to find out what happens to our personal data and how personal data processing affects our lives. The four-year, multi-million dollar project maps attitudes to privacy across nine countries. Kirstie Ball has been analysing the surveillance society for the past decade - most notably in a 2006 report on the surveillance society which ignited fevered debate in the UK. Her PhD research looked at employment monitoring. She points out that surveillance (defined as "any systematic collection of personal data on a person's life aimed at exerting influence over it") is nothing new. "Essential to bureaucracy is the oversight of subordinates and the creation of records. Business practices of double-entry book- keeping and of trying to cut costs and increase profit accelerated and reinforced such surveillance," says A Report on the Surveillance Society by Ball and her colleagues David Lyon, David Wood, Clive Norris and Charles Raab.
More than a century ago, Henry Ford had a Sociology of Work Department which looked at the behaviour in and out of work of Ford employees. Things have moved on since then, and surveillance is omnipresent. "Indeed, the UK is the world's exemplary surveillance society. It is the leader in mass civil surveillance - CCTV, corporate and government databases. The US is the leader in phone- tapping and Israel is the leader in security-style surveillance," says Ball.
The remarkable rise in surveillance in the UK occurred in the Nineties, according to Ball's research. "There was a massive investment in the UK in CCTV in the 1990s for a number of reasons. First, it was seen as having a beneficial effect on crime figures. As soon as a council introduced CCTV on its high street, crime appeared to decrease. What was really happening, of course, was that the criminals were going where there wasn't CCTV.
"There was an exponential rise. Pretty much every town or city soon had its own CCTV system. While it does not necessarily reduce crime, it does have a positive effect on fear of crime, depending on how you measure it. On top of the criminal justice drive to CCTV, the other big area of growth was in retailing - covering shoplifting and employee theft."
More recently the debate around surveillance has focused on call centres. Ball's latest research looks at two multi-client outsourced call centres in South Africa and the UK. "It looks at data protection and how it works in call centres. Because of data protection legislation in Europe, companies which export data to India or South Africa aren't covered by law but by contracts. Data protection becomes part of that contract, part of performance management in call centres. It is an issue of contractual compliance and is hence subject to the stresses and strains of daily call centre work - and that is the same in the UK and South Africa. Recent and effective training, as well as a decent rewards system which doesn't emphasise performance over other things, can mitigate this."
Her future work spreads the surveillance net still wider. She and colleagues from the Surveillance Project have recently won funding for a US$2.5m (1.3m) collaborative research initiative, entitled "The new transparency". The seven-year programme will cover everything from public space surveillance to the digital media and social networking sites such as Facebook. In addition, Ball is working with three other OU Business School professors - Professor Liz Daniel, Professor Sally Dibb and Maureen Meadows - looking at how consumer data can become criminalised or subject to security measures, for example if airlines allow government access to their records for security purposes.
No-one really welcomes Big Brother into their house. "Now surveillance is taking an unprecedented leap into people's personal lives," Ball admits. "In the US certain employers use urine and drug testing. A lot of assessments - such as bodily surveillance - are at the boundaries of someone's personal life. Fundamentally, their extreme use displays a lack of trust in the people working for you."
There are undoubtedly unhealthy extremes. Experts now talk of "dataveillance", an Orwellian phrase if there ever was one. But what should we be worried about? "The biggest thing we should be worried about is identity theft," says Ball. "People need to be aware of the pure value of their personal data. The starting point must be a realisation of where personal data is held and who is doing what with it. At least 700 databases hold our personal information and they are all at risk of security breaches. People think of surveillance as wire-tapping and CCTV, but fundamentally it refers to the mass processing of personal data used to influence everyday life."
A version of this article also appears in the OU publication, Business Matters. The Open University runs two courses which look at issues of privacy and surveillance. They are Welfare, Crime and Society (course code DD208) and Data, Computing and Information (course code M150). For more information see www.open.ac.uk/study
Copyright c 2008 Independent Newspapers UK Limited. All rights owned or operated by The Independent.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.
Look forward, left to right and then turn around, is Big Brother watching you? In “Nineteen Eighty Four”, Orwell creates a world of telescreens that monitors everyone’s actions and behaviour. Surveillance technology is located everywhere, and the world of “1984” is reality through the twenty-first century. The new advances of the century are affecting workers around the world because they are now constantly being watched. The privacy of the employee also becomes a big issue as many are not being informed with the idea of being observed through a camera.
Technology advancements help businesses and public areas to monitor and extract records, health tests and actions of employers at anytime or place. Humans within 1984 and the current century are being watched through a screen to ensure obedience and structure within the society. In Malaysia, security cameras were enforced into offices to ensure employers are working to their full potential. In “Nineteen Eighty- Four”, Winston is yelled at by the telescreen “‘Smith!’ screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. ‘6079 Smith W! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better then that. You’re not trying. Lower please! That’s better comrade” (39). The idea of a camera being in a room is a scary thought because any movement that one may make can cause them to lose their jobs, but in Winston’s case it could actually be the reason for his death. The cameras are a way to enforce rules and to remind people of the consequences that may lead after being caught. At times, many supplies may seem like regular devices but little would a person know that it is an actual human trap.
Technology is made possible to watch or receive access to the places that any individual has gone to. In the article a privacy lawyer named Frasier believes that “some of the office technologies they use and even carry on their person could easily become tools of Big Brother”. In the current century devices such as the company’s Blackberry, access key card and company car can become simple tracking devices. There is always someone watching, which is the reason that Winston believes the message from Julia is part of a trap. He thinks about the possibilities: “One, much the more likely, was that the girl was an agent of the Thought Police, just as he had feared […] The thing that was written on the paper might be a threat, a summons, an order to commit suicide, a trap of some description” (113). Technology is becoming a device that one must now question greatly about because of the hidden jobs they might do that one may not actually know is being used for. Trust will become a huge issue because everyone will fear for their lives, in the current decade devices such as the company car is used as a GPS unit to track the employee’s every move outside of work. In “1984”, Winston is scared to open a letter, which any person in this decade will be more then happy to open. The fear of being tracked and monitored at every moment and time is becoming a huge issue especially because many are not informed about being tracked.
Privacy is a huge issue when dealing with surveillance devices, every move one makes can simply be watched through a camera or tracking device. Zureik explains
“Various studies show that employees don’t seem to mind [being monitored] as long as they are consulted, […] “What they really reject is being snooped upon or violated if the employer is surreptitiously collecting data about them.” Wanting privacy is a basic human instinct and when someone invades that personal space it will be hard to get back. It will change a person’s lifestyle and creates a life of paranoia and the act where one must question their every move. In the novel, Winston talks about how people do not write letters anymore, simply because they will all be read before it is sent to the designated location. Invading ones own privacy is the reason that some people in this day and age do not post their pictures on the internet and that every account involves an agreements so that an individual’s personal information will not be broadcasted throughout the world. Knowing that you are being watched is better then finding out after because the person will know exactly what to and what not to do. Winston understands that if he avoids writing letters then he will not have to worry about someone reading them, as for the employees they may not know where and when they are being watched which can give them a disadvantage at the end.
Big Brother is watching you and you probably didn’t even know. In “1984” and in this decade, technology advances has made it possible to watch employees at any time and place. New gadgets are invented to track who you call, where you go and simply what you are doing. The frightening part is that you may not even know it and that slight mistake that you make, could very well cost you your job. Therefore, the next time you feel like your being watched it could very well be Big Brother watching.
Article:
CRAIG SILVERMAN
Special to The Globe and Mail
March 24, 2008 at 9:07 AM EST
MONTREAL — It was late 2004 when Les Lilley, then a 34-year employee of Canadian National Railway Co., received some troubling information from a co-worker. The man, a maintenance worker, said he had discovered a hidden camera inside a vent at a CN facility in Winnipeg.
"It was a big shock," says Mr. Lilley, who at the time was chairman of the union local. He catalogued other hidden cameras and soon the union filed a grievance. At the time, a CN spokesman said the cameras were installed to track the origin of unexplained equipment breakdowns.
Mr. Lilley and the union saw it differently: "It was about productivity."
In the end, after firing and then reinstating Mr. Lilley, CN agreed to turf the cameras. Yet Mr. Lilley, now a regional vice-president of Canadian Auto Workers Local 100, says distrust remains.
"What's the mood?" he asks. "It's terrible, like Big Brother watching over your shoulder all the time."
Combine the availability of inexpensive monitoring technology with the desire by some employers to know what workers are up to at all times, and the era of the Orwellian office is upon us. Cameras in the hallway, snoopware on the office computer, worker drug testing, GPS in the company car ... the East German Stasi never had it so good.
Employees are increasingly under watch, sometimes without their knowledge, and recent months have delivered troubling examples of new ways companies are seeking to gain insight into workers' lives.
Loblaw Cos. Ltd. announced last month that it has started using criminal-record checks to evaluate job candidates in an effort to reduce employee theft.
In January, the Alberta Court of Appeals ruled that Kellogg Brown & Root had been within its rights to administer a drug test and then fire an oil-patch employee after he tested positive for marijuana. This could open the door to increased workplace drug testing in some industries.
Last year, a government office in Malaysia announced its intention to use security cameras to bust slackers. "We would know if they are adhering to office etiquette or playing truant, and we can also gauge if they are disciplined at work," a government official told a local newspaper.
In Britain, a January survey by the Policy Studies Institute revealed that 50 per cent of the country's workers face some form of monitoring, be it by camera or work computer.
Also in January, the British press reported that Microsoft had filed for a patent on a "unique monitoring system" that would use a computer to capture the blood pressure, heart rate, facial expressions, body temperature and respiration rate of a worker. Microsoft wrote that the system could "automatically detect frustration or stress in the user" and then "offer and provide assistance."
Aside from raising the spectre of a more alarming form of the "blue screen of death," a term used to describe an error that causes a Windows computer to shut down, the filing hints at the next generation of office intrusion: biometrics.
"The next thing will probably be a fingerprint reader to log into computer systems [instead of using a password]," says David Fraser, a privacy lawyer with McInnes Cooper in Halifax. "You can see how a lot of these technologies are really convenient. But a lot of people would say, 'I don't want anybody to have my thumbprint.' "
Elia Zureik, professor emeritus of sociology at Queen's University in Kingston and a researcher with the school's Surveillance Project, says workplace surveillance creates "tension between property rights and human rights and dignity. ...
"Various studies show that employees don't seem to mind [being monitored] as long as they are consulted," he says. "What they really reject is being snooped upon or violated if the employer is surreptitiously collecting data about them."
Prof. Zureik points to data from a 2005 international survey that found 16 per cent of Canadians felt an employer had a right to use surveillance cameras in the workplace. The same percentage also felt it was okay to use cameras for evaluating job performance. That number rose to 37 per cent when employee consent was involved.
Employers often use workplace monitoring as a means to boost productivity by verifying that workers are being responsible with company time and equipment. But research from the British survey about workplace surveillance suggests that a watched worker is also an unproductive one.
Researchers found that those whose e-mails, keyboard strokes and other activities were monitored experienced a 7.5-per-cent increase in "feelings of exhaustion and anxiety related to work" compared with unmonitored workers.
When an employer suspects a specific employee of malfeasance, surveillance can also extend beyond office walls. Remi Kalacyan, president of V.I.P. Investigations Inc. in Montreal, often finds himself driving two car-lengths behind a worker. A private investigator with 14 years' experience, he's hired to tail employees suspected of theft or faking a work-related injury.
"It's a common thing for sure," he says of worker surveillance. "It ranges from a guy claiming to be injured who is going and working somewhere else, to workers passing fraudulent cheques or stealing from the company."
Prof. Zureik says there will always be extreme examples of workplace surveillance, but that many companies recognize how a culture of monitoring can have a negative effect in the office.
"It's not in their interest to be at loggerheads with employees, and the smart companies consult employees or at least tell them what information they are collecting," he says. "But the technology is definitely there for wicked employers."
The walls have eyes
When asked whether employees should assume everything they do inside the office is being monitored, privacy lawyer David Fraser says: "It's not bad advice, even though it may sound a bit paranoid." Workers should be aware that some of the office technologies they use and even carry on their person could easily become tools of Big Brother. So let's get paranoid.
Access key card
Ah, so small and convenient. Your key card opens doors and elevators and can fit in a wallet or easily hang from your belt or a lanyard. But it can also be used to produce a record of your travels within the office by logging which doors you unlock at which times. Coming in late every day? The key card knoweth.
Company car
That handy GPS unit on the dash is also an effective tracking device. If it's 3 p.m. and you're already parked at Billy's Bar, well, that's a firin'.
Laptop
The new surveillance control centre. Keylogger software can record everything you type. Company e-mails are archived, and your browsing history is also easily put on file. Technology is awesome.
BlackBerry
You know how it's like a little laptop? See above. Plus, the company gets the bill, which means your calls are listed. So refrain from calling that old university friend in Singapore.
Craig Silverman
Works Cited
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Penguin Books. 1949.
Silverman, Craig.”Smile, Big Brother’s watching.” The Globe and Mail Online24 March 2008
Response:
The novel 1984, by George Orwell was actually published in 1949. It reveals Orwell’s impressions on what he perceived a possible near-future society to be. Oceania is a totalitarian society where the inhabitants are monitored and controlled by the powerful Inner Party which is headed by Big Brother. Throughout the novel it is evident that the outer party members have little or no privacy. Hidden cameras monitor their every action, ferreting out those individuals who are heretics. The Inner Circle members are capable of “watching” anyone 24/7. In Winston’s case the inner circle agent O’Brien watched him for 7 years. This astounded Winston, he could not fathom why someone would spend 7 years observing and monitoring every aspect of his existence.
Leonard Pitts’s article "I always feel like somebody’s watching me", discusses the evolution of the FBI’s database for catching criminals. He discusses how during the 19th century, scientists discovered how to differentiate between people by their finger print. The FBI used this discovery to build an enormous database of fingerprints. The 20th century discovery of the double helix nucleic acid molecule allowed more definitive identification. So, the FBI leveraged off this new information and built a DNA database. Currently, the FBI is working on creating a new database which would hold more detailed information on criminals. This database would store distinctive physical characteristics like tattoos, scars, palm prints, eye scans, and many other biometrics. This information is supposed to be used solely for apprehending criminals. Although this is a great strategy to keep society safe, I have to wonder how far we are willing to go. We are a high tech society, yet where do we draw the line. Certain occupations require this same collecting of information, especially fingerprints. As well, DNA and fingerprints are used by forensic scientists and law enforcement to identify victims and catch their attackers. However, many advocates of privacy agree with Pitts’s concern. Pitts mentions in his article that this comprehensive collecting of personal information reminds him of Orwell’s Oceania. He states “Given the advances in technology and the ominous, Orwellian turn our government has lately taken, the comparison seems far less far-fetched than once it might have. “
We are now living in the 21st century, and the reality of cameras and being watched is evident. In Our Lady of Mount Carmel Secondary School, we have more than 11 cameras that monitor students and teachers. I have to wonder why we need so many. Most street corners have cameras that monitor traffic. The police can use the images captured to issue traffic tickets, or perhaps aid in determining traffic accidents. The highways have cameras that monitor the flow of traffic, and anyone can see this on the Weather Network. Highway 407 uses cameras to take pictures of licence plates. They can track you down for non-payment, even if you’re from out of town! This is because they have access to the database that stores licence plates of drivers.
Retail stores, businesses, gas stations, and banking machines also have hidden cameras. While on one hand these cameras protect the staff and potentially discourage theft, on the other hand it is creepy for the honest person to be monitored. This invasion of privacy is certainly disconcerting at times. Unfortunately, we are now so accustomed to these cameras, and other hidden devices that we often forget that we are being watched. At my parent’s work not only do they have monitoring cameras, but you require a security card that you must scan in order to enter their place of business. These security cards are directly linked to them personally, so they have to be very careful not to lose them or forget them at home! Cameras and monitoring are also used in institutions and prisons. This more closely mirrors the society of 1984. I believe this because Oceania is depicted as a prison or mental institution where none of the inhabitants have any rights. “There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment” (p. 4-5). “It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.” (p.5) Free thought is not encouraged, and someone in a position of authority determines what the inmates can and cannot do. Pitts ends his article with “But I can’t help a certain wariness when I consider the ease with which the program could expand far beyond that mission. As Mr. Steinhardt sees it, first criminals, then job applicants and then ‘Eventually, it’s going to be everybody’.”
In fact this can apply to the requirements for security surveillance everywhere today, we ‘need’ to be watched so crime will decrease and citizens will be protected better. This makes me wonder, am I willing to accept this need for invasive monitoring in order to feel safe? I’m still not sure, but I believe I will now be more aware of what I do. Especially at school, because you never know who may be watching you! Frye indicates on page 5 of The Educated Imagination, “The world you want to live in is a human world, not an objective one: it’s not an environment but a home; it’s not the world you see but the world you built out of what you see.”
Article:
Leonard Pitts: I always feel like somebody's watching me
Is there any information that can't be databased today?
12:11 PM CST on Sunday, February 17, 2008
In the beginning was the fingerprint.
It was in the 19th century that scientists realized the ridged whorls on the tip of the finger constituted a unique marker that could be used to tell one person from another. And eventually, the FBI built a massive database of fingerprints.
Then came DNA. In the 20th century, scientists learned to use the double helix nucleic acid molecule as a means of identification even more definitive than the fingerprint. And the FBI built a DNA database as well.
Now the feds are building yet another database. And it has some folks worried.
Maybe you missed it, but CNN and The Associated Press reported recently that the FBI will soon award a $1 billion, 10-year contract for construction of an electronic file that would store not just fingerprints and DNA, but a vast compendium of other physical characteristics. We're talking eye scans, facial shape, palm prints, scars, tattoos and other biometrics, all for the purpose of identifying and capturing bad guys.
But at least one privacy advocate thinks even good guys have cause for concern. "It's the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated," Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project, told CNN.
I know what you're saying, and it makes a certain amount of sense: If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Well, I haven't done wrong, but it worries me just the same.
Still, I am forced to admit that in a way, there is nothing new here. The government has for years collected fingerprints – not just of criminals, but also of certain job applicants. And no one raises any concerns about that.
What's happening now, it could be reasonably argued, is only a high-tech extension of that. Except that instead of just your fingerprints, the government will also have on file the shape of your iris, that scar from your childhood appendectomy, and the butterfly tattoo on your inner thigh.
What troubles me is the comprehensiveness of the information the feds propose to gather.
It calls to mind discomfiting reminders of the totalitarian states so chillingly depicted in Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, oppressive regimes that saw everything, knew everything, regulated everything. Given the advances in technology and the ominous, Orwellian turn our government has lately taken, the comparison seems far less far-fetched than once it might have.
It's not just the government, though.
In recent years, the right to privacy, the right to simply be left alone, has also been eroded by the corporate community – everything from supermarket discount cards that track your buying habits to online businesses that install secret spyware in your computer to monitor your behavior online. And we haven't even mentioned that there is a camera on every street corner nowadays.
"I always feel like somebody's watching me." That used to be just the hook from a schlocky '80s song. Increasingly, it is an apt description of modern life.
Now the FBI proposes to collect and collate still more personal information. It swears that information will be protected, will be used only to ferret out criminals. And it's hard to argue with that: Who doesn't want law enforcement to have every available tool for smoking out criminals?
But I can't help a certain wariness when I consider the ease with which the program could expand far beyond that mission. As Mr. Steinhardt sees it, first criminals, then job applicants and then, "Eventually, it's going to be everybody."
I admit, he might be wrong. But you know something? He might not.
Leonard Pitts is a columnist for the Miami Herald. His e-mail address is lpitts@miamiherald.com.
Works Cited
Frye, The Educated Imagination
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty – Four. London: Penguin Books. 1987.
Pitts, Leonard. “I always fell like somebody’s watching me” 17 February 2008. 26 November 2008. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-pitts_17edi.ART.State.Edition1.458b79f.html
The article ‘Surveillance of Skype Messages Found in China’ reports the lack of privacy that Chinese residents have in communist China. Text messages as well as phone conversations are being monitored by the government and are then filtered by flagging ‘politically charged’ words. Similar to 1984, Winston lives in a world where the government examines anything that is being said against it. Both Winston and Chinese citizens have to be on guard because they are under constant watch. They cannot express their thoughts because there is a limit on what they can say. Finally, they both live in the same conditions. For anyone who thinks that 1984 can never really happen, the article proves that it still happens today because Chinese surveillance mimics that of Big Brother’s.
The ‘Internet Police’ of China is the living example of 1984’s ‘thought police’. But instead of monitoring websites and blogs for offending political content, the thought police could “plug in your wire whenever they wanted to.” (5). This means that the Chinese and Winston have to be wary all the time because “every sound you made was overheard, every movement scrutinized.” (5).
But not only does Winston or Chinese citizens have to watch out for government officials, they also have to be guarded against society. The article mentions the Chinese wireless firm who watch people and get them in trouble. Orwell personifies these companies in his book as any static character who are completely orthodox. The description of the Chinese law firm is paralleled with Winston’s description of O’Brien because “It was O’Brien who was directing everything. It was he who set the guards onto Winston and who prevented them from killing him.” (256). Although the law firm does not control everything, the fact that they may be controlling the surveillance system puts them in a similar position with O’Brien. He is in cooperation with the Thought Police and he has the power to get Winston in trouble, just like the Chinese law firm does. The fact that he conforms to the rules of Big Brother further supports Winston’s instinct to be careful.
But what’s the point of being spied on if the words to convey dissatisfaction are restricted?
If Syme were to live in China, he would love the job of flagging politically offending words and restricting them. He will be able to do his duty to the communist government because “thoughtcrime will literally be impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” (55). The act of restricting certain words prevents people from saying what they really feel. In China, they cannot text words like ‘democracy’, ‘milk powder’ or ‘earthquake’. In Winston’s world, his vocabulary is limited to words like ‘good’, ‘ungood’, ‘plusgood’, or ‘doubleplusgood’. In the eyes of both governments, if people knew not to use certain words, then they would not have to think. In Syme’s words, “there will be no thought as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think.” (56). General orthodoxy is the goal of Big Brother and certainly China’s as well.
Not only is the Chinese government searching for political words, they also flag emotional ones like swear words. This is just like Winston’s case where he buys the diary. Obviously swearing is allowed in China and owning a diary is legal, but they should not have these urges because emotions are harder to control. Winston acknowledges this fact because he knows that owning a diary is “punished by death, or at least twenty-five years in a forced labour camp.” (8). The act of writing in a diary is a minor comparison to the protests in front of Tiananmen Square in 1989. Both acts cause death.
The other similarity that the article and 1984 have is the conditions the citizens have to live in. the necessities provided for Winston and the Chinese are tainted. The milk full of chemicals that China has are no better than synthetic gin or ‘vomit stew’. But they are not given the option to complain. How could they if the words in which to voice an opinion are no longer there? Maybe they do not even remember how life was like before chemical milk. But as long as they have the essentials of life, then they should be fine. Expressions otherwise is punishable by death.
It is true that life in China is not as extreme as that of life under Big Brother. But so far, the government has already captured what it is like to live in that condition and has subjected their citizens to it. They have thought that people should be careful of one another and the government. They are also trying to control everyone’s thoughts through the restriction of words. And lastly, a Chinese man and Winston live in the same surroundings, or they consume the same kind of ruined food. It will only be a matter of time before there are telescreens in every Chinese household.
Article
Surveillance of Skype messages found in China
A group of Canadian human-rights activists and computer security researchers has discovered a huge surveillance system in China that monitors and archives certain Internet text conversations that include politically charged words.
The system tracks text messages sent by customers of Tom-Skype, a joint venture between a Chinese wireless operator and eBay, the Web auctioneer that owns Skype, an online phone and text messaging service.
The discovery draws more attention to the Chinese government's Internet monitoring and filtering efforts, which created controversy this summer during the Beijing Olympics. Researchers in China have estimated that 30,000 or more "Internet police" monitor online traffic, Web sites and blogs for political and other offending content in what is called the Golden Shield Project or the Great Firewall of China.
The activists, who are based at Citizen Lab, a research group that focuses on politics and the Internet at the University of Toronto, discovered the surveillance operation last month. They said a cluster of eight message-logging computers in China contained more than a million censored messages. They examined the text messages and reconstructed a list of restricted words.
The list includes words related to the religious group Falun Gong, Taiwan independence and the Chinese Communist Party, according to the researchers. It includes not only words like democracy, but also earthquake and milk powder. (Chinese officials are facing criticism over the handling of earthquake relief and chemicals tainting milk powder.)
The list also serves as a filter to restrict text conversations. The encrypted list of words inside the Tom-Skype software blocks the transmission of those words and a copy of the message is sent to a server. The Chinese servers retained personal information about the customers who sent the messages. They also recorded chat conversations between Tom-Skype users and Skype users outside China. The system recorded text messages and Skype caller identification, but did not record the content of Skype voice calls.
In just two months, the servers archived more than 166,000 censored messages from 44,000 users, according to a report that was published on the Information Warfare Monitor Web site at the university.
The researchers were able to download and analyze copies of the surveillance data because the Chinese computers were improperly configured, leaving them accessible. The researchers said they did not know who was operating the surveillance system, but they said they suspected that it was the Chinese wireless firm, possibly with cooperation from Chinese police.
Independent executives from the instant message industry say the discovery is an indication of a spiraling computer war that is tracking the introduction of new communications technologies.
"I can see an arms race going on," said Pat Peterson, vice president for technology at Cisco's Ironport group, a division that provides messaging security systems. "China is one of the more wired places of the world and they are fighting a war with their populace."
The Chinese government is not alone in its Internet surveillance efforts. In 2005, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency was monitoring large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program, intended to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, that President George W. Bush approved after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The researchers said their discovery contradicted a public statement made by Skype executives in 2006 after the content filtering of the Skype conversations was reported. At the time the company said that the conversations were protected and private.
The Citizen Lab researchers issued a report on Wednesday, which details an analysis of data on the servers. "We were able to download millions of messages that identify users," said Ronald Deibert, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. "This is the worst nightmares of the conspiracy theorists around surveillance coming true. It's 'X-Files' without the aliens."
Jennifer Caukin, an eBay spokeswoman, said, "The security and privacy of our users is very important to Skype." But the company spoke to the accessibility of the messages, not their monitoring. "The security breach does not affect Skype's core technology or functionality," she said. "It exists within an administrative layer on Tom Online servers. We have expressed our concern to Tom Online about the security issue and they have informed us that a fix to the problem will be completed within 24 hours." EBay had no comment on the monitoring.
Other American companies have been caught in controversy after cooperating with Chinese officials. In 2005, Yahoo supplied information to the Chinese authorities, who then sentenced a reporter, Shi Tao, to 10 years in prison for leaking what the government considered state secrets. The company said at the time that it was following Chinese law.
EBay created the joint venture with the Tom Group, which holds the majority stake, in September 2005. The Tom Group itself was founded in October 1999 as a joint venture among Hutchison Whampoa, Cheung Kong Holdings and other investors. In its annual report this year, the Tom Group, based in Hong Kong, said that the number of Tom-Skype registered users had reached 69 million in the first half of 2008 and revenue had increased tenfold in the last year.
The researchers stumbled upon the surveillance system when Nart Villeneuve, a senior research fellow atCitizen Lab, began using an analysis tool to monitor data that was generated by the Tom-Skype software, which is meant to permit voice and text conversations from a personal computer. By reading the data generated by the program, he determined that each time he typed a particular swear word into the text messaging program an encrypted message was sent to an unidentified Internet address.
To his surprise, the coded messages were being stored on Tom Online computers. When he examined the machines over the Internet, he discovered that they had been misconfigured and that the computer directories were readable with a simple Web browser.
One directory on each machine contained a series of files in which the messages, in encrypted form, were being deposited. Hunting further, Villeneuve soon found a file that contained the numerical key that permitted him to decode the encrypted log files.
What he uncovered were hundreds of files, each containing thousands of records of messages that had been captured and then stored by the filtering software. The records revealed Internet addresses and user names as well as message content. Also stored on the computers were calling records for Skype voice conversations containing names and in some cases phone numbers of the calling parties.
Villeneuve downloaded the messages, decrypted them and used machine translation software to convert the Chinese messages to English. He then used word frequency counts to identify the key words that were flagging the messages. The exact criteria used by the filtering software is still unclear, he said, because some messages on the servers contained no known key word.
He said that in addition to capturing the Skype messages sent between Tom-Skype users, international conversations were recorded as well, meaning that users of standard Skype software outside China were also vulnerable to the surveillance system when they had text conversations with Chinese users.
South Dublin getting an Orwellian future now, with 70 new CCTV cameras at a total cost of €2.5m
By -- Clodagh Sheehy
Friday November 14 2008
The council has agreed to spend €1.2m for CCTV cameras to combat anti-social behaviour.
Dublin company TEC Security Services is expected to install the cameras on poles in areas such Fettercairn, Neilstown, Jobstown and Brookfield. They will be monitored from a central control.
In all, 38 cameras will film day and night to help the council keep an eye on troublemakers.
Stephen Tyrrell, executive chairman of TEC Security Services, explained that the contracts involve supplying CCTV cameras suitable for 24-hour use and sitting them in the most appropriate locations.
The aim is to help local communities to monitor any anti-social behaviour.
In addition to installing the cameras the company will also arrange power supplies, cabling and the erection of the necessary poles.
Mr Tyrrell said the €1.2m contract was the latest in a series of CCTV surveillance deals with South Dublin County Council valued at €2.5m in total and including some 70 cameras.
''Contracts for CCTV monitoring, for the benefit of communities within south Dublin council areas, go back to 2005," he said.
''They involve work on community-based CCTV schemes that have been implemented by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
"These schemes are designed to help local communities play a greater part in combating anti-social behaviour in their areas."
Mr Tyrell felt the agreement with South Dublin Council would "instill confidence in other local authorities and private companies who are dealing with us on similar CCTV surveillance projects".
TEC Security Services was set up in 1997. The company installs CCTV surveillance technology, including fixed and mobile cameras.
Response:
A common occurrence in the novel 1984 was that the people of Airstrip One were under constant observation by “Big Brother”, and it is quite absurd to think that this can happen in our modern lives, but it already has. In South Dublin, the council has decided to invest €2.5m for CCTV cameras to monitor anti-social behaviour. 70 cameras will be monitoring the citizens at day and night, so that the council can monitor anti-social behaviour. This is quite scary, especially with the size of South Dublin being only 222.74 km, most of it being farm country.
The first thing wrong with this situation is the invasion of privacy. The people of South Dublin are giving up their basic right of privacy out of fear. The people must transvaluate and see the total situation, which is that they are compromising a basic necessity to the government. They are doing this over an exaggerated fear. They are alternatives to the situation, but as in the novel 1984, the government is using fear to assert what they want without any opposition to the ideas. The people of South Dublin are losing their freedom one step at a time, and before they know it, the idea of freedom will be nonexistent. The cameras are also not leading to safety, but more fear, as Winston explains, “How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time… You had to live-did live, from habit that became instinct- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and except in darkness, every movement scrutinised.” (Orwell, 5). Even in North America the sacrifice of freedom occurs, not to the extent of 1984 or South Dublin, but it still does occur. One can see this in our daily lives, an example is traveling between countries, and this of course requires a passport. If one looks at what a passport consists of, it has ones vital information, and a track of everywhere they have recently traveled, it is a log of our movement. When faced in these situations, one must transvaluate, and determines whether there is a real threat, and if this threat is significant enough for one to sacrifice their freedom. One must also see if they are any alternative solutions.
The second problem with this situation occurs in the motive for the CCTV. The reason that is given to the reader is anti-social behaviour. There are many alternatives to this trouble and these do not involve the loss of privacy for the citizens, but that is probably why this solution was chosen by the government. This allows the government to predict and control crimes. This is a very dangerous situation. One can see this with INGSOC in the novel 1984, as Winston tells the reader “Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death” (Orwell, 30), and if the current progress keeps going, thoughtcrime will become a crime in the near future. One can also see a similar system in the movie Minority Report, in which people are arrested for their future deed. This is until one character makes a choice to go against the “future”, and makes a decision. In these systems the human choice is not taken into account. This is a very dangerous future, as humans have self control, and many can be arrested for deeds they did not, or would not commit. There is also a problem in monitoring anti-social behaviour, as no-one should be telling you how to act, much less monitoring your actions. The future result of this will be the population being clones of each other, much similar to the world of Parsons in 1984.
In conclusion, freedom is one of our most precious and basic rights, and the human race must not let our freedom go. As shown in the novel 1984, by George Orwell, giving up one’s freedom can lead to a dangerous future. However, in many places like South Dublin people are sacrificing their freedom in fear, one must resist this and transvaluate and look to alternative measures. If the population chooses not to fight for our freedom, one can foresee a future with doublethink, big brother, and where two plus two equals 5. However one must resist to this future, as ignorance will lead to our downfall. One must remember the thought and world in which,
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
LINK: http://www.herald.ie/national-news/city-news/south-dublin-getting-an-orwellian-future-now-with-70-new-cctv-cameras-at-a-total-cost-of-euro25m-1539345.html
Freedom is a right that we all cherish and take for granted. In George Orwell’s ‘1984’ nobody knows what it means to be free because society is always under constant surveillance. In the article ‘London of 2008 gets closer to '1984,' troubling some Britons’ it is clearly shown that the society we live in today, is becoming more and more like the society in ‘1984’. The article states that there is 4.2 million camera’s for every 15 people in the country, who can be seen going to work, taking their kids to school or relaxing at a café after work. This becomes more and more troublesome because the freedoms which most of us cherish as well as take for granted continuously diminish over time (for the purpose of preventing terrorism). With the constant surveillance we become afraid to do certain things because we know that someone could be watching. It’s the fear the cameras bring, knowing that someone may be watching, which ultimately diminishes our freedom.
The cameras used in ‘1984’ are associated with the telescreen are used for surveillance purposes to apprehend citizens committing thoughtcrime. Thoughtcrime and terrorism are very similar because they both refer to people acting out against the government. Everyone in our society today believes terrorism is wrong, and if we are opted the chance, we would turn the terrorists in. This is a lot like the citizens in 1984 turning their fellow ‘comrades’ in who they believe to be thought criminals. So what the surveillance in Britain is used for is to catch terrorists, which is definitely similar to the surveillance used by ‘Big Brother’ in ‘1984’.
With the plans Britain’s government has to track all forms of online communication as well as the tracking of cell phones, how are we still entitled to our right to freedom? This would definitely remove any freedom we have, because something as personal as say a personal email is no longer personal. This means that we no longer have the freedom to write personal feelings in our emails because who knows who would be reading them. This is also similar to ‘1984’ because when Winston writes in his diary he is already committing thoughtcrime. No one in the ‘1984’ society is entitled to free speech or to express personal feelings, for the one reason that it is against INGSOC.
With all the advancements in technology to help with surveillance; is this advancement really a good thing? Sure it is helping to prevent terrorism and in the long run helping people. But it is also scaring us away from freedom. “The better route to standing up to terrorists, he suggested “is to strengthen our institutions rather than to degrade them.” I find this quote very interesting because it suggests that instead of keeping a close eye on society as a whole, we should strengthen the institutions in our society to help prevent terrorist attacks. By using the surveillance system, society is deterred from the freedoms they are rightly entitled to.
Article:
London of 2008 gets closer to '1984,' troubling some Britons
By: Laurie Goering
Chicago Tribune (MCT)
28 October 2008
LONDON - Each day, the average London resident is filmed 300 times as he or she walks their children to school, takes the train to the office or relaxes after work at a sidewalk cafe. Britain has 4.2 million closed-circuit surveillance cameras, one for every 15 people in the country, security experts say.
In a nation that, like the United States, worries about the potential for terrorist attacks as well as regular crime, most people are hardly bothered by the lack of privacy.
“I wouldn’t say I’m worried by it. It’s become a way of life,” said Louise Hughes, a lawyer living in south London. “Its very presence is a reassurance.”
But a new round of government proposals - to dramatically expand surveillance and data collection and to strengthen other anti-terror measures - has some public officials warning that the government must not go too far in this city where George Orwell set “1984,” the famous novel about the dangers of an all-seeing “Big Brother” government.
“We need to take very great care not to fall into a way of life in which freedom’s back is broken by the relentless pressure of a security state,” warned Sir Ken Macdonald, Britain’s director of public prosecutions, in a speech last week.
Surveillance data have helped Macdonald’s office successfully prosecute 90 percent of terrorism cases, he said, a conviction rate far higher than that in the United States.
But new technological advances are giving government the ability to track people “every second of every day, in everything we do,” he warned. Before passing laws permitting the government to do just that, “we should take very great care to imagine the world we are creating before we build it. We might end up living with something we can’t bear.”
London has an ever-growing number of discreet security cameras keeping an eye on schools, trains and city streets, particularly in high-crime areas. A growing number of London’s cameras can automatically read the license plates on cars, compare passing faces to those of suspects and notify authorities about suspicious behaviors.
British spy agencies, like those in the U.S., also have access to telephone records.
But Britain’s government wants to begin keeping databases of e-mails sent, calls made on Skype, exchanges on social networking sites such as Facebook, chats on gaming sites, communications made through eBay and a variety of other Internet interactions.
In addition, the government proposes to begin requiring registration of all mobile phones in the country - today more than half are unregistered pre-paids - and it hopes to issue a national identity card for everyone living in Britain, with details stored on a central database. It also proposes giving each child an identity number that will follow them through life.
Jacqui Smith, Britain’s home secretary, calls such changes “vital” to the country’s anti-terrorism efforts. She emphasizes that the content of e-mails and phone calls would not be recorded. But with more and more people - including terrorists - exchanging information through a multitude of “chatting” options, tracking the flow of communication on the Web is crucial, she said.
“The communication revolution has been rapid in this country and the way in which we intercept communications and collect communication data needs to change too,” she said in a speech this month. “If it does not, we will lose this vital capability that we currently have and all take for granted.”
Privacy protections and civil liberties have eroded around the world in recent years as nations struggle to balance cherished freedoms with efforts to effectively combat terrorism. The Bush administration has been heavily criticized for setting up the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba for terror suspects, and Privacy International, a London-based privacy watchdog group, has criticized Congress for approving a White House spy program that lets the government track any overseas communications on U.S. e-mail providers like Gmail and Hotmail.
Britain’s government, faced with a revolt by legislators, recently dropped plans to extend detention of terror suspects without charge from 28 to 42 days. But, in a separate initiative, it appears to be pressing ahead with plans to issue national identity cards that would include chips holding “biometric” data like fingerprints and photos. A former head of Britain’s MI5 domestic spy agency last week called such an effort an overreaction to terrorist threats.
Even the British home secretary’s senior aides appear to be in revolt, calling plans for a database of all phone and Internet interactions in the country “impractical, disproportionate, politically unattractive and possibly unlawful from a human rights perspective,” according to a memo leaked to British news media last week. A data communications expert with the Association of Chief Police Officers similarly dismissed the plan as “mission creep,” saying the data could get into the wrong hands.
“The British, like the Americans, know there are terrorist cells out there that want to cause mayhem. But they don’t yet know how to strike a balance between doing what is absolutely necessary to stop those attacks and preserving the civil liberties that are the essence of Western civilization,” said Robin Shepherd, a foreign policy expert at Chatham House, a leading London think tank.
Britain’s government has shown some signs of responding to the growing criticism. Many of the security changes, once expected to be formally proposed this year, are now being delayed until next year, officials say, and some may be revised.
Critics of the measures say they hope the plans will ultimately be either scaled back or abandoned altogether.
“Decisions taken in the next few months and years ... are likely to be irreversible. They will be with us forever,” Macdonald warned.
The better route to standing up to terrorists, he suggested “is to strengthen our institutions rather than to degrade them.”
___
THE FUTURE OF SURVEILLANCE
If Britain’s government goes ahead with plans to create massive new databases of information from identity cards, surveillance cameras, cell phones and Internet exchanges, it could potentially manage to nearly flawlessly track the movement of suspects in real time, some experts say.
Data analysts, for instance, could note that one suspect has just e-mailed another, then begin tracking their movement by seeing where the cell phones registered to the suspects are moving between cell towers, even if the phones are not in use.
Surveillance cameras in those areas, some equipped with face recognition capabilities, could then automatically compare biometric data on the men - particularly photographs - with images of people passing on the street until they find a match.
If the suspects meet other people, they could also be identified by their cell phone signals. Suspects who get into cars could also be followed and pinpointed by roadside surveillance cameras that record license plate numbers.
___
A TIMELINE OF BRITISH SURVEILLANCE
1950s: Police put the first closed-circuit cameras into roadside use to track drivers ignoring red lights.
1960s: Surveillance cameras appear in a few public squares and other public places.
1970s/80s: Businesses began installing their own surveillance cameras for security or to keep an eye on shoplifters.
1993: A surveillance camera catches images of 2-year-old James Bulger walking hand-in-hand out of a shopping center with two 10-year-old truant boys. Bulger is later found slain. The captured images of the boys, later convicted of murder, helps persuade Britons that surveillance is a positive safety measure, useful in preventing crimes or securing convictions.
2008: Number of public and private security cameras in Britain reaches 4.2 million, or more than 20 percent of the world total.
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/article/london-of-2008-gets-closer-to-1984-troubling-some-britons/
I came into this assignment with some knowledge that the present world we live in is in some ways similar to the world created in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four, in which Winston lives. What I did not realize was how extremely close our two worlds are related. I found this surprising, and somewhat disturbing.
The article that I have selected was written about Buddhist monks in Burma that had participated in a pro-democracy protest. They had been identified by the security police with the use of photographs taken during the protest. These monks were taken in by the security policemen, they were interrogated, tortured and humiliated in order to get them to admit that the protest was a “Foreign-blocked political plot to bring down the regime.” Immediately after reading this I was able to make the connection between this and Winston’s situation. Although Winston’s protest against the party is a silent one of actions and thoughts -using his imagination and feelings of love- that, if carried on by others could ultimately destroy the Party. The only way for the Party to stop this was to carefully observe Winston’s reactions to the implements of a trap the Party had set him up in. Because of this, he was caught in his unorthodox actions through the Party’s use of the telescreens. “There was a snap as though a catch had been turned back, and a crash of breaking glass. The picture had fallen to the floor, uncovering the telescreen.” (pg 231) He was taken in by the Thought police, interrogated, tortured and humiliated for an extended period of time. The purpose was to cure him. The party believes that if you are unorthodox you are not sane. “Shall I tell you why we have brought you here? To cure you! To make you sane! Will you understand, Winston, that no one whom we bring to this place ever leaves our hands uncured? We are not interested in those stupid crimes that you have committed. The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is all we care about.“ (pg 265) The reason for interrogating the monks was to get confessions from them, and to terrorise, and strike fear into the rest of the Burmese people. Their purpose is to scare the people out of causing a protest against the military rule, to live in fear of them, just as everyone in Winston’s world fears what will happen to them if the thought police catch them going against the party. “All the monks here are very much against the government. They’re still against the government mentally but not physically because we can’t do anything. If we do they will arrest us.”
The government has created an overall fear for the monks by inserting spies and informers into the monasteries in attempt to gather information and cause a disturbance. Along with this, the civilians of Burma are living in fear that their every move is being constantly watched , and anyone could be an informer of the regime. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the greatest fear is knowing that there is a possibility of being watched, but not knowing when. Winston constantly lives with this fear, even the slightest flicker of emotion in your eyes, if caught, could get you killed. With the fear of not knowing when you are being watched, comes the fear of not knowing who is watching you. Anyone could be a part of the Thought Police and could turn you in at the first sign of unorthodoxy. Winston experiences a sense of panic when he finds that Julia was following him while he was wandering in prole town, he believed that she was part of the Thought Police. Later on in the novel, Winston and Julia were trying to create their own world and restore their humanity in the loft, they discover that they were being watched. Charrington, the prole who rented the loft to them, turned out to be an undercover member of the Thought Police and was involved in the set up to trap Winston.
The Buddhist monks form alliances together through the religion, which poses a threat to the military. The only way for the military to eliminate the threat is to break the alliance between the monks, and attempt to destroy the religion. The answer to this is to scare the monks out of the monasteries. Some monks were sent back to their villages, some were arrested but those who stayed now live in constant fear of being arrested. In the world of INGSOC, the Party’s greatest threat is the human mind. The removal method of this threat is to destroy any form of humanity. The Party has destroyed all history, and turned any form of truth into lies. This gives people nothing to identify with. The Party is also destroying language, literature and art; resulting in no human imagination. Along with the human mind and its imagination, the relationships between man and woman, and child and parents can cause the downfall of the party. Feelings of love and acts of passion towards someone is an act of unorthodoxy and will get you killed. Therefore these things must be demolished by the Party in order for it to have full power. “ Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.” (268-269) The relation that the article has to the novel in this sense is incredibly shocking. When I first read Nineteen Eighty-Four I thought that this world could possibly exist in the distant future, but to realize now that we are presently living in that reality is unsettling.
The Burmese military claimed to have discovered an exile group of “bogus monks” called: The Forum for Democracy in Burma. The military says the organization has a plot to bring down the regime. The presence of a rebellious organization should come as no surprise to the government because of the way they are ruling their country. But they have convinced themselves that they are doing the country a service. Tricking themselves into believing the people are happy, they have good control of the country and their economy is doing well. This in fact is the exact opposite. The Burmese people live in constant fear of the military, they live with different degrees of poverty and starvation, and their economy is doing worse and worse. “ The government maintains the illusion that Burma's economy is growing faster than China's even though the World Bank has rubbished statistics that claim to show double-digit growth. The reality can be seen in the contrasts with the booming economies of much of the rest of south-east Asia - Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia - particularly outside Rangoon.“ All the while the members of the government and the military are very well off, living in higher end houses with plenty of money and good food. This draws my mind right back to Nineteen Eighty-Four. The exile group of monks follows the same criteria as the followers of Goldstein. And the economic situation is also the same. The party is lying to the people of Oceania, telling them the country is doing very well in the war and their economy is doing excellent. While the people are living in a decaying world where everything is being rationed because of the war. This is happening while members of the inner party are living a great life with nice houses, plenty of money and food, and little worry about the crumbling city that surrounds them. The military uses the newspaper to display each day, the “political, economic and social objectives.” The purpose being , to lift the morale of the nation, to create a patriotic spirit and to raise the hopes of the people. INGSOC also demonstrates these actions by telling the people of Oceania is winning the war. It is also a tactic to convince them that the Party is providing everything the people need, and that the economy is doing very well. They fabricate stories of how London used to be a glum and unhappy place to be before the Party came and made it beautiful, being able to provide the best living conditions. In fact it was the exact opposite, but they Party has such control over everything, that they can say this and make people believe it. “In the old days [it ran], before the glorious Revolution, London was not the beautiful city that we know today. It was a dark, dirty, miserable place where hardly anybody had enough to eat and where hundreds and thousands of poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to sleep under.” (75)
Winston believes that the Party can be defeated, but only by the proles. He knows that there is no way for the Party to see a revolution coming from them, but they would know if someone from the Inner or Outer Party started one and would be able to defer or eradicate any threat. Winston puts his hope if freedom in the proles. “But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to cling on to that.” (pg. 89) A similar hope of revolution is put in the people of Burma today. The realization that people can no longer live like this, they must have faith that one day they will find means to resist the military and change things. "People are very much afraid of the government but this can't go on forever. There will be a day when the people break this,"
When I read this article I could instantly relate many of the circumstances that the people of Burma are living in today, to the circumstances that Winston lives with in Nineteen Eighty-Four. What I can say that I took out of reading and comparing this article is the feeling of helplessness. The ever changing world has created a mass amount of people in today’s society that want power and money for face value. They want to feel superior and wealthy, just so they can be happy themselves without thinking about the destruction of the world around them, and what it took, and who it hurt to get them there. Like the Burmese people, the only thing we can really do is hope that people will stand up and form a revolution against these people. We need to create a world with balance, where there is no poverty, no discrimination and equality between everyone, instead of a world where there is division between people, and where we are able to be ourselves with freedom and individuality.
Article:
Spies, Suspicion and empty monasteries
-Burma Today
Chris McGreal
The security policemen who snatched the young shop owner from his bed and hauled him off to the bare interrogation room of Mandalay's police station No 14 really had only one question - and just one answer - in mind.
But the interrogators had an array of techniques to extract the "confession" they wanted to hear from him and the thousands of others scattered in jails across Burma; an admission that the pro-democracy demonstrations led by thousands of monks that shook the country's paranoid military government in September were really a foreign-backed political plot to bring down the regime.
"I was sitting on the floor of the interrogation room," said the man, an art shop owner in his 20s. "There were five of them asking questions. The first day I was beaten very hard and they asked: who organised the monks? I told them we were following the monks, respecting the Buddha, they weren't following us."
"I was interrogated all night for three nights. They kicked and punched me on the side of my head with their fists. They asked me the same question over and over. I told them: you can ask anything, my answer will always be the same. I don't know who organised the monks. They didn't like that answer."
So the interrogators forced the young man to half-crouch as though he were sitting on a motorbike, made him put his arms out as if gripping the handlebars and demanded he imitate an engine, loudly.
The initial humiliation gave way to intense pains in his legs, arms and throat after several hours. When he fell over he was beaten again. He was held for a month and is still not sure why he was detained. He suspects the police identified him from photographs of civilians who marched with the monks. But he was not alone in the cells of police station No 14.
Thousands of civilians have emerged from weeks in prison following the protests with accounts of brutal torture aimed at extracting "confessions" and at terrorising a new generation of Burmese into acquiescing to military rule.
Crackdown
From Rangoon to Mandalay and down the Irrawaddy river to the small town of Pakokku, demonstrators and politicians were rounded up in the crackdown against the greatest challenge to the 400,000-strong army's hegemony in a generation. Scores were killed, including monks.
At the same time, hundreds of monasteries were purged of monks. Some were arrested and tortured but mostly they were driven back to their villages to prevent more protests which began over price rises but evolved into demands for an end to 45 years of military rule.
What remains is a climate of terror in an already fearful land where anyone who took part in the protests lives in dread of being identified. Even the monks are suspicious of each other, believing the regime has planted spies and agents provocateurs or coerced some into becoming informers.
But the military has not emerged unscathed from its confrontation with the monasteries. There are divisions over the brutal treatment of the monks, and accounts that soldiers are fearful of the spiritual price they might pay.
The monks of Pakokku are wary of unknown faces. Their monasteries were among the first to be purged after the small town and seat of Buddhist learning, about six hours downriver from Mandalay, became the crucible of the demonstrations that spread nationwide.
Behind closed doors inside the largest of Pakokku's monasteries, the Bawdimandine, two monks describe a confrontation with the army that on the face of it the monks have lost, but which the Buddhist clergy believe marks the beginning of the downfall of the regime - although none of them are predicting that it will happen any time soon.
"All the monks here are very much against the government," said one. "They're still against the government mentally but not physically because we can't do anything. If we do they will arrest us. We don't want to kill. We don't want to torture. The government takes advantage of this. The government suppressed the protests but there's not really quiet. There's a lot of defiance."
The protests began in August over fuel and food price rises but escalated in September after the army broke up a demonstration in Pakokku by shooting dead one monk and lashing others to electricity poles and beating them with rifle butts. Pakokku's monks demanded an apology from the junta and the reversal of price rises.
But they added two overtly political demands - for the release of the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from house arrest and the start of a dialogue to end military rule - that changed the character of the confrontation.
When the deadline passed, monasteries across Burma took up the cause and poured tens of thousands of monks on to the streets in days of marches that initially left the military paralysed. But the crackdown soon came. In some cases it took no more than the threat of mass arrests to empty a monastery. Lorryloads of troops herded the clergy away from others.
Fear of arrest
Almost half of the 1,200 monks at the Bawdimandine monastery fled. Those who remain say they are afraid to venture on to the streets for fear of arrest.
"Things have changed for us," said one monk. "The soldiers used to drag the civilians off the buses to check their identity cards and leave the monks in their seats. Now it is the monks they line up in the road to check and they leave the civilians on the bus."
It is a similar story in monasteries from the former capital, Rangoon, to Mandalay where 20,000 monks and their supporters turned out on the streets of Burma's second city and religious heartland to challenge the military regime.
The purges continue despite the government's assurances to the United Nations. "The government has many spies among the monks," said one of the chief monks of the Old Ma Soe monastery in Mandalay.
"During the demonstrations they pulled the prisoners out of Mandalay jail and shaved their heads and put them among the monks to cause trouble. The bogus monks were chanting aggressively. They are still trying to send spies. When we have a new monk we do not know we test their knowledge of Buddhist literature. If they don't know we send them away."
In some monasteries, the monks were given time to pack up and get out. But in others, they fled without notice, leaving neatly made beds, books lining the shelves of their cubicles and the single key that each monk is permitted to possess. Cats and dogs wander the prayer halls.
Ask where the monks are and those that remain say they went back to their villages. What has happened to them there? Some were arrested but most have been left alone, provided they do not try to return to their monasteries, according to the leading clerics. "It was all about silencing them," said the monk at Old Ma Soe.
Fear is pervasive in Burma. There are not many soldiers on the streets but the regime has many ordinary people believing that their every move is being watched and that anyone might be an informer. .
The fear is underpinned by the sheer numbers of men who have been through the regime's jails at some time or another, even if only for a few weeks.
The 1988 generation of protesters remembers the slaughter of 3,000 of their number as the regime quashed the demonstrations and the mass arrests afterwards.The latest crackdown has introduced a new generation to the regime's use of terror against its own population.
"There were 85 others in my police cell, mostly young people," said the young shopkeeper held in police station No 14. "Some were only 15 or 16 years old. One boy told me he was arrested for wearing an American flag on his head. Some of the students had broken bones and head wounds.
"At the end of three days I still hadn't confessed so they gave up and put me back in the cell and left me alone. Some of the others confessed under the pressure but they weren't real confessions. I don't blame them. There were people in my cell who were interrogated non-stop for 15 days."
Among those detained were politicians from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) elected in the annulled 1990 parliamentary election.
Last week, the government called diplomats to the new capital, Naypyidaw, to lay out the results of all these interrogations. The military said it had uncovered a longstanding plot involving "bogus monks", a little-known exile group, the Forum for Democracy in Burma, and billionaire financier George Soros's Open Society organisation to bring down the regime.
The junta outlined a complex conspiracy to infiltrate the monasteries, the labour force and universities in an 18-page document filled with scores of names of alleged plotters and their backers. Among others, it names U Gambira, the 27-year-old leader of the All Burma Monks Alliance, who is presently locked up in Mandalay prison. The government accuses him and opposition politicians of using ordinary monks as a front for political ends.
Foreign diplomats who have spoken to senior army officers since the protests say the regime is blind to the growing discontent at deepening economic hardship that underpinned the demonstrations.
The government maintains the illusion that Burma's economy is growing faster than China's even though the World Bank has rubbished statistics that claim to show double-digit growth. The reality can be seen in the contrasts with the booming economies of much of the rest of south-east Asia - Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia - particularly outside Rangoon. There's hardly a new vehicle to be seen besides scooters and Chinese-made motorbikes. The principal means of transport is old, underpowered buses and horse and trap. Ploughs are pulled by cattle.
There is such a shortage of cars that 25-year-old vehicles worth a few hundred pounds across the border cost £10,000 in Burma. A Sim card for the government-run mobile phone network, the only one there is, costs about £1,000.
Aside from a sprinkling of new hotels, there are few modern buildings to be seen beyond Rangoon and the surreal new capital, Naypyidaw. Life expectancy is well short of that in Burma's neighbours.
The chief United Nations representative, Charles Petrie, left Rangoon last week after being expelled for a speech in which he observed that Burma's per capita gross domestic product was less than half that of Cambodia or Bangladesh, and that the recent protests "clearly demonstrated the everyday struggle to meet basic needs. The average household is forced to spend almost three-quarters of its budget on food. One in three children under five are suffering malnutrition, and less than 50% of children are able to complete their primary education".
Military elite
That is not the world the generals live in. They are cocooned in the new capital or Pyin U Lwin, an army town 90 minutes' drive north of Mandalay. It is home to the military's main barracks and the Defence Services Academy training base. The grand, red-tiled entrance proclaims in gold lettering that its officers are the Triumphant Elite of the Future.
Two new and vast mansions sit on distant hilltops, and a neighbourhood of spacious, colonial-style homes is spreading in all directions, all apparently reserved for the military elite.
Few outsiders penetrate this closed world where career officers and their families live mostly cut off from the rest of Burma. Inside that world, the junta portrays itself as all that stands between order and disintegration into ethnic conflict. It says it is committed to a roadmap to a "disciplined flourishing democracy" that will lead to a "golden land in future".
But it has taken 14 years to complete the first two stages of the map which means that at the present rate of progress the end of the road will not be reached until well into the second half of the century.
The military's view that it is central to Burma's very survival is displayed on the front of all the heavily censored newspapers, where each day appear the 12 "political, economic and social objectives" of the military government. These include "uplift of the morale and morality of the entire nation" and "uplift of dynamism of patriotic spirit".
A senior monk who teaches at Pyin U Lwin's military academy said there was disquiet among some soldiers over the assault on the monks. "Soldiers are telling their relatives not to go into the army. Many soldiers are unhappy with what has happened. Some of them are my pupils. Even some of the colonels tell me they don't agree with what has happened," he said.
"We are educating the new generation about what is right and what is wrong. Evolution is better than revolution. We have no weapons. They have the weapons. All we have is loving kindness. Who wants to be killed? People are very peaceful, very passive. No one wants to die, no one wants to kill. They are not like the Muslims. You never heard of Myanmar people suicide bombing. But it will not be quick. Maybe another 10 years."
Many people in Burma are patient, but not that patient. The frustration and sense of helplessness is reflected in the self-delusion among some that the United Nations will invade and overthrow the regime.
Others draw strength from the widespread practice of interpreting what are seen as auspicious signs. Near Bagan a small pagoda has become the site of pilgrimage after a colony of bees settled on the face and chest of a Buddha. Bees are considered particularly auspicious and their choice of a Buddha has been widely interpreted as siding with monks.
Sitting atop a centuries-old pagoda nearby, a politician who has gone into hiding said many Burmese drew strength from the belief that the military leaders will pay for their crimes in the next life.
"They will have an amazing surprise in their afterlife. By killing monks they will come back as dogs who eat shit with many diseases, not the ones that eat good food and look nice; ugly dogs," he said. There are not many who would dare say such things openly but Thet Pyin is among them. The army first threw him into prison 45 years ago for his opposition to its rule.
"The problem the government has created for itself is that the conflict is no longer between the government and the people, it's between religion and the government. That's important because 80% of the population is Buddhist and the government is Buddhist. All the army is Buddhist. That will be its downfall," he said.
Occupation
"I'm 81 years old. I've never in all my life seen as bad a government as this, as unqualified as this. Even the Japanese occupation was not as bad as this. These military people don't have a clue what they are doing and their treatment of the monks is the latest evidence of that."
Pyin, a member of a small party that won three seats in the annulled 1990 election, said that the army duped people back then with promises of democracy but that it will not be able to get away with that again.
"This regime managed to pacify people after the 1988 demonstrations with promises of multiparty elections and an open economy and that the military would return to the barracks. The army reneged on that but it was forced to make the promise. The regime is going to have to do something to pacify the people again but they will not believe its promises now," he said.
"There are divisions in the army. The core of the dictatorship is small, it is at odds with the military in its larger role. This government will fall."
Burma's most renowned female writer, Ludu Daw Ahmar, is also outspoken against the regime. Arrested in 1978 at the age of 63 on suspicion of links to the Communist party, which she denies, Ahmar spent a year in Mandalay jail. She has just celebrated her 92nd birthday and no longer fears what the regime might do to her. Frail and hard of hearing, she remains vigorously defiant.
"People are very much afraid of the government but this can't go on forever. There will be a day when the people break this," she said. "People will have to sacrifice their lives. There is no choice. We can't go on like this. We must get arms to resist them. I can't say how, but the people must find arms."
That is not the view of most Burmese, or the monks who have taken up a low-key but symbolically significant protest against the regime by refusing alms from the government. Some monks turn their bowls upside down when offered food by soldiers, interpreted as a form of excommunication.
At the Old Ma Soe monastery the monks refused to invite government representatives to celebrations to mark its 100th anniversary.
The clerics have also declared a boycott of government exams they are expected to take every year. But the monasteries hold their own exams in April, and some senior clerics are predicting that will mark the beginning of a new campaign of protest.
"The monasteries will be full again. They will not be silent. No one has changed their mind about this government," said a senior cleric in Mandalay. "But we know it will not change tomorrow. It might take five years, it might take 10, but it will be go. It has no solutions."
Atop the pagoda near Bagan, the political activist who is now in hiding said the military was wrong to believe it has cowed another generation.
"Nobody won in September because it's not finished," he said.
Resource-rich but with faltering economy.
Burma is a resource-rich country but its economy is crippled by overbearing government control and ineffective policies. It is the world's biggest exporter of teak, a principal source of precious stones, has fertile soil and significant offshore oil and gas deposits but the majority of its people live in abject poverty. Steps in the early 1990s to liberalise the economy after decades of failure under the programme Burmese Way to Socialisation, a large-scale attempt at central economic planning, were largely unsuccessful. The US imposed fresh economic sanctions in August 2003 in response to the junta's attack on Aung San Suu Kyi and her convoy. A banking crisis in the same year saw hundreds of Burmese lining up outside banks to withdraw their savings after the government shut down several institutions. The average household spends three-quarters of its budget on food and one in three children under five are suffering malnutrition.
Alexandra Topping
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/15/burma.
The Cost of Resisting China’s Big Brother
By: Bill Allan
Summary and response
The article is about China’s horrific struggle for human rights. The article includes several examples of how China’s government abuses their power to prevent the Chinese people of living a life of their own. The government’s secure surveillance on residences, taping of phone calls, and photographs of neighbours and friends that are displayed all over the internet are just a few things that China’s government is allowing and following, which then prevent the citizens of China to live a life of freedom. It is said in the article that most of the people who are influenced drastically by this are those who are a threat to China’s state security such as: Activists, dissidents, independent religious leaders, and separatists. What China’s government is doing, is very unfair to all the people of China. Those that were under much tighter surveillance before and during the Olympics, which was outside Beijing, were told that they were not allowed to travel to the Chinese capital. China’s government is becoming even more controlling then before. People do not have any privacy, for example Ni, 48, had two dozen people knocking down a wall that surrounded a part of her house. The government felt like it was a threat of some sort. The woman was arrested because she had tried to stop these people from attacking her own property. The police claimed that she caused serious injury to a worker while she was trying to stop them. Anything that goes against the Government leads to serious consequences, like “disappearing” or becoming badly injured.
After reading this article, a connection certainly appears with the novel 1984 by George Orwell. There are certain quotes from the article that can relate to Winston, and his struggle of living a human life in a non human world. The first similarity is how technology is affecting China’s citizens by the feeling of someone watching their every move, “‘The security guards follow me wherever I go’, said Dong”. Dong Jiqin, 56 lives the life of the present, and he can relate to Winston who lives the life of the past. Winston and the people of Ingsoc are being watched through the telescreen, and if they doing something wrong they will get yelled at. There is no privacy in Ingsoc and along with China, which prevents the people of Ingsoc and China to be happy, to have their own thoughts, and to make their own decisions. In both places it is a crime to not follow the “norm”. Another similarity from the article to the novel 1984 would be the consequences to not following the rules. In 1984, people disappear at random, and are never spoke of ever again or thought of. In China, people have disappeared however people do not really ask further more questions about the disappearance. Also another consequence would be being harmfully beaten, questioning, and of course in 1984, they would be taken to room 101. It is acceptable to say that we are living in “1984”. Our society is not perfect, and not fair. China’s government controls everyone physically and mentally, and in 1984, Big Brother and the thought police controlled the outer and inner party physically and mentally as well. The struggle in China for human rights is the same for Ingsoc. Neither citizens can speak their opinion, or as I said before be out of the “norm”. Every action counts, and anything that seems suspicious or unordinary, you would be watched more, and under investigation by the Chinese government. And in Ingsoc, you would be set into invisible traps by the thought police that would then lead you to be caught going against the party. Either way, all your information from birth, to marriages, to how many children you have, what kind of bacon you like to eat, or cigarettes you like to smoke, will be held in the governments hands. Also, it is very common that they will use it to their advantage. During class a conversation was held, if the novel 1984 really happened? Or if it could happen? This article is an immense identification that clearly shows that 1984 is happening now. It is not only happening in China, but in our community, throughout Canada and the United states. However, it may not be as drastic as being tortured or being watched 24/7. There are more unseen things such as cameras surrounding our entire school, our visa or debt cards being read by companies, and even an air miles card. Our information is being tossed around from company to company, which then leads to us being watched and observed by people. George Orwell is brilliant, and the story line of 1984 is not just in the past, but in the present. After reading the novel, it may seem to far fetch to actually happen in today’s society, but the sad reality is it is happening to us. To conclude, in the article it states that “Now it’s China’s 1984, because I think there will be big changes in the next five years”. Are lives are changing and we as the citizens need to inform ourselves about such important problems around the world. We should not let ourselves be ignorant or naïve to the world we live in.
Article:
The cost of resisting China’s Big Brother
CHINA: Clampdown on activists who expose surveillance through new technology
From Bill Allan in Beijing
"WE HAVEN'T seen you before. Which media are you from?" a middle-aged woman asked a tall man operating a video camera outside a Beijing court.
"I'm from an independent newspaper," the videographer replied with a slight smile on his face.
The woman and her friend, who were queueing to take documents into the court, chuckled after hearing a statement that they all knew was false. "He's police," one of the women said a few minutes later.
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The exchange outside the Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court was a rare moment of levity in the normally serious, sometimes violent business of monitoring and controlling rights activists, dissidents, independent religious leaders, separatists and others deemed a threat to China's state security.
The plain-clothes police officer was taking footage of petitioners, journalists, lawyers and supporters of dissident Hu Jia, who was sentenced that day in April to three and a half years in prison for subversion.
"Surveillance is both overt and insidious," said Phelim Kine, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Human Rights Watch. Overt surveillance in China is used "both to intimidate, and as a lesson to the neighbours", Kine said.
Hu won the EU's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought last month. He and fellow activist Gao Zhisheng were also nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
Hu, 35, is the most prominent of a growing number of activists who have tried to reflect the intense glare of state surveillance back at those trying to monitor and control them.
The activists' photographs, video, transcripts and diaries, usually distributed via the internet, have given outsiders rare glimpses into surveillance and abuses of power by China's vast public security network.
China tolerates some local activism but it confronts those who begin to operate at a national or international level. The relatively few national-level activists who have mastered the use of the internet and digital technology like Hu and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, are "desperately outnumbered" by the people watching them, Kine said.
"It tells you that those people like Hu Jia, who do master the technology and get the message out, are prey to retribution," Kine.
"What you see in China is that anyone who reaches a certain level of prominence, those people face serious consequences," he said.
The authorities' main concern is to control anyone who has the potential to form the nucleus of groups that could openly challenge the ruling Communist Party, he said.
Beijing resident Dong Jiqin is using his photographs for his campaign to persuade the authorities to investigate the arrest of his wife, Ni Yulan, who has spent more than six months in police custody since she was accused of injuring a worker during a housing dispute.
Dong, 56, is not an activist but has supported Ni through her career as a lawyer and housing rights advocate. Ni's career was first interrupted in 2002 when police illegally detained her for 75 days for filming a forced relocation of residents from one of the many old houses razed to make way for Beijing's vast and countless high-rise developments.
"Because Ni Yulan was beaten and not given medical treatment, Ni Yulan's back and leg were injured," Dong said. "She can't walk normally and has to rely on a pair of crutches to get around." Much has been made of China's increasing use of electronic surveillance of telephones and the internet, and the mushrooming of security cameras in cities. But in a country with unlimited cheap labour, human brains still collect much key information for the police.
Often made up of retired state workers, the neighbourhood committees are the eyes and ears of the police and the Communist Party in urban communities.
Many people were placed under much tighter surveillance before and during the Olympics, with those outside Beijing told they were not allowed to travel to the Chinese capital.
The same process of controlling known dissidents and activists is repeated each time China hosts an important national or international event. Sometimes dozens of officers monitor a single family.
"They came back to watch me during the Asia-Europe leaders' summit," Dong said of the police surveillance before the high-profile meeting began on October 24. "The police and security guards follow me wherever I go," Dong said at his partly demolished Beijing home. "If I ride my bike, they ride bikes to follow me; if I go by car, they also go by car," he said.
As Dong met journalists at his home on Friday, a plain-clothes police officer stood outside listening and peeping through a slot in the door to his yard. More uniformed and plain-clothes police, and a few local officials, watched from a distance and took photographs and video.
Ni, 48, was arrested on April 15 when she tried to stop some two dozen people from knocking down a wall enclosing part of the yard outside their home, which they refuse to vacate for developers despite years of pressure and threats.
The police claimed that she caused serious injury to a worker while she was trying to stop them from damaging her property.
"This was an excuse to arrest her," Dong said. "They didn't have any evidence." Dong called the police on China's emergency number, 110. "After I called 110, uniformed police came but they didn't care," Dong said, so he began taking photographs himself.
"One of the gang members snatched my camera, but a few minutes later he gave it back after he was instructed to do so by the police," he said. Plain-clothes police took away Ni during the melee and later locked up Dong for seven days. Dong's investigation led him to conclude that the hired thugs who forced their way into the family property were acting under the direction of a man who said he was an officer from a local police station but showed no identification.
Ni, Hu and many other activists have paid a heavy price for resisting the authorities. As well as being left disabled, Ni has lost her right to practise law following a criminal conviction in late 2002 for "obstructing public business", the same charge she faces now.
The authorities have not allowed Dong to visit Ni but a lawyer has seen her three times. Her trial was set for August but postponed, and Dong fears she could be sentenced to up to two years in prison this time.
Yao Lifa, an activist in the central province of Hubei who advises farmers on village elections and helps them with legal issues, also disappeared on October 31. Yao's family and supporters believe the authorities seized him to stop him advising voters and candidates in a local election on November 12, meaning he could be released after the election in his home city of Qianjiang.
"This is the most optimistic outcome," Yao's son, Yao Yao, said of his possible release after November 12.
Hans-Gert Poettering, the president of the European Parliament, said the award of the Sakharov Prize to Hu acknowledged the "daily struggle for freedom of all Chinese human rights defenders".
The Chinese government insists that the activists are "common criminals". Reacting to the award of the Sakharov Prize, foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Hu was "a criminal convicted of inciting subversion of the state by Chinese judicial authorities".
Hu's international reputation grew while he was forced to spend most of his time confined inside his suburban apartment on the outskirts of Beijing in 2006 and 2007.
With no paid employment and few visitors allowed, he used his enforced isolation to collect and disseminate information on rights cases and other issues in China via the internet and telephone. "He became a kind of 911 number for anyone who wanted the skinny on what was going on in China," Kine said of Hu.
Hu also learned the names of many of the State Security officers who loitered outside his apartment every day. Some of them remain stationed there to prevent his wife, fellow activist Zeng Jinyan, from speaking to foreign media and governments.
"They are still in the compound," Zeng said by telephone, adding that the police prevented most journalists from visiting her.
Hu's activism began in the late 1990s when the economics graduate volunteered to work on environmental projects. In 2001, he began helping villagers infected with HIV/AIDS through blood-selling schemes in the central province of Henan. The following year, Hu and four friends had their first run-in with state security police who intercepted them and seized film after they travelled to Henan villages.
The group took Christmas toys and clothes to children in poor villages that were decimated through AIDS spread by the illegal collection and sale of blood. "It seemed like the worst scenes of AIDS in Africa, with old and young people infected," Hu said two weeks before his arrest in late December."State security police threatened us and said that AIDS was a state secret".
Hu said China was "lucky" to be shaken out of its complacency on AIDS by the scandal over a cover-up of hundreds of cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Beijing. "After SARS in 2003, nobody dared to say that AIDS was a state secret any more," Hu said. "It gave us an opportunity to be more open."
But after two "golden years" of relatively open activism, the climate began to change with the arrest and harassment of AIDS activists in 2005, he said.
Before his formal arrest in December, Hu had spent most of the previous two years under virtual house arrest or other forms of detention. Hu filmed the police who were monitoring him and Zeng, resulting last year's 30-minute documentary "Prisoners of Freedom City."
The title of the documentary reflected the irony of the couple's restricted life in a modern, low-rise estate known as BOBO Freedom City.
The film mentions that Hu was seized in early 2006 by state security police from the party's Central Political and Judiciary Committee and taken to a secret site, where he was detained for 41 days.
"They tied my hands behind my back, pushed me to the floor (of their car) and put a black bag over my head," Hu said. "It was just like a kidnapping by the mafia."
He believed the arrest was linked to his support for rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who was convicted of subversion in December 2006 but given a suspended prison sentence.
Gao disappeared in September last year, shortly after circulating a letter urging the US Congress to focus on China's human rights record in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in August and saying he could not support China's holding of the games.
He campaigned on behalf of protesting farmers, dissidents, Christians, AIDS activists and fellow rights lawyers. In recent years, he had often called China's one-party rulers "barbaric" and likened them to "mafia bosses".
Gao also came into conflict with police and state security through public complaints about constant surveillance and harassment. He began a blog in 2005 about how the police constantly shadowed him, his wife and daughter; intimidated petitioners who asked Gao for advice; and put pressure on his landlord.
"They can think about all the things that you can never imagine, and this is perhaps the unique attribute they use to select plain clothes police," he said in the blog, which was developed into a book, "A China More Just".
The current location of Gao and his family remains unclear but rumours among his supporters say he is under a form of illegal house arrest by State Security police in Beijing. While Gao's fellow Nobel prize nominee, Hu, lived under house arrest last year, he said he was too busy with his work to watch the DVDs strewn under his television set.
But Hu made an exception for "The Lives of Others", the 2007 Oscar award-winning film that depicts the East German state security (Stasi) surveillance of a playwright from 1984 until the peaceful overthrow of East Germany's communist rulers in 1989.
"Many things like that have happened to me, so it's very familiar," Hu said of the film's scenes of phone-tapping, police raids and 24-hour monitoring.
"Now it's China's 1984," he said, "because I think there will be big changes in the next five years."
©2008 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved
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George Orwell's 1984 is coming to past, in fact the article "George Orwell, Big Brother is Watching your House", compares the CCTV cameras in London to the telescreens in 1984. In George Orwell's 1984, telescreens are a major form of control, as stated in a class discussion it is the thought of these telescreens that strike fear into the uncommon people of Ingsoc. George Orwell’s gruesome prediction of a lack of privacy through telescreens, is coming to pass with the new CCTV cameras installed in London. As in 1984 these constant surveillance cameras are controlled by the police to watch every individuals move, whether it be something as common as a wince of the eye, in 1984 or a speeding car down a London road, these cameras are a sense of authoritative control over the common individual. Though these police controlled cameras in London are not as bad as the thought police controlled telescreens, society is falling into the depths described by Orwell's vision of 1984. Has George Orwell’s nightmare of 1984 become reality, the alien thought of telescreens have become reality in London. One more step for man, less privacy for you.
The article George Orwell, Big brother is watching your house, describes the system placed in London involving CCTV cameras placed over the city, in order to have constant surveillance over those individuals who travel the streets of London daily. The lack of privacy gained by these cameras are to promote a safer society, as those mentioned in 1984 which were used to promoted control and fear. The article suggests that the staggering 4.2 million CCTV cameras, are the reality of Orwell’s vision, through the constant surveillance of the community, it is suggested that each person is caught on camera 300 times daily. It is quite ironic that within 200 yards of George Orwell’s flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras. Within a 200 yard radius of his flat there are 28 CCTV cameras scanning any individual entering or exiting offices, shops, an even homes. George Orwell’s nightmare has happening and is happening right around his old home, the question is will the situation become further advanced to a point of complete surveillance through telescreens.
At the moment there has been a stop to the advancement of our society to the likes of ingsoc due to the fact that such 'Big Brother tactics' could put lives at risk. The RAE report warned that such systems were vulnerable to abuse, including bribery of staff member as well as the threat of computer hackers. Further installations will not occur until the need to do so is proven, if such proof stems up then our society will be that of Ingsoc'. Another problem stemming from such systems is the thought that the information gathered by the cameras where creating suspicion among the society. Is big brother watching your house, your family, and you, at the moment these suspicions are unclear but it is our right as humans to have a sense of privacy, the introduction of these cameras have therefore invaded our privacy.
George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house
Last updated at 23:22pm on 31.03.07
The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality - in the shadow of the author's former London home.
It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell's vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person's movements is now here.
Foresight: The cameras crowd George Orwell's former London home
According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.
Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image of Orwell's fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London.
On the wall outside his former residence - flat number 27B - where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.
Orwell's view of the tree-filled gardens outside the flat is under 24-hour surveillance from two cameras perched on traffic lights.
The flat's rear windows are constantly viewed from two more security cameras outside a conference centre in Canonbury Place.
In a lane, just off the square, close to Orwell's favourite pub, the Compton Arms, a camera at the rear of a car dealership records every person entering or leaving the pub.
Within a 200-yard radius of the flat, there are another 28 CCTV cameras, together with hundreds of private, remote-controlled security cameras used to scrutinise visitors to homes, shops and offices.
The message is reminiscent of a 1949 poster to mark the launch of Orwell's 1984: 'Big Brother is Watching You'.
In the Shriji grocery store in Canonbury Place, three cameras focus on every person in the shop. Owner Minesh Amin explained: 'They are for our security and safety. Without them, people would steal from the shop. Although this is a nice area, there are always bad people who cause trouble by stealing.'
Three doors away, in the dry-cleaning shop run by Malik Zafar, are another two CCTV cameras.
'I need to know who is coming into my shop,' explained Mr Zafar, who spent £400 on his security system.
This week, the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) produced a report highlighting the astonishing numbers of CCTV cameras in the country and warned how such 'Big Brother tactics' could eventually put lives at risk.
The RAE report warned any security system was 'vulnerable to abuse, including bribery of staff and computer hackers gaining access to it'. One of the report's authors, Professor Nigel Gilbert, claimed the numbers of CCTV cameras now being used is so vast that further installations should be stopped until the need for them is proven.
One fear is a nationwide standard for CCTV cameras which would make it possible for all information gathered by individual cameras to be shared - and accessed by anyone with the means to do so.
The RAE report follows a warning by the Government's Information Commissioner Richard Thomas that excessive use of CCTV and other information-gathering was 'creating a climate of suspicion'.
Waving Goodbye to Hegemony
By: Parag Khanna
Khanna’s article, Waving Goodbye to Hegenomy, addresses the significance of the ‘The Big Three’ world superpowers as it discusses the political and economic realities associated with them as well as their interrelationship with one another. Khanna’s article relates to the underlying theme in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, which deals with the significance of three world superpowers and their inter-relationship with one another to establish an economic and political reality for society.
In Khanna’s article, he makes specific reference to Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four novel with respect to the reality of economics and politics in our world when he states, “Twenty-first-century geopolitics will resemble nothing more than Orwell’s 1984, but instead of the three world powers (Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia), we have three hemispheric pan-regions, longitudinal zones dominated by America, Europe and China” (Khanna, p. 4 of 14). In Orwell’s novel, Oceana is portrayed as the world superpower through its economic strength and the success of its war efforts against Eastasia while Eurasia is portrayed as its ally. Similarly, in Khanna’s article, America, formerly viewed as an economic superpower, is essentially battling with the other two superpowers, Europe and China, globally for economic power in an effort to sustain its position. This is exemplified when Khanna states, “rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing – and losing – in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world’s other superpowers: the European Union and China” (Khanna, p. 2 of 14). In contrast with this real world example, in Orwell’s dystopia, the world of Oceania controls what it society believes about the success of and interrelationship between the three superpowers, as evidenced in Orwell’s novel when a voice announces “Attention, comrades! We have glorious news for you. We have won the battle for production! Returns now completed of the output of all classes of consumption goods show that the standard of living has risen by no less than 20 percent over the past year” (Orwell, p. 61). In the real world, the success and interrelationship of the three superpowers is based on ‘actual’ global political and economic performance and not ‘perceived’ economic and political performance as presented in Orwell’s dystopia.
The notion of the economic superpowers being in a positon to make the rules is another aspect of our world, outlined in Khanna’s article, that is similar to Orwell’s dystopia. In Khanna’s article, he states that “The Big Three make the rules – their own rules – without any one of them dominating” (Khanna, p. 2 of 14). This quote refers to the fact that, in the past, the differences in the world views among the Big Three was based on a common culture shared by European powers; however, today, this view has shifted to a more “global, multicivilizational, multipolar battle” (Khanna, p. 3 of 14). Similarly, in Orwell’s novel, Big Brother makes the rules that society must abide by to survive in Oceania, as exemplified when Winston reflects on the news about Big Brother raising the rations of chocolate to 20 grammes a week, “And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it” (Orwell, p. 61-62). Although the three economic superpowers of the real world make the rules without any one dominating, Oceana appears to make its own rules with Oceania dominating. In comparing Orwell’s dystopia to the reality of our world, I am reminded of the fact that although I am fortunate to live in a country where I have rights and freedoms, there are people in other parts of the world who are faced with a life not too different from that of Orwell’s dystopia.
Another aspect of the real world as outlined in Khanna’s article that is comparable to Orwell’s dystopia, with respect to the economic superpowers, is society’s desire for the ‘perfect life’, such as the ‘American dream’ in the real world and the ‘Oceania dream’ in Orwell’s dystopia. In the real world, Khanna’s article points out that as the European economic influence grows, the American economic influence lessens, when he states, “many poor regions of the world have realized that they want the European dream, not the American dream” (Khanna, p.3 of 14). For example, Middle East activists do not want to be ruled like the Americans by a president, but instead prefer Europe’s parliamentary democracy. Therefore, although pursuit of the ‘American dream’ was once the most sought after of the three economic superpowers, as a result of shifting political and economic factors globally, the ‘European dream’ has now taken its place. Similarly, while existing in Orwell’s dystopia, Winston dreams of a perfect life when he imagines himself in front of Room 101 and opens the door to see rolling green hills against blue skies. However, the reality of Orwell’s dystopia is that society is brainwashed to believe the dystopia in which they exist is what they should desire, as exemplified when O’Brian reveals to Winston what is really in Room 101 by saying “The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world” (Orwell, p.296). Although what is actually in Room 101 is opposite to what Winston imagined it to be, O’Brian is suggesting that dystopia in Oceania is what Winston really desires. The difference between the perfect life in Orwell’s dystopia and the perfect life in the real world as depicted in Khanna’s article, is that in Orwell’s dystopia society is brainwashed into wanting the ‘Oceania dream’ whereas, in the real world, Khanna makes it clear that the choice is left up to the individual based on political and economic performance. Comparing Orwell’s dystopia to the reality of our world makes me thankful that I live in a country where I am free to choose the kind of ‘dream life’ I want to live.
A further aspect of the real world as outlined in Khanna’s article that is comparable to Orwell’s dystopia, with respect to the economic superpowers, is the loss of knowledge and valuable expertise. In Khanna’s article, he explains that since the 911 attacks, America has denied foreign students access to its universities, therefore, “we have no claims on their brains or loyalties as we have in decades past” (Khanna, p.3 of 14). As a result, out of the three economic superpowers, Europe has twice as many Chinese studying in their universities as America. The implications of this shift, is that America is losing the potential for future expertise and knowledge to another economic superpower which will inevitably have an affect on its future economic and political success in competing with the other superpowers. Similarly in Orwell’s dystopia, Big Brother is wiping out knowledge by having language rewritten from ‘Oldspeak’ to ‘Newspeak’ as exemplified when Syme says to Winston, “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words […] In the end, the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words—in reality, only one word”, (Orwell, p.54). By rewriting the way things will be expressed in words, Big Brother is controlling the way society will think and talk, erasing the past completely, making society completely vulnerable to the superpower of Oceania. Ironically, wiping out knowledge in Orwell’s dystopia makes Oceania a stronger economic and political superpower, whereas, losing knowledge and expertise in America will make it a weaker economic and political superpower.
After reading Khanna’s article, I have lost a lot of respect for the United States as the American superpower, since during the two terms that George W. Bush served as president, they lost a lot of their economic power to the other two superpowers.
Article:
Waving Goodbye to Hegemony
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By PARAG KHANNA
Published: January 27, 2008
Turn on the TV today, and you could be forgiven for thinking it’s 1999. Democrats and Republicans are bickering about where and how to intervene, whether to do it alone or with allies and what kind of world America should lead. Democrats believe they can hit a reset button, and Republicans believe muscular moralism is the way to go. It’s as if the first decade of the 21st century didn’t happen — and almost as if history itself doesn’t happen. But the distribution of power in the world has fundamentally altered over the two presidential terms of George W. Bush, both because of his policies and, more significant, despite them. Maybe the best way to understand how quickly history happens is to look just a bit ahead.
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It is 2016, and the Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Barack Obama administration is nearing the end of its second term. America has pulled out of Iraq but has about 20,000 troops in the independent state of Kurdistan, as well as warships anchored at Bahrain and an Air Force presence in Qatar. Afghanistan is stable; Iran is nuclear. China has absorbed Taiwan and is steadily increasing its naval presence around the Pacific Rim and, from the Pakistani port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea. The European Union has expanded to well over 30 members and has secure oil and gas flows from North Africa, Russia and the Caspian Sea, as well as substantial nuclear energy. America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline.
Why? Weren’t we supposed to reconnect with the United Nations and reaffirm to the world that America can, and should, lead it to collective security and prosperity? Indeed, improvements to America’s image may or may not occur, but either way, they mean little. Condoleezza Rice has said America has no “permanent enemies,” but it has no permanent friends either. Many saw the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as the symbols of a global American imperialism; in fact, they were signs of imperial overstretch. Every expenditure has weakened America’s armed forces, and each assertion of power has awakened resistance in the form of terrorist networks, insurgent groups and “asymmetric” weapons like suicide bombers. America’s unipolar moment has inspired diplomatic and financial countermovements to block American bullying and construct an alternate world order. That new global order has arrived, and there is precious little Clinton or McCain or Obama could do to resist its growth.
The Geopolitical Marketplace
At best, America’s unipolar moment lasted through the 1990s, but that was also a decade adrift. The post-cold-war “peace dividend” was never converted into a global liberal order under American leadership. So now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing — and losing — in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world’s other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century: the new Big Three. Not Russia, an increasingly depopulated expanse run by Gazprom.gov; not an incoherent Islam embroiled in internal wars; and not India, lagging decades behind China in both development and strategic appetite. The Big Three make the rules — their own rules — without any one of them dominating. And the others are left to choose their suitors in this post-American world.
The more we appreciate the differences among the American, European and Chinese worldviews, the more we will see the planetary stakes of the new global game. Previous eras of balance of power have been among European powers sharing a common culture. The cold war, too, was not truly an “East-West” struggle; it remained essentially a contest over Europe. What we have today, for the first time in history, is a global, multicivilizational, multipolar battle.
In Europe’s capital, Brussels, technocrats, strategists and legislators increasingly see their role as being the global balancer between America and China. Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a German member of the European Parliament, calls it “European patriotism.” The Europeans play both sides, and if they do it well, they profit handsomely. It’s a trend that will outlast both President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the self-described “friend of America,” and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, regardless of her visiting the Crawford ranch. It may comfort American conservatives to point out that Europe still lacks a common army; the only problem is that it doesn’t really need one. Europeans use intelligence and the police to apprehend radical Islamists, social policy to try to integrate restive Muslim populations and economic strength to incorporate the former Soviet Union and gradually subdue Russia. Each year European investment in Turkey grows as well, binding it closer to the E.U. even if it never becomes a member. And each year a new pipeline route opens transporting oil and gas from Libya, Algeria or Azerbaijan to Europe. What other superpower grows by an average of one country per year, with others waiting in line and begging to join?
Robert Kagan famously said that America hails from Mars and Europe from Venus, but in reality, Europe is more like Mercury — carrying a big wallet. The E.U.’s market is the world’s largest, European technologies more and more set the global standard and European countries give the most development assistance. And if America and China fight, the world’s money will be safely invested in European banks. Many Americans scoffed at the introduction of the euro, claiming it was an overreach that would bring the collapse of the European project. Yet today, Persian Gulf oil exporters are diversifying their currency holdings into euros, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has proposed that OPEC no longer price its oil in “worthless” dollars. President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela went on to suggest euros. It doesn’t help that Congress revealed its true protectionist colors by essentially blocking the Dubai ports deal in 2006. With London taking over (again) as the world’s financial capital for stock listing, it’s no surprise that China’s new state investment fund intends to locate its main Western offices there instead of New York. Meanwhile, America’s share of global exchange reserves has dropped to 65 percent. Gisele Bündchen demands to be paid in euros, while Jay-Z drowns in 500 euro notes in a recent video. American soft power seems on the wane even at home.
And Europe’s influence grows at America’s expense. While America fumbles at nation-building, Europe spends its money and political capital on locking peripheral countries into its orbit. Many poor regions of the world have realized that they want the European dream, not the American dream. Africa wants a real African Union like the E.U.; we offer no equivalent. Activists in the Middle East want parliamentary democracy like Europe’s, not American-style presidential strongman rule. Many of the foreign students we shunned after 9/11 are now in London and Berlin: twice as many Chinese study in Europe as in the U.S. We didn’t educate them, so we have no claims on their brains or loyalties as we have in decades past. More broadly, America controls legacy institutions few seem to want — like the International Monetary Fund — while Europe excels at building new and sophisticated ones modeled on itself. The U.S. has a hard time getting its way even when it dominates summit meetings — consider the ill-fated Free Trade Area of the Americas — let alone when it’s not even invited, as with the new East Asian Community, the region’s answer to America’s Apec.
The East Asian Community is but one example of how China is also too busy restoring its place as the world’s “Middle Kingdom” to be distracted by the Middle Eastern disturbances that so preoccupy the United States. In America’s own hemisphere, from Canada to Cuba to Chávez’s Venezuela, China is cutting massive resource and investment deals. Across the globe, it is deploying tens of thousands of its own engineers, aid workers, dam-builders and covert military personnel. In Africa, China is not only securing energy supplies; it is also making major strategic investments in the financial sector. The whole world is abetting China’s spectacular rise as evidenced by the ballooning share of trade in its gross domestic product — and China is exporting weapons at a rate reminiscent of the Soviet Union during the cold war, pinning America down while filling whatever power vacuums it can find. Every country in the world currently considered a rogue state by the U.S. now enjoys a diplomatic, economic or strategic lifeline from China, Iran being the most prominent example.
Without firing a shot, China is doing on its southern and western peripheries what Europe is achieving to its east and south. Aided by a 35 million-strong ethnic Chinese diaspora well placed around East Asia’s rising economies, a Greater Chinese Co-Prosperity Sphere has emerged. Like Europeans, Asians are insulating themselves from America’s economic uncertainties. Under Japanese sponsorship, they plan to launch their own regional monetary fund, while China has slashed tariffs and increased loans to its Southeast Asian neighbors. Trade within the India-Japan-Australia triangle — of which China sits at the center — has surpassed trade across the Pacific.
At the same time, a set of Asian security and diplomatic institutions is being built from the inside out, resulting in America’s grip on the Pacific Rim being loosened one finger at a time. From Thailand to Indonesia to Korea, no country — friend of America’s or not — wants political tension to upset economic growth. To the Western eye, it is a bizarre phenomenon: small Asian nation-states should be balancing against the rising China, but increasingly they rally toward it out of Asian cultural pride and an understanding of the historical-cultural reality of Chinese dominance. And in the former Soviet Central Asian countries — the so-called Stans — China is the new heavyweight player, its manifest destiny pushing its Han pioneers westward while pulling defunct microstates like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as oil-rich Kazakhstan, into its orbit. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization gathers these Central Asian strongmen together with China and Russia and may eventually become the “NATO of the East.”
The Big Three are the ultimate “Frenemies.” Twenty-first-century geopolitics will resemble nothing more than Orwell’s 1984, but instead of three world powers (Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia), we have three hemispheric pan-regions, longitudinal zones dominated by America, Europe and China. As the early 20th-century European scholars of geopolitics realized, because a vertically organized region contains all climatic zones year-round, each pan-region can be self-sufficient and build a power base from which to intrude in others’ terrain. But in a globalized and shrinking world, no geography is sacrosanct. So in various ways, both overtly and under the radar, China and Europe will meddle in America’s backyard, America and China will compete for African resources in Europe’s southern periphery and America and Europe will seek to profit from the rapid economic growth of countries within China’s growing sphere of influence. Globalization is the weapon of choice. The main battlefield is what I call “the second world.”
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Letters: Waving Goodbye to Hegemony (February 10, 2008) The Swing States
There are plenty of statistics that will still tell the story of America’s global dominance: our military spending, our share of the global economy and the like. But there are statistics, and there are trends. To really understand how quickly American power is in decline around the world, I’ve spent the past two years traveling in some 40 countries in the five most strategic regions of the planet — the countries of the second world. They are not in the first-world core of the global economy, nor in its third-world periphery. Lying alongside and between the Big Three, second-world countries are the swing states that will determine which of the superpowers has the upper hand for the next generation of geopolitics. From Venezuela to Vietnam and Morocco to Malaysia, the new reality of global affairs is that there is not one way to win allies and influence countries but three: America’s coalition (as in “coalition of the willing”), Europe’s consensus and China’s consultative styles. The geopolitical marketplace will decide which will lead the 21st century.
The key second-world countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia are more than just “emerging markets.” If you include China, they hold a majority of the world’s foreign-exchange reserves and savings, and their spending power is making them the global economy’s most important new consumer markets and thus engines of global growth — not replacing the United States but not dependent on it either. I.P.O.’s from the so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) alone accounted for 39 percent of the volume raised globally in 2007, just one indicator of second-world countries’ rising importance in corporate finance — even after you subtract China. When Tata of India is vying to buy Jaguar, you know the landscape of power has changed. Second-world countries are also fast becoming hubs for oil and timber, manufacturing and services, airlines and infrastructure — all this in a geopolitical marketplace that puts their loyalty up for grabs to any of the Big Three, and increasingly to all of them at the same time. Second-world states won’t be subdued: in the age of network power, they won’t settle for being mere export markets. Rather, they are the places where the Big Three must invest heavily and to which they must relocate productive assets to maintain influence.
While traveling through the second world, I learned to see countries not as unified wholes but rather as having multiple, often disconnected, parts, some of which were on a path to rise into the first world while other, often larger, parts might remain in the third. I wondered whether globalization would accelerate these nations’ becoming ever more fragmented, or if governments would step up to establish central control. Each second-world country appeared to have a fissured personality under pressures from both internal forces and neighbors. I realized that to make sense of the second world, it was necessary to assess each country from the inside out.
Second-world countries are distinguished from the third world by their potential: the likelihood that they will capitalize on a valuable commodity, a charismatic leader or a generous patron. Each and every second-world country matters in its own right, for its economic, strategic or diplomatic weight, and its decision to tilt toward the United States, the E.U. or China has a strong influence on what others in its region decide to do. Will an American nuclear deal with India push Pakistan even deeper into military dependence on China? Will the next set of Arab monarchs lean East or West? The second world will shape the world’s balance of power as much as the superpowers themselves will.
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Letters: Waving Goodbye to Hegemony (February 10, 2008) In exploring just a small sample of the second world, we should start perhaps with the hardest case: Russia. Apparently stabilized and resurgent under the Kremlin-Gazprom oligarchy, why is Russia not a superpower but rather the ultimate second-world swing state? For all its muscle flexing, Russia is also disappearing. Its population decline is a staggering half million citizens per year or more, meaning it will be not much larger than Turkey by 2025 or so — spread across a land so vast that it no longer even makes sense as a country. Travel across Russia today, and you’ll find, as during Soviet times, city after city of crumbling, heatless apartment blocks and neglected elderly citizens whose value to the state diminishes with distance from Moscow. The forced Siberian migrations of the Soviet era are being voluntarily reversed as children move west to more tolerable and modern climes. Filling the vacuum they have left behind are hundreds of thousands of Chinese, literally gobbling up, plundering, outright buying and more or less annexing Russia’s Far East for its timber and other natural resources. Already during the cold war it was joked that there were “no disturbances on the Sino-Finnish border,” a prophecy that seems ever closer to fulfillment.
Russia lost its western satellites almost two decades ago, and Europe, while appearing to be bullied by Russia’s oil-dependent diplomacy, is staging a long-term buyout of Russia, whose economy remains roughly the size of France’s. The more Europe gets its gas from North Africa and oil from Azerbaijan, the less it will rely on Russia, all the while holding the lever of being by far Russia’s largest investor. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development provides the kinds of loans that help build an alternative, less corrupt private sector from below, while London and Berlin welcome Russia’s billionaires, allowing the likes of Boris Berezovsky to openly campaign against Putin. The E.U. and U.S. also finance and train a pugnacious second-world block of Baltic and Balkan nations, whose activists agitate from Belarus to Uzbekistan. Privately, some E.U. officials say that annexing Russia is perfectly doable; it’s just a matter of time. In the coming decades, far from restoring its Soviet-era might, Russia will have to decide whether it wishes to exist peacefully as an asset to Europe or the alternative — becoming a petro-vassal of China.
Turkey, too, is a totemic second-world prize advancing through crucial moments of geopolitical truth. During the cold war, NATO was the principal vehicle for relations with Turkey, the West’s listening post on the southwestern Soviet border. But with Turkey’s bending over backward to avoid outright E.U. rejection, its refusal in 2003 to let the U.S. use Turkish territory as a staging point for invading Iraq marked a turning point — away from the U.S. “America always says it lobbies the E.U. on our behalf,” a Turkish strategic analyst in Ankara told me, “but all that does is make the E.U. more stringent. We don’t need that kind of help anymore.”
To be sure, Turkish pride contains elements of an aggressive neo-Ottomanism that is in tension with some E.U. standards, but this could ultimately serve as Europe’s weapon to project stability into Syria, Iraq and Iran — all of which Europe effectively borders through Turkey itself. Roads are the pathways to power, as I learned driving across Turkey in a beat-up Volkswagen a couple of summers ago. Turkey’s master engineers have been boring tunnels, erecting bridges and flattening roads across the country’s massive eastern realm, allowing it to assert itself over the Arab and Persian worlds both militarily and economically as Turkish merchants look as much East as West. Already joint Euro-Turkish projects have led to the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, with a matching rail line and highway planned to buttress European influence all the way to Turkey’s fraternal friend Azerbaijan on the oil-rich Caspian Sea.
It takes only one glance at Istanbul’s shimmering skyline to realize that even if Turkey never becomes an actual E.U. member, it is becoming ever more Europeanized. Turkey receives more than $20 billion in foreign investment and more than 20 million tourists every year, the vast majority of both from E.U. countries. Ninety percent of the Turkish diaspora lives in Western Europe and sends home another $1 billion per year in remittances and investments. This remitted capital is spreading growth and development eastward in the form of new construction ventures, kilim factories and schools. With the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the E.U. a year ago, Turkey now physically borders the E.U. (beyond its narrow frontier with Greece), symbolizing how Turkey is becoming a part of the European superpower.
Western diplomats have a long historical familiarity, however dramatic and tumultuous, with Russia and Turkey. But what about the Stans: landlocked but resource-rich countries run by autocrats? Ever since these nations were flung into independence by the Soviet collapse, China has steadily replaced Russia as their new patron. Trade, oil pipelines and military exercises with China under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization make it the new organizing pole for the region, with the U.S. scrambling to maintain modest military bases in the region. (Currently it is forced to rely far too much on Afghanistan after being booted, at China’s and Russia’s behest, from the Karshi Khanabad base in Uzbekistan in 2005.) The challenge of getting ahead in the strategically located and energy-rich Stans is the challenge of a bidding contest in which values seem not to matter. While China buys more Kazakh oil and America bids for defense contracts, Europe offers sustained investment and holds off from giving President Nursultan Nazarbayev the high-status recognition he craves. Kazakhstan considers itself a “strategic partner” of just about everyone, but tell that to the Big Three, who bribe government officials to cancel the others’ contracts and spy on one another through contract workers — all in the name of preventing the others from gaining mastery over the fabled heartland of Eurasian power.
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Letters: Waving Goodbye to Hegemony (February 10, 2008) Just one example of the lengths to which foreigners will go to stay on good terms with Nazarbayev is the current negotiation between a consortium of Western energy giants, including ENI and Exxon, and Kazakhstan’s state-run oil company over the development of the Caspian’s massive Kashagan oil field. At present, the consortium is coughing up at least $4 billion as well as a large hand-over of shares to compensate for delayed exploration and production — and Kazakhstan isn’t satisfied yet. The lesson from Kazakhstan, and its equally strategic but far less predictable neighbor Uzbekistan, is how fickle the second world can be, its alignments changing on a whim and causing headaches and ripple effects in all directions. To be distracted elsewhere or to lack sufficient personnel on the ground can make the difference between winning and losing a major round of the new great game.
The Big Three dynamic is not just some distant contest by which America ensures its ability to dictate affairs on the other side of the globe. Globalization has brought the geopolitical marketplace straight to America’s backyard, rapidly eroding the two-centuries-old Monroe Doctrine in the process. In truth, America called the shots in Latin America only when its southern neighbors lacked any vision of their own. Now they have at least two non-American challengers: China and Chávez. It was Simón BolÃvar who fought ferociously for South America’s independence from Spanish rule, and today it is the newly renamed Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela that has inspired an entire continent to bootstrap its way into the global balance of power on its own terms. Hugo Chávez, the country’s clownish colonel, may last for decades to come or may die by the gun, but either way, he has called America’s bluff and won, changing the rules of North-South relations in the Western hemisphere. He has emboldened and bankrolled leftist leaders across the continent, helped Argentina and others pay back and boot out the I.M.F. and sponsored a continentwide bartering scheme of oil, cattle, wheat and civil servants, reminding even those who despise him that they can stand up to the great Northern power. Chávez stands not only on the ladder of high oil prices. He relies on tacit support from Europe and hardheaded intrusion from China, the former still the country’s largest investor and the latter feverishly repairing Venezuela’s dilapidated oil rigs while building its own refineries.
But Chávez’s challenge to the United States is, in inspiration, ideological, whereas the second-world shift is really structural. Even with Chávez still in power, it is Brazil that is reappearing as South America’s natural leader. Alongside India and South Africa, Brazil has led the charge in global trade negotiations, sticking it to the U.S. on its steel tariffs and to Europe on its agricultural subsidies. Geographically, Brazil is nearly as close to Europe as to America and is as keen to build cars and airplanes for Europe as it is to export soy to the U.S. Furthermore, Brazil, although a loyal American ally in the cold war, wasted little time before declaring a “strategic alliance” with China. Their economies are remarkably complementary, with Brazil shipping iron ore, timber, zinc, beef, milk and soybeans to China and China investing in Brazil’s hydroelectric dams, steel mills and shoe factories. Both China and Brazil’s ambitions may soon alter the very geography of their relations, with Brazil leading an effort to construct a Trans-Oceanic Highway from the Amazon through Peru to the Pacific Coast, facilitating access for Chinese shipping tankers. Latin America has mostly been a geopolitical afterthought over the centuries, but in the 21st century, all resources will be competed for, and none are too far away.
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Letters: Waving Goodbye to Hegemony (February 10, 2008) The Middle East — spanning from Morocco to Iran — lies between the hubs of influence of the Big Three and has the largest number of second-world swing states. No doubt the thaw with Libya, brokered by America and Britain after Muammar el-Qaddafi declared he would abandon his country’s nuclear pursuits in 2003, was partly motivated by growing demand for energy from a close Mediterranean neighbor. But Qaddafi is not selling out. He and his advisers have astutely parceled out production sharing agreements to a balanced assortment of American, European, Chinese and other Asian oil giants. Mindful of the history of Western oil companies’ exploitation of Arabia, he — like Chávez in Venezuela and Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan — has also cleverly ratcheted up the pressure on foreigners to share more revenue with the regime by tweaking contracts, rounding numbers liberally and threatening expropriation. What I find in virtually every Arab country is not such nationalism, however, but rather a new Arabism aimed at spreading oil wealth within the Arab world rather than depositing it in the United States as in past oil booms. And as Egypt, Syria and other Arab states receive greater investment from the Persian Gulf and start spending more on their own, they, too, become increasingly important second-world players who can thwart the U.S.
Saudi Arabia, for quite some years to come still the planet’s leading oil producer, is a second-world prize on par with Russia and equally up for grabs. For the past several decades, America’s share of the foreign direct investment into the kingdom decisively shaped the country’s foreign policy, but today the monarchy is far wiser, luring Europe and Asia to bring their investment shares toward a third each. Saudi Arabia has engaged Europe in an evolving Persian Gulf free-trade area, while it has invested close to $1 billion in Chinese oil refineries. Make no mistake: America was never all powerful only because of its military dominance; strategic leverage must have an economic basis. A major common denominator among key second-world countries is the need for each of the Big Three to put its money where its mouth is.
For all its historical antagonism with Saudi Arabia, Iran is playing the same swing-state game. Its diplomacy has not only managed to create discord among the U.S. and E.U. on sanctions; it has also courted China, nurturing a relationship that goes back to the Silk Road. Today Iran represents the final square in China’s hopscotch maneuvering to reach the Persian Gulf overland without relying on the narrow Straits of Malacca. Already China has signed a multibillion-dollar contract for natural gas from Iran’s immense North Pars field, another one for construction of oil terminals on the Caspian Sea and yet another to extend the Tehran metro — and it has boosted shipment of ballistic-missile technology and air-defense radars to Iran. Several years of negotiation culminated in December with Sinopec sealing a deal to develop the Yadavaran oil field, with more investments from China (and others) sure to follow. The longer International Atomic Energy Agency negotiations drag on, the more likely it becomes that Iran will indeed be able to stay afloat without Western investment because of backing from China and from its second-world friends — without giving any ground to the West.
Interestingly, it is precisely Muslim oil-producing states — Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, (mostly Muslim) Kazakhstan, Malaysia — that seem the best at spreading their alignments across some combination of the Big Three simultaneously: getting what they want while fending off encroachment from others. America may seek Muslim allies for its image and the “war on terror,” but these same countries seem also to be part of what Samuel Huntington called the “Confucian-Islamic connection.” What is more, China is pulling off the most difficult of superpower feats: simultaneously maintaining positive ties with the world’s crucial pairs of regional rivals: Venezuela and Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. At this stage, Western diplomats have only mustered the wherewithal to quietly denounce Chinese aid policies and value-neutral alliances, but they are far from being able to do much of anything about them.
This applies most profoundly in China’s own backyard, Southeast Asia. Some of the most dynamic countries in the region Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are playing the superpower suitor game with admirable savvy. Chinese migrants have long pulled the strings in the region’s economies even while governments sealed defense agreements with the U.S. Today, Malaysia and Thailand still perform joint military exercises with America but also buy weapons from, and have defense treaties with, China, including the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation by which Asian nations have pledged nonaggression against one another. (Indonesia, a crucial American ally during the cold war, has also been forming defense ties with China.) As one senior Malaysian diplomat put it to me, without a hint of jest, “Creating a community is easy among the yellow and the brown but not the white.” Tellingly, it is Vietnam, because of its violent histories with the U.S. and China, which is most eager to accept American defense contracts (and a new Intel microchip plant) to maintain its strategic balance. Vietnam, like most of the second world, doesn’t want to fall into any one superpower’s sphere of influence.
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Letters: Waving Goodbye to Hegemony (February 10, 2008) The Anti-Imperial Belt
The new multicolor map of influence — a Venn diagram of overlapping American, Chinese and European influence — is a very fuzzy read. No more “They’re with us” or “He’s our S.O.B.” Mubarak, Musharraf, Malaysia’s Mahathir and a host of other second-world leaders have set a new standard for manipulative prowess: all tell the U.S. they are its friend while busily courting all sides.
What is more, many second-world countries are confident enough to form anti-imperial belts of their own, building trade, technology and diplomatic axes across the (second) world from Brazil to Libya to Iran to Russia. Indeed, Russia has stealthily moved into position to construct Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor, putting it firmly in the Chinese camp on the Iran issue, while also offering nuclear reactors to Libya and arms to Venezuela and Indonesia. Second-world countries also increasingly use sovereign-wealth funds (often financed by oil) worth trillions of dollars to throw their weight around, even bullying first-world corporations and markets. The United Arab Emirates (particularly as represented by their capital, Abu Dhabi), Saudi Arabia and Russia are rapidly climbing the ranks of foreign-exchange holders and are hardly holding back in trying to buy up large shares of Western banks (which have suddenly become bargains) and oil companies. Singapore’s sovereign-wealth fund has taken a similar path. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia plans an international investment fund that will dwarf Abu Dhabi’s. From Switzerland to Citigroup, a reaction is forming to limit the shares such nontransparent sovereign-wealth funds can control, showing just how quickly the second world is rising in the global power game.
To understand the second world, you have to start to think like a second-world country. What I have seen in these and dozens of other countries is that globalization is not synonymous with Americanization; in fact, nothing has brought about the erosion of American primacy faster than globalization. While European nations redistribute wealth to secure or maintain first-world living standards, on the battlefield of globalization second-world countries’ state-backed firms either outhustle or snap up American companies, leaving their workers to fend for themselves. The second world’s first priority is not to become America but to succeed by any means necessary.
The Non-American World
Karl Marx and Max Weber both chastised Far Eastern cultures for being despotic, agrarian and feudal, lacking the ingredients for organizational success. Oswald Spengler saw it differently, arguing that mankind both lives and thinks in unique cultural systems, with Western ideals neither transferable nor relevant. Today the Asian landscape still features ancient civilizations but also by far the most people and, by certain measures, the most money of any region in the world. With or without America, Asia is shaping the world’s destiny — and exposing the flaws of the grand narrative of Western civilization in the process.
The rise of China in the East and of the European Union within the West has fundamentally altered a globe that recently appeared to have only an American gravity — pro or anti. As Europe’s and China’s spirits rise with every move into new domains of influence, America’s spirit is weakened. The E.U. may uphold the principles of the United Nations that America once dominated, but how much longer will it do so as its own social standards rise far above this lowest common denominator? And why should China or other Asian countries become “responsible stakeholders,” in former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick’s words, in an American-led international order when they had no seat at the table when the rules were drafted? Even as America stumbles back toward multilateralism, others are walking away from the American game and playing by their own rules.
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Letters: Waving Goodbye to Hegemony (February 10, 2008) The self-deluding universalism of the American imperium — that the world inherently needs a single leader and that American liberal ideology must be accepted as the basis of global order — has paradoxically resulted in America quickly becoming an ever-lonelier superpower. Just as there is a geopolitical marketplace, there is a marketplace of models of success for the second world to emulate, not least the Chinese model of economic growth without political liberalization (itself an affront to Western modernization theory). As the historian Arnold Toynbee observed half a century ago, Western imperialism united the globe, but it did not assure that the West would dominate forever — materially or morally. Despite the “mirage of immortality” that afflicts global empires, the only reliable rule of history is its cycles of imperial rise and decline, and as Toynbee also pithily noted, the only direction to go from the apogee of power is down.
The web of globalization now has three spiders. What makes America unique in this seemingly value-free contest is not its liberal democratic ideals — which Europe may now represent better than America does — but rather its geography. America is isolated, while Europe and China occupy two ends of the great Eurasian landmass that is the perennial center of gravity of geopolitics. When America dominated NATO and led a rigid Pacific alliance system with Japan, South Korea, Australia and Thailand, it successfully managed the Herculean task of running the world from one side of it. Now its very presence in Eurasia is tenuous; it has been shunned by the E.U. and Turkey, is unwelcome in much of the Middle East and has lost much of East Asia’s confidence. “Accidental empire” or not, America must quickly accept and adjust to this reality. Maintaining America’s empire can only get costlier in both blood and treasure. It isn’t worth it, and history promises the effort will fail. It already has.
Would the world not be more stable if America could be reaccepted as its organizing principle and leader? It’s very much too late to be asking, because the answer is unfolding before our eyes. Neither China nor the E.U. will replace the U.S. as the world’s sole leader; rather all three will constantly struggle to gain influence on their own and balance one another. Europe will promote its supranational integration model as a path to resolving Mideast disputes and organizing Africa, while China will push a Beijing consensus based on respect for sovereignty and mutual economic benefit. America must make itself irresistible to stay in the game.
I believe that a complex, multicultural landscape filled with transnational challenges from terrorism to global warming is completely unmanageable by a single authority, whether the United States or the United Nations. Globalization resists centralization of almost any kind. Instead, what we see gradually happening in climate-change negotiations (as in Bali in December) — and need to see more of in the areas of preventing nuclear proliferation and rebuilding failed states — is a far greater sense of a division of labor among the Big Three, a concrete burden-sharing among them by which they are judged not by their rhetoric but the responsibilities they fulfill. The arbitrarily composed Security Council is not the place to hash out such a division of labor. Neither are any of the other multilateral bodies bogged down with weighted voting and cacophonously irrelevant voices. The big issues are for the Big Three to sort out among themselves.
So let’s play strategy czar. You are a 21st-century Kissinger. Your task is to guide the next American president (and the one after that) from the demise of American hegemony into a world of much more diffuse governance. What do you advise, concretely, to mitigate the effects of the past decade’s policies — those that inspired defiance rather than cooperation — and to set in motion a virtuous circle of policies that lead to global equilibrium rather than a balance of power against the U.S.?
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Letters: Waving Goodbye to Hegemony (February 10, 2008) First, channel your inner J.F.K. You are president, not emperor. You are commander in chief and also diplomat in chief. Your grand strategy is a global strategy, yet you must never use the phrase “American national interest.” (It is assumed.) Instead talk about “global interests” and how closely aligned American policies are with those interests. No more “us” versus “them,” only “we.” That means no more talk of advancing “American values” either. What is worth having is universal first and American second. This applies to “democracy” as well, where timing its implementation is as important as the principle itself. Right now, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, the hero of the second world — including its democracies — is Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore.
We have learned the hard way that what others want for themselves trumps what we want for them — always. Neither America nor the world needs more competing ideologies, and moralizing exhortations are only useful if they point toward goals that are actually attainable. This new attitude must be more than an act: to obey this modest, hands-off principle is what would actually make America the exceptional empire it purports to be. It would also be something every other empire in history has failed to do.
Second, Pentagonize the State Department. Adm. William J. Fallon, head of Central Command (Centcom), not Robert Gates, is the man really in charge of the U.S. military’s primary operations. Diplomacy, too, requires the equivalent of geographic commands — with top-notch assistant secretaries of state to manage relations in each key region without worrying about getting on the daily agenda of the secretary of state for menial approvals. Then we’ll be ready to coordinate within distant areas. In some regions, our ambassadors to neighboring countries meet only once or twice a year; they need to be having weekly secure video-conferences. Regional institutions are thriving in the second world — think Mercosur (the South American common market), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), the Gulf Cooperation Council in the Persian Gulf. We need high-level ambassadors at those organizations too. Taken together, this allows us to move beyond, for example, the current Millennium Challenge Account — which amounts to one-track aid packages to individual countries already going in the right direction — toward encouraging the kind of regional cooperation that can work in curbing both terrorism and poverty. Only if you think regionally can a success story have a demonstration effect. This approach will be crucial to the future of the Pentagon’s new African command. (Until last year, African relations were managed largely by European command, or Eucom, in Germany.) Suspicions of America are running high in Africa, and a country-by-country strategy would make those suspicions worse. Finally, to achieve strategic civilian-military harmonization, we have to first get the maps straight. The State Department puts the Stans in the South and Central Asia bureau, while the Pentagon puts them within the Middle-East-focused Centcom. The Chinese divide up the world the Pentagon’s way; so, too, should our own State Department.
Third, deploy the marchmen. Europe is boosting its common diplomatic corps, while China is deploying retired civil servants, prison laborers and Chinese teachers — all are what the historian Arnold Toynbee called marchmen, the foot-soldiers of empire spreading values and winning loyalty. There are currently more musicians in U.S. military marching bands than there are Foreign Service officers, a fact not helped by Congress’s decision to effectively freeze growth in diplomatic postings. In this context, Condoleezza Rice’s “transformational diplomacy” is a myth: we don’t have enough diplomats for core assignments, let alone solo hardship missions. We need a Peace Corps 10 times its present size, plus student exchanges, English-teaching programs and hands-on job training overseas — with corporate sponsorship.
That’s right. In true American fashion, we must build a diplomatic-industrial complex. Europe and China all but personify business-government collusion, so let State raise money from Wall Street as it puts together regional aid and investment packages. American foreign policy must be substantially more than what the U.S. government directs. After all, the E.U. is already the world’s largest aid donor, and China is rising in the aid arena as well. Plus, each has a larger population than the U.S., meaning deeper benches of recruits, and are not political targets in the present political atmosphere the way Americans abroad are. The secret weapon must be the American citizenry itself. American foundations and charities, not least the Gates and Ford Foundations, dwarf European counterparts in their humanitarian giving; if such private groups independently send more and more American volunteers armed with cash, good will and local knowledge to perform “diplomacy of the deed,” then the public diplomacy will take care of itself.
Fourth, make the global economy work for us. By resurrecting European economies, the Marshall Plan was a down payment on even greater returns in terms of purchasing American goods. For now, however, as the dollar falls, our manufacturing base declines and Americans lose control of assets to wealthier foreign funds, our scientific education, broadband access, health-care, safety and a host of other standards are all slipping down the global rankings. Given our deficits and political gridlock, the only solution is to channel global, particularly Asian, liquidity into our own public infrastructure, creating jobs and technology platforms that can keep American innovation ahead of the pack. Globalization apologizes to no one; we must stay on top of it or become its victim.
Fifth, convene a G-3 of the Big Three. But don’t set the agenda; suggest it. These are the key issues among which to make compromises and trade-offs: climate change, energy security, weapons proliferation and rogue states. Offer more Western clean technology to China in exchange for fewer weapons and lifelines for the Sudanese tyrants and the Burmese junta. And make a joint effort with the Europeans to offer massive, irresistible packages to the people of Iran, Uzbekistan and Venezuela — incentives for eventual regime change rather than fruitless sanctions. A Western change of tone could make China sweat. Superpowers have to learn to behave, too.
Taken together, all these moves could renew American competitiveness in the geopolitical marketplace — and maybe even prove our exceptionalism. We need pragmatic incremental steps like the above to deliver tangible gains to people beyond our shores, repair our reputation, maintain harmony among the Big Three, keep the second world stable and neutral and protect our common planet. Let’s hope whoever is sworn in as the next American president understands this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27world-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=oceania%20eurasia%20eastasia&st=cse&scp=2
Response.
“Big Brother is watching you”, the phrase which took birth in the marvellous Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell has frightened the people of planet earth for the past six decades. It defines the constant surveillance our government has over us, ironically making Orwell’s prediction in “Nineteen Eighty-four” true, since the people of Oceania keep alive the same way we do, this very hour. The article “Big Brother is watching you… Council to Fingerprint staff as they clock in for work”, written by an anonymous Daily Mail reporter, explains one of the many “Orwellian” proposals the government has decided to offer, to have absolute control over the average man.
In “Nineteen eighty-four”, Winston Smith, the protagonist and a modern Hero, is shown as one of the few remaining humans in a non-human world. INGSOC, the ruling party sets absolutely astonishing limits and rules to the people that live in the dead year of 1984. Oceania, one of the three dominating continents, is shown as an extinct state where sex is a duty to reproduce for INGSOC, literature is destroyed, history is altered, everyday supplies like razor blades are limited and the worst of all, putting one’s thoughts on paper is a crime. The people of Oceania are classed into three groups including the most superior “Inner party”, the neutral “outer party” and the inferior of all, “the Proles”, which consists of illiterate puppets who do not have an imagination of their own. Ironically, this correlates completely with the world we live in since our society is unintentionally divided into the three main groups including the Elite (i.e. The Ross family from The Wars, The Buchannan’s from The Great Gatsby), the middle class (i.e. average people like us), and the lower class (the homeless of our society), and therefore once more proving Orwell’s prediction true. Orwell wrote the novel to warn us of the world he thought of, in his remaining years, but unfortunately we ignored the warning and progressed towards the world we reside in, where similar events take place and where Big Brother keeps an eye on us.
The article, talks about the idea of finger-printing which has fallen among the great minds that control the Great Britain. The council responsible for government jobs in Westminster, London have been discussing that finger printing employees as a replacement for the traditional clocking in method, would be beneficial for the employees. The counsel at Westminster in London states that it is an essential role to be played as an employer to ensure that their employees are safe at all times, “The council says it wants to protect staff by making sure they know where they are”. Unison, a well trusted employee union, states the truth, which is the fact that employers like the Westminster council will use this system to dodge fraud, which in some cases can prove to be beneficial towards the employee. From this perspective, one may consider that the new system might prove to be fair for both parties, but this is only until the real threat may be predicted. As we are all aware that the Orwellian world be reside in, has many secrets which are hidden from the general population until one tries hard to find them. It is evident that a few people have predicted that an underground network may form in the future, between the employers which use the fingerprinting system and business networks. This complicated idea can be explained very easily by an example from my English teacher, Paul Liconti, who once stated that companies such as Airmiles© may sell a consumer’s buying habit to other companies, which may ironically end up using our own information against us. For example, a person buys a pack of cigarettes and uses his Airmiles© card to collect points because they seem rewarding at the time. Later on, the person may discover a raise in his life insurance rate because the insurance company is now magically aware of the person’s smoking habits. In a similar way, employers who may use this piece of technology in the future, not necessarily the counsel of Westminster, may use an employee’s habits against him/her and may even provide the data to the police. I say “habits” because it is evident that this prototype of an idea will evolve in the future, since surveillance through cameras already has, and may even end up in the most unusual situations possible such as a person’s car, washroom, bed and so on until we reach the world in which Big Brother watches our every move. Since a finger print is the most private form of information possible, many individuals have refused to put their finger on the scanner and have regarded this action as an “Orwellian” one, which refers to the beliefs of Sir George Orwell.
Technology has progressed at the speed of light in the past few decades, leaving a positive and a negative mark on the society. On the contrary, it fed the fire of “Big Brother”, by making it easier for the government to keep an eye on an average man who most probably will not even interfere with the government business. A similar event took place last year which took me in, even though I had no involvement in the affair what so ever. Around the same time of the year, last year I was watched by the school principle through one of the camera lenses. Streetsville secondary school is quite old of an institution so even thinking that the antique cameras would work, could take one by surprise. So one day one of my friends, Ali, who was a cigar aficionado like myself, walked towards me on my lunch period and asked me if I could accompany him to the smokers’ pit where he would light up his “Montecristo # 2”. I, obviously accepted the offer and later ended up in the main office, accused of smoking marijuana on school property. It was not true what the principle had thought since they later found the butt of the cigar at the pit, but the principle did show me the video of us being monitored and excused us for wasting 45 minutes of precious lunch time. This account was not very significant since we were obviously not guilty of carrying narcotics, but it showed one the significance of the element of surprise which can be caused through constant surveillance just like Mr. Charrington’s intrusion into the beautiful man-made world, which belongs to Winston and Julia. “You are the dead!” he says.
George Orwell’s predicted world seems to be coming closer every minute and will take complete dominance if people fail to fight back. Big brother is watching us and we ignore this fact as if it were a telescreen on a wall. The elements of Big Brother’s presence can be seen in every corner one looks at, including Television, Literature, Music and the society itself. So my advice to an individual from our society would be to not ignore these Orwellian issues. If you know that you are being watched, don’t fall for Doublethink, but rather stand up for you rights and fight back just like a great man named Winston Smith once did.
Article
Big Brother is watching you.... Council to fingerprint staff as they clock in for work
By Daily Mail Reporter
last updated at 11:19 AM on 12th September 2008
Hundreds council workers are set to be fingerprinted before they are allowed to work, it has been revealed.
Staff at Westminster Council in London will 'clock in' by scanning their fingerprints in what is believed to be the first scheme of its type in Britain.
But today civil liberties and data protection watchdogs warned the scheme had 'Big Brother' overtones and should be abandoned.
Some of the workers affected are already considering industrial action over the plan. About 200 employees in the street management services department, including the borough's road sweepers, will be asked to provide their fingerprints.
Plans are underway for council workers to be fingerprinted before they are allowed to work
A source at the authority said staff would have to swipe a finger across a wall-mounted box linked to a computer system. The prints would then be logged and matched against staff records.
Unlike traditional clocking-in machines, employees will not be able to dodge the system by getting others to swipe in for them.
The council says it wants to protect staff by making sure they know where they are. But Unison, the public sector union, argued that the council was introducing the machines because it did not trust its staff.
The source said: 'The computer will work out who is, and who is not, where they should be.
'Very quickly managers will be able to work out if there are any gaps in attendance - in other words if someone is skiving or not.'
The revelation will add to growing public concern about how personal data is collected, stored and used by organisations.
Privacy campaigners claim the Government is eroding Britain's traditional freedoms with creeping surveillance and data collection.
In July, plans for a massive database that would detail every phone call, email, text message, internet search and on-line purchase in the fight against terrorism and other serious crime were condemned as a step too far.
The loss of personal data records held by several government agencies has further eroded the public's trust.
Civil liberties campaign group Liberty said there was no guarantee that the details of Westminster employees would not be passed to police.
Policy director Gareth Crossman said: 'This is excessive, unnecessary and disproportionate. Anyone who does give their fingerprints to their employer should be aware that these things invariably become a source for the police.
'Fingerprinting used to be something we did to criminals but now we do it to everyone from children returning their library books to road sweepers.'
Union representatives have labelled the fingerprinting at Westminster 'Orwellian' and warned workers not to use the biometric devices. They are seeking talks with senior managers.
Stephen Higgins, Westminster Unison assistant branch secretary, said: 'We simply do not trust the city council to hold this information securely and see no justification for such a scheme.'
Phil Vaughan, the union's branch secretary at Westminster, said the system was 'based on mistrust'.
He added: 'We can see no justifiable reason why it is necessary for the council to obtain such personal data, and Westminster Unison shall resist such draconian measures.'
Dean Ingledew, Westminster's director of community protection, said: 'As an employer we have a duty of care to know where our staff are, that they are safe and that council taxpayers are getting value for money from staff who are working properly.
'The system mainly applies to members of staff who are street-based and often work alone and late at night and many say they actually feel safer with this system because if anyone fails to sign in or out it is flagged up immediately and calls are made to find out where they are.'
The Information Commissioner's Office said: 'The collection of more and more personal data represents a greater potential risk to individuals.’
URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1054892/Big-Brother-watching---Council-fingerprint-staff-clock-work.html
Do you ever get the feeling that someone is watching you? In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, someone is always watching you, just like in our society today. In the novel the Party had took the power to control everyone around them, always watching what they do,and what they say. In the article " Big Brother" database for phones and e-mails, it is stating how the government is planning on invading the society's privacy, just like in the novel. We are today living in Nineteen Eighty-Four, we accept it or not. Everything that we now do, is being monitored in one way or another. The Thought Police in the novel, are the ones who are watching you, and as the article states, police would have access to all of our information, such as every email we have ever sent, or received, just like in the novel.
Winston the main character in the novel , lives in a place called INGSOC, where nothing is private , and all humanity has been drained out of the people living there. All Winston really wants is to have a free mind, to be able to think for himself , and learn about who he is. In INGSOC, they are taught the language Newspeak, it is an altered version of the english language. The Party has taken control of what people think, and what they believe. In today's society, the media tells us how to think, and what is accepted and what is not. Every human is different and has different beliefs, but the government is trying to change that. In North America, people are promised freedom, but just like in the UK they are also being monitored, just like the UK is planning on doing, as stated in the article. In the article, they say it is to protect the public, but it could just as much make the public rebel, because they don't want the government intervening in their personal lives.
Yes it is true that every society wants to see change for the better, but the government doesn't always know what is best. In INGSOC, they have erased history, so how are people to learn the mistakes made in the past so that they don't happen again. In many country's , history has been erased, but other country's in the world knows what really happened. Everything that is happening in INGSOC is happening in our community's today, the government is controlling how we live, and analyzing everything we do.The media is telling people how to dress, and how to act, and what to believe is wrong or right, instead of the people listening to themselves, and what they believe. Even in the lands of the free, you will never really be free, not with people watching your every move.
The Times
May 20, 2008‘Big Brother’ database for phones and e-mails
Richard Ford
A massive government database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public is being planned as part of the fight against crime and terrorism. Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms companies would hand over the records to the Home Office under plans put forward by officials.
The information would be held for at least 12 months and the police and security services would be able to access it if given permission from the courts.
The proposal will raise further alarm about a "Big Brother" society, as it follows plans for vast databases for the ID cards scheme and NHS patients. There will also be concern about the ability of the Government to manage a system holding billions of records. About 57 billion text messages were sent in Britain last year, while an estimated 3 billion e-mails are sent every day.
Home Office officials have discussed the option of the national database with telecommunications companies and ISPs as part of preparations for a data communications Bill to be in November’s Queen’s Speech. But the plan has not been sent to ministers yet.
Industry sources gave warning that a single database would be at greater risk of attack and abuse.
Jonathan Bamford, the assistant Information Commissioner, said: "This would give us serious concerns and may well be a step too far. We are not aware of any justification for the State to hold every UK citizen’s phone and internet records. We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable. We have warned before that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Holding large collections of data is always risky - the more data that is collected and stored, the bigger the problem when the data is lost, traded or stolen."
David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: "Given [ministers’] appalling record at maintaining the integrity of databases holding people’s sensitive data, this could well be more of a threat to our security, than a support."
The proposal has emerged as part of plans to implement an EU directive developed after the July 7 bombings to bring uniformity of record-keeping. Since last October telecoms companies have been required to keep records of phone calls and text messages for 12 months. That requirement is to be extended to internet, e-mail and voice-over-internet use and included in a Communications Data Bill.
Police and the security services can access the records with a warrant issued by the courts. Rather than individual companies holding the information, Home Office officials are suggesting the records be handed over to the Government and stored on a huge database.
One of the arguments being put forward in favour of the plan is that it would make it simpler and swifter for law enforcement agencies to retrieve the information instead of having to approach hundreds of service providers. Opponents say that the scope for abuse will be greater if the records are held on one database.
A Home Office spokesman said the Bill was needed to reflect changes in communication that would "increasingly undermine our current capabilities to obtain communications data and use it to protect the public".
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article3965033.ece
The novel nineteen-eighty-four written by George Orwell depicts an imprisoned world, which has become a frightening reality in the present time. A world that slowly strips away the freedom of ones own mind. Within the article University errs in attempt to censor pro-life group, there are several issues that tie in with Nineteen-eighty-four, this issue is control over the individual. How can two different time eras even relate? George Orwell manages to foresee censorship, doublethink and punishments, being used by the government to maintain control. .
The common method of control is by censoring certain materials that go against the leaders ideals or preventing freedom for the citizens. The general motive is to limit thinking, leaving the people ignorant and easy to control. In Nineteen-eight-four, Big Brother censors all previous knowledge by destroying any records of the world before nineteen-fifty. By destroying the past the outer party is tricked into believing this is the best way of life. “When there were no external records that you could refer to, even the outline of your own life lost its sharpness.”(Orwell,34), showing how weak the people have become. The ignorance amongst the people at a level that now Big Brother is able to use them as puppets. In the article, the university attempts to censor a pro-life group, which is shielding people from being able to scrutinize the information given and decide whether or not it is valid to them. It is the simple freedom to be able to receive information without it being restricted by authority, “There are times when troubling images can or even should be used to make a point --who gets to decide which are appropriate?”(Breakenridge). The University of Calgary allows the knowledge of abortion to be available but only to a certain extend. It may be too graphic, possibly offending people but it is not right that the authority should decide as to whether it is too graphic or not. People should be able to have unshielded information in order to assemble their own opinion on the topic. The scariest idea to comprehend is the authority over ruling are own thoughts. With mind control are people ultimately not individual?
Interestingly enough the newspeak word doublethink manages to be the only word that can describe the situation within the novel and article. Doublethink, “All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory.’ Reality control,’ they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.”(Orwell, 37). This victory is the denial of true knowledge such as 2+2=4, instead the people are told to believe 2+2=5 is the correct answer instead. Doublethink essentially is the governments control over the citizens mind. Within the article the students and officials of the University of Calgary, know that abortion is wrong and in just yet they disregard the importance of the awareness project. By simply ignoring the abortion issue these people are being ignorant. With knowledgeable people there always seems to be a consequence and this evoking fear can only assist in the authorities greater control.
With every action there is a consequence, especially if this action is not approved by officials. George Orwell shows these consequences are direct results of thought. In the novel, Big Brother attempts to eliminate thought by using death as a penalty. This threat evokes fear in its civilians, fear being the strongest method to manage its people. “Or perhaps-what was likeliest of all- the thing had simply happened because purges and vaporizations were a necessary part of the mechanics of government.”(Orwell,48) It is true without consequences people could end up going out of control. These consequences are right until they end up not only controlling our actions but are freedom of speech and thought. The students in the pro-life group will be punished if they are found publicly displaying their project; “The university, however, has warned if the display proceeds as planned, organizers could face suspension, expulsion or even arrest.”(Breakenridge), similar to Nineteen-eighty-four. Where they will be vaporized if found disobeying, while the students will be expelled from the school. The suspension and arrest relates to Winston’s experience when he is caught by O’Brien and brought to room 101. The government and other officials easiest method of control is by the use of penalty. Does it not seem wrong that all this power should be used to direct civilians?
The Orwellian adjective brings on a reality that our freedom is limited and controlled by the government. Officials cleverly control their people by the use of censorship, doublethink and consequences. Can it even be said that Canada allows freedom of speech, when they censor certain topics?
The Article:
University errs in attempt to censor pro-life group
Rob Breakenridge, For The Calgary Herald
Published: Thursday, November 27, 2008
Memo to University of Calgary students: should you encounter a display this week that warrants a disapproving remark, please refrain from using the word "retarded."
Alternatively, should you find yourself frustrated by the actions of university administrators, do not describe their actions as being "totally gay."
For, while political correct-ness would seem to trump freedom of expression at the U of C, it has not yet plumbed the depths of Orwellian thought control as has Queen's University. Students there will soon fall under the watchful ears of "dialogue facilitators," who will intervene to steer private conversations in a "correct" direction should such phrases as "that's so gay" or "that's retarded" be overheard.
Further consolation can be found in the York University Federation of Students, which recently voted to severely restrict pro-life campus organizations. Such militant political correctness has not yet reared its ugly head here.
However, it is the rearing of ugliness that is at the centre of a controversy at the U of C. The Campus Pro-Life group plans to once again display its Genocide Awareness Project on campus Wednesday and Thursday. The university, however, has warned if the display proceeds as planned, organizers could face suspension, expulsion or even arrest.
The display features images of aborted fetuses, and the university is firm in its demand the display be turned inward so as to safeguard the sensibilities of passersby--a compromise, as the university sees it.
But rather than get caught up in the arms race of political correctness, the U of C has an opportunity to prove universities remain a haven for vigorous --even polemical--debate.
An unfortunate addition to this controversy, though, is a capacious amount of hypocrisy. It seems quite likely that a more politically palatable organization would encounter much less resistance.
I doubt a display on domestic violence would be shunned if it included images of battered women. I'm sure animal rights groups are free to show images of animal testing and I don't think an antiwar group would be forced to conceal images of prisoner abuse.
There are times when troubling images can or even should be used to make a point --who gets to decide which are appropriate?
As for the Campus Pro-Life group, while its members and supporters are highly attuned at the moment to the importance of freedom of expression, how lasting is that appreciation?
While others are rightly being asked to put their beliefs aside for principle, how willing will pro-lifers and social conservatives be to return the favour? If a campus group proposed a display on the history of gay erotica, would those social conservatives in the pro-life camp be as eager to see such images?
Of course, controversial images of any sort are bound to offend someone, but offence is hardly a lasting or grievous injury. As we seem to forget, freedom of expression is real while the freedom to not be offended is phoney.
The possibility of offence doesn't change the fact there is a legitimate debate to be had about abortion and abortion law. However, invoking the word "genocide" is to disqualify yourself from anything resembling a legitimate debate.
Genocide is defined as an act committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
Are only women of a certain ethnicity receiving abortions? Are abortions being forced on women of a specific race? Unless the answer to either question is yes, the word has no place in this discussion.
Moreover, those using the word should consider where such logic leads--are abortion providers the equivalent of the architects of the Holocaust? Would a changing of Canada's abortion law mean war crimes tribunals for those seeking and those providing abortions? Good luck with that argument.
Regardless, the clumsy and provocative approach of the Campus Pro-Life group should not be an excuse to censor.
The university would do better to stand guard against hypocrisy and censorship, and worry less about whether controversial debates are occurring on campus. In doing so, it would emerge as a laudable exception to the emerging trend of stifling political correctness.
We'll find out Wednesday if the U of C is on such a path.
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/theeditorialpage/story.html?id=7c3b9bb5-67d6-498e-a038-816ff849dde9&p=1
Blog 6 response
The people of Great Britain are increasingly losing their privacy and are constantly being watched. According to a recent report in UK’s Sunday Telegraph, great amount of data are compiled about every person, with, on average, 3 254 pieces of personal information registered per individual on a weekly basis. All of a one’s shopping habits, mobile phone conversations and text messages, emails, locations throughout the day, journeys and internet searches are recorded and stored. This information is actively documented in a variety of ways: closed-circuit television camera’s (CCTV) watch is widespread and omnipresent with over 12.5 million of screens now in use, debit, credit, and loyalty cards reveal information about a person’s spending habits, whereas the internet provides one’s browsing and interest patterns, and public transit cards give information about an individual’s location and travel inclination. Unfortunately, this information is not just stored – it can be exchanged between companies, sold to other interested parties, and, at times, has been commanded to be given to the government and other public authorities for marketing, polling or tracking purposes. In effect, most of this detailed personal information may be readily available and disclosed to specific interest groups. More concerning, however, is the fact that, on occasion, some of these large databases have been stolen, or simply lost; with one’s personal credit and identity information potentially available at large for unknown criminal groups to abuse. For example, HM Revenue and Customs lost computer disks containing personal details of 25 million people and no one knows of the missing information’s current or future fate; putting the affected public at risk of identity or credit theft. Ironically, much of the current pretext for this monumental invasion of privacy is to protect the United Kingdom against terrorism and sabotage and to ensure the British public a safe environment.
Disturbing is the number of abundant parallels between this current article and George Orwell’s dystopia of “1984”; suggesting that despite currently living in a Western democratic society which supposedly endorses individual liberties, we are ,in reality, living in a form of a government state with significant infringements of one’s sovereignty. In “1984”, the citizens of Oceania undergo colossal privacy violations and are under constant surveillance from Big Brother, or in other words, the state’s governing party. “On each landing opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption ran.” Similar to Britain’s CCTVs, some of the primary surveillance tools in “1984”’s Oceania are devices known as telescreens, or gadgets that simultaneously act as televisions, cameras and microphones, which are placed literally everywhere: in everyone’s house, at work, and on the roads. One cannot go a few steps without passing a telescreen, complemented by hidden microphones capable of individual voice recognition. In addition, effective monitoring is supplemented by frequent spying by one’s neighbour. These methods allow INGSOC, or Oceania’s governing body, to perpetually observe all its citizen and ensure that their actions are orthodox and, thus, unlikely to cause a rebellion. All behaviour is closely examined and every word is heard and interpreted. As Winston, Orwell’s main protagonist, said “You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was heard and, except in the darkness, every movement scrutinized.” (Orwell 5) . In Britain, in addition to the CCTV, the constant watchfulness of “the Big Brother” takes the added forms of internet tracking, phone tapping and credit card and passport tracing. The British society is becoming increasingly similar to the Orwellian INGSOC, as the current government departments and private communication companies have the ability and freedom to listen in and record phone calls, screen email messages, and track individual’s movements. Effectively, our current governments are closer then ever to potentially knowing their citizen’s habits, ideas, and political orientations. Our world is worryingly moving towards constant surveillance and subsequent loss of individual freedom, exemplified in 1984.
The reason that observation and scrutiny is enforced upon the citizens of Oceania is because constant surveillance is a very effective method of public control. The secret thought police of Oceania persistently attempt to find and eliminate society members who not only committed a crime, but who also were capable of the mere thought of executing one. These social ‘deviants’ would otherwise threaten the established social structure, and could become potential sources of future rebellion against the state. “The Thought Police would get him just the same. [Winston] had committed -- would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper -- the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.” An observed person, or someone who merely thinks that they are being watched, is less likely to commit a crime; and even in the event the crime is committed, the offender will be easily detected. This way a controlling party ensures an obeying public and an adherence to established rules and norms. Similarly, our current society has instilled surveillance cameras in public places to prevent street crime. Furthermore, in some instances, our governments, not unlike the British, use the databases of personal information, often originally gathered under the pretext of securing homeland security against terrorism, to eliminate petty theft such as “pursuing and tracking citizens for unpaid parking fines”; using the databases in contradiction to the intended initial purpose of protecting the citizens. In “1984”, the continuous recording of people’s data and the vaporizing of “the unorthodox” kept citizens in check and in fear of being watched and essentially prevented any notion of an uprising.
Knowledge is power. Knowing someone’s fears, terrors, habits and wishes makes them an easier target to control, especially if their environment can be manipulated. The Party in “1984” uses this concept very effectively in Room 101; “The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world... The worst thing in the world varies from individual to individual ... In your case the worst thing in the world happens to be rats... They are a form of pressure that you cannot withstand, even if you wished to. You will do what is required of you.” O’Brien has learned through constant surveillance of Winston’s life, that his greatest weakness and fear is that of rats. He later used this knowledge to The Party’s advantage, by exposing Winston to psychological torture using rats, thereby forcing him to betray Julia. This exemplifies the potential threat of abuse of personal information, should the databases be sold to interests groups who lack appreciation for public’s general welfare, be stolen or potentially even be seized by governments for purposes of blackmail. Today, more commonly, companies’ and governments’ ‘spying activities’ and surveillance of our expenditure habits result in bothersome bombardment of individually-targeted advertising and soliciting in form of telemarketing phone calls, internet pop-up ads or political endorsements during elections. What is more concerning is that personal information gathering is becoming an almost an expected phenomena on a global level; especially since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre towers in New York. Personal information gathering including finger printing, retinal scans, screening of email and letters and insistence on social security numbers and identity cards are now not only legal and enforced in name of homeland security measures, but have been widely accepted in our increasingly complacent society.
Lastly, Orwellian INGSOC uses public fear and the excuse of war – which in 1984 is perpetually voiced, but simultaneously non-existent– to control and spy on its citizens, cut their rations, and assume a state of military emergency. This is astonishingly similar to many of our current governments’, particularly that of United States, excuses of fighting against terrorism as the reason for breaching public’s privacy and personal information. Ironically, both societies, the Orwellian 1984 and the 21st century Great Britain, symbolizing our current Western world, use concept of fear, be it of war or of terrorist attacks which supposedly threaten the very fabric of our individual freedom and safety, to coerce their public to give up the very same things they fear of losing: freedom, individuality privacy, and ultimately personal safety. In both cases, the INGSOC and the British government gain greater control of their, relatively unsuspecting, citizens.
Back in 1949 George Orwell wrote “1984” as a warning against what can happen in the future, and sadly our world is already in that future. Although “1984” initially forewarned against the threat of future spread of communism in the Cold War era, the book’s warnings are just as a propos to our current post-Cold War, post-September 11, 2001 world. The Sunday Telegraph article focuses on a single component of 1984 and how it is exemplified in today’s societies. In fact, many elements of the novel are already happening; the lack of individuality, the centralizing of governments and formation of huge economic unions of EU or NAFTA, now much unlike the Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia lack of variability of products and commonality of brandname items, the simplification of language to acronyms and text messaging to convey instant messages, the disconnect among family units and between neighbours, to name a few. Though, thankfully, we have not reached a true dystopia yet, we have recently accelerated the rate of becoming a 1984-reality, where personal freedom and privacy are increasingly threatened by the constant surveillance imposed on us by our governments and society. And we actively engage in this movement. Our society likes credit cards, and it likes bonus aeroplanes and reward points earned. We sign up to email lists for coupons. We have become relatively complacent to protect our personal information; we do not protest identity cards, or student ID cards. However, we have to be careful, and this is why it is important to study bodies of literature such as Orwell’s 1984. It may not be long before the leading party in Britain, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, seizes absolute control over a nation claiming it a necessity to protect the general public. It is not a far stretch from then, when the ‘system’ may first encourage, then enforce unity of mind and action, while eliminating the ‘deviant’ and free thinkers by constant surveillance of the obedient public. We must therefore be active citizens, and appreciate the personal freedoms that our ancestors have fought for. It is therefore crucial that the young are aware of the concept and consequences of the “Big Brother” and that we do no blindly participate in the constant surveillance, otherwise not only will we forget what personal freedom feels like and what individual thoughts are, but we may also forget the identity of the very enemy we have lost our freedoms to fight, just like the naïve, unassuming public of 1984.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2571041/How-Big-Brother-watches-your-every-move.html
How Big Brother watches your every move
With every telephone call, swipe of a card and click of a mouse, information is being recorded, compiled and stored about Britain's citizens.
An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has now uncovered just how much personal data is being collected about individuals by the Government, law enforcement agencies and private companies each day.
In one week, the average person living in Britain has 3,254 pieces of personal information stored about him or her, most of which is kept in databases for years and in some cases indefinitely.
The data include details about shopping habits, mobile phone use, emails, locations during the day, journeys and internet searches.
In many cases this information is kept by companies such as banks and shops, but in certain circumstances they can be asked to hand it over to a range of legal authorities.
Britain's information watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office, has called for tighter regulation of the amount of data held about citizens and urged the public to restrict the information they allow organisations to hold on them.
This newspaper's findings come days after the Government published plans to grant local authorities and other public bodies access to the email and internet records of millions. Phone companies already retain data about their customers and give it to 650 public bodies on request.
The loss of data by Government departments, including an incident where HM Revenue and Customs mislaid computer disks containing the personal details of 25 million people, has heightened concerns about the amount of information being stored.
David Smith, deputy information commissioner, said: "As more and more information is collected and kept on all of us, we are very concerned that appropriate safeguards go along with that.
"People should know what is happening with their information and have a choice.
"Our concern is that what is kept with the justification of preventing and detecting terrorism, can then be used for minor purposes such as pursuing people for parking fines."
Earlier this year the Commons home affairs select committee recommended new controls and regulations on the accumulation of information by the state.
Mobile phones
Every day the average person makes three mobile phone calls and sends at least two text messages.
Each time the network provider logs information about who was called as well as the caller's location and direction of travel, worked out by triangulation from phone masts.
Customers can also have their locations tracked even when they are not using their phones, as the devices send out unique identifying signals at regular intervals.
All of this information can be accessed by police and other public authorities investigating crimes.
The internet
Internet service providers (ISPs) compile information about their customers when they go online, including name, address, the unique identification number for the connection, known as an IP address, any browser used and location.
They also keep details of emails, such as whom they were sent to, together with the date and time they were sent. An average of 50 websites are visited and 32 emails sent per person in Britain every day.
Privacy campaigners have expressed concern that the country's three biggest ISPs – BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk – now provide this data to a digital advertising company called Phorm so that it can analyse web surfing habits.
ISPs are already voluntarily providing information they hold about their customers if requested by law enforcement agencies and public authorities. A consultation published last week by the Government would make it a legal requirement for ISPs to provide a customer's personal information when requested. A total of 520,000 requests were made by public officials for telephone and internet details last year, an increase from around 350,000 the previous year.
Internet search engines also compile data about their users, including the IP address and what was searched for. Google receives around 68 searches from the average person each day and stores this data for 18 months.
Dr Ian Brown, a research fellow on privacy at Oxford University, said: "Companies such as Google and internet service providers are building up huge databases of data about internet users.
"These companies may be compelled, through a legal action, to hand over this information to third parties or the Government, or the companies may lose the data and it can then be misused."
Loyalty cards
Store "loyalty" cards also retain large amounts of information about individuals who have signed up to use them. They link a person's personal details to the outlets used, the transaction times and how much is spent.
In the case of Nectar cards, which are used by more than 10 million people in Britain once a week, information from dozens of shops is compiled, giving a detailed picture of a cardholder's shopping habits.
A spokesman for Loyalty Management UK, which runs the Nectar programme, insisted that information about the items bought was not compiled, but some partners in the scheme, such as Sainsbury's, use their till records to compile that information.
She admitted that the personal information that is compiled under the Nectar scheme is kept indefinitely until individuals close their account and ask for their information to be destroyed. In criminal inquiries, police can request the details held by Nectar.
Banks
Banks can also be required to hand over personal account information to the authorities if requested as part of an investigation.
They also provide personal data to credit reference agencies, debt collectors and fraud prevention organisations.
Debit and credit card transactions can give information about where and on what people are spending their money.
CCTV
The biggest source of surveillance in Britain is through the network of CCTV (closed-circuit television) cameras. On average, an individual will appear on 300 CCTV cameras during a day and those tapes are kept by many organisations for indefinite lengths of time.
On the London Underground network, Transport for London (TfL) keeps footage for a minimum of 14 days. TfL operates more than 8,500 CCTV cameras in its underground stations, 1,550 cameras on tube trains and up to 60,000 cameras on buses.
Network Rail refused to say how many CCTV cameras it operates or for how long the footage is kept.
Britain now has more CCTV cameras in public spaces than any other country in the world. A study in 2002 estimated that there were around 4.2 million cameras, but that number is likely to now be far higher.
Number plate recognition
The latest development in CCTV is the increased use of automatic number plate recognition systems, which read number-plates and search databases for signs that a vehicle has been used in crime.
A national automatic number plate recognition system is maintained by the Association of Chief Police Officers along motorways and main roads. Every number plate picked up by the system is stored in a database with date, time and location for two years.
Public transport
Travel passes such as the Oyster Card used in London and the Key card, in Oxford, can also reveal remarkable amounts of information about an individual. When they are registered to a person's name, they record journey history, dates, times and fares.
A spokesman for TfL, which runs the Oyster Card system, insisted that access to this information was restricted to its customer services agents.
Police, however, can also obtain this information and have used Oyster Card journey records as evidence in criminal cases.
The workplace
Employers are increasingly using radio-tagged security passes for employees, providing them with information about when staff enter and leave the office.
Remembering Big Brother:
Ventura educators discuss real life under totalitarian rule
By Paul Sisolak 11/06/2008
There are many times when a person can be reading a novel or watching a movie and certain parts of their past is brought up through the theme of the novel or movie. While researching for an article that has recently been published and mentions George Orwell’s, 1984, I came across an article online by Paul Sisolak called Remembering Big Brother. The article is about Ventura College’s Dean of Psychology, Dr. Alex Miranda, and his emotions after attending a special screening of Michael Radford’s recreation of 1984 on the television. The movie affected Miranda very strongly because of his experiences living in Paraguay under Alfredo Stroessner’s dictating power while he organized Operation Condor throughout the 1970s.
Throughout the article, Miranda mentions several parts of her past that anyone who has read 1984 could relate to the book. He says that at one point while Stroessner was in power “If the mercury outside read into the 90s, the temperature was never above 79 degrees in the media.” The way the community is controlled through the use of altered media in Paraguay is the same way Big Brother controls all of the citizens in Ingsoc. The use of telescreens or simply a figure of high authority telling you to believe something you knew was wrong is how INGSOC controlled its members. “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it (83).” This force of thought is what makes it easy for the Party and the dictators of Operation Condor to gain power and control. The way the members of the party or the country are forced to believe what is said by people of authority reminds me of how I must accept what my parents say when we are in an argument. In the end, whether I believe what they say is wrong or right I must accept it because they are my parents and disagreeing with them would make the situation much worse.
For someone who has not yet read the book, not accepting and training yourself to accept what the Party/Stroessner told you believe would be the easiest solution to the issues mentioned in the above paragraph. After reading the book and also reading what Miranda had to say about ignoring the party and/or disagreeing with Stroessner, one would soon come to the realization that this was not an option for the people of the Party or those living in the countries who were affected by Operation Condor such as Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. “Friends would up and vanish for no apparent reason or motive, never to be seen again.” This quote from Miranda explaining the result of someone questioning what they were told while living in Paraguay is exactly what Orwell sets as the result that party members have to deal with if they are caught committing an act of thoughtcrime. “Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word (21).” What is important to realize when trying to connect this quote to the one above said by Miranda, is that even if you did not commit a crime, in both the book and the 1970s in Paraguay, it was the initial thought of considering doing a crime that made you vaporized or vanished. The way an individual is sent away in both stories reminds me of how a student can be expelled from school. Even though the student is not killed, he or she is still somewhat vanished because they did not respect the set of rules made by the Ministry of Education.
Altogether this week’s blog has made me a lot more aware of how the world of 1984 that George Orwell creates is capable of happening in the present time, and is happening right now in my own life, even if it is not to that extreme level. I also think that after Miranda relating it to his life experiences of living in a place ruled by dictatorship, I am very interested to see if someone like my grandmother who was affected by the war between Serbia and Croatia could relate to any parts of the book 1984.
Article:
Remembering Big Brother
Ventura educators discuss real life under totalitarian rule
By Paul Sisolak 11/06/2008
Dr. Alex Miranda shuffles in his seat on a Saturday evening, his eyes fixed on the visuals of a bleak dystopia unfolding before him.
"I cringe at the thought of how much we're being watched, the idea of our safety being eroded," he says later.
The setting is the comfort of the Ventura College Library's second story. The content: a special screening of Michael Radford's film adaptation of George Orwell's 1984. The trappings of this academic Southern California setting seem worlds apart from the tumult of dictatorial, 1970s Paraguay. But for Miranda, it's only a memory or two away from the Orwellian nightmare projected onscreen that was his day-to-day life mere decades ago.
Miranda, the school’s dean of psychology, paired with another college professor, juxtaposed against Radford’s film their experiences as citizens of totalitarian regimes, as part of the college’s seventh annual “One Book, One Campus, One Community” program recently.
Orwell’s characterization of Winston Smith, a thought criminal living in London under the constant, omniscient presence of one Big Brother — brought to celluloid life by John Hurt — could in fact have been Miranda just 10 years prior to the novel/film’s mid-1980s setting.
"It seems so extreme. Some of the views and some of the emotions it evokes in me still continue to be a part of life," Miranda says of 1984. "Many of the scenes depicted here are of an overriding, overreaching government that was a part of my life for many years."
As with Big Brother, Miranda lived in Paraguay under the stronghold of Alfredo Stroessner, during the height of Operation Condor, at a time when there was a “loss of liberties,” a “loss of privacy,” according to Miranda.
"Normally we could hear the radio or watch the TV channels the government owned," he said. The propagandist message was firmly in place everywhere; not even the weather forecast was sacred. If the mercury outside read into the 90s, the temperature was never above 79 degrees in the media.
Militaristically, early-1970s Paraguay was not only similar to Orwell’s war-torn Oceania, but also the Iraqi Conflict of today, Miranda says. At age 14, boys were mandated to enter the army, summers spent in barracks. In 1972, out of a 3 million-person populace, 600,000 were in the armed forces at any given time.
Under the right wing of Paraguay’s power as an aggressive police state, Miranda said friends would up and vanish for no apparent reason or motive, never to be seen again.
"It was very customary in those days, the police would cross the border and kidnap somebody. Anybody could be accused of committing a crime," he said.
Miranda escaped the madness for a brief time in 1978, coming to Santa Paula as an exchange student. The welcome change of scenery lasted for only so long, and upon his return the following year to his home country, he himself was kidnapped and imprisoned for six months. Miranda was released in 1980, received political asylum, and returned to the U.S., never looking back.
That became the impetus for Miranda’s earning of a psychology doctorate to aid and counsel others who lived through similar experiences.
For Simon Waltzer, a speech and film professor at the college, the desire to educate and help was what brought him to the totalitarian society of South America in the same time period.
The Londoner had moved to Peru in 1972 during the Juan Velaso regime.
"A year after I came to Peru,” Waltzer said after the film, “I joined forces with some teachers and bought a farm."
They had communal hope, he said, to provide education and medical treatment for the less fortunate. It was not to last for very long. The Peruvians had planted in the academic system their own 1984-esque, secret thought police, and the property was soon condemned.
Waltzer remembers vividly his surprise at discovering the government-posted sign hanging at the farm when arriving there one day:
“Confiscated in the name of the People's Republic of Peru.”
He was also arrested for his troubles. Waltzer was no stranger to intrusive policing; nobody back then was, he says.
Once, he was stopped in his car for a minor traffic infraction and found himself staring down the barrel of a policeman’s revolver. Waltzer knew the drill, it had become so common.
"I just took out my wallet, gave him money and he let me go,” Waltzer said. “Thank God things like that don't happen in America."
Still, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t ever happen in the U.S., prompting some sound advice from the professor during this election season.
"If you don't vote, you don't participate in democracy," Waltzer said.
The men both agreed that the South America they once knew has since come a long way.
Miranda, on current-day Paraguay, which had its first democratic election just 16 years ago:
“The government has played less of a role, the army has shrunk … it’s the beginning stages of a democracy,” he said. “Roles are reversing, especially between Bolivia and Paraguay.”
But Miranda added, “I suspect it will take three to four generations in Paraguay for it to correct itself.”
http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/remembering_big_brother/6407
The Great 1984 Article Hunt
Orwellian Haze over Beijing – Article Response:
The 1940’s witnessed remarkable advances in technology- achievements that spanned the earliest incarnations of modern computing to substantial developments in nuclear science. Amidst the technological triumphs of this decade George Orwell envisioned 1984- a novel praised for both its discussion of political ideology, and its implication of technology’s influence on future civilizations. More than 50 years after this realization, we have fashioned a society where government and media play a fundamental role in developing the controlling the general population. It is therefore reasonable to assume that Orwell’s original prediction, one foretelling of supposedly “inconceivable” societal conditions, has manifested itself within the introduction of the 21th century. This precise connection is established between 1984 and, mentioned in the article titled, Owellian Haze over Beijing, the Chinese government’s behaviour prior to the summer Olympics of 2008.
A notable parallel drawn between Orwell’s novel and the above article encompasses a fundamental principle of totalitarianism- particularly, the control of a nation through the suppression of revolution. While elaborating upon the methodology of Ingsoc, for instance, Orwell explains that an illusion of “political infallibility” must be enforced upon the public in order to maintain rule over Oceania. The Theory and Practice of Oligarchial Collectivism, a fictional manifesto and one of many examples of this principle embedded throughout 1984, states that, “Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible” (Orwell, 1954, p.221). Without exposure to ideologies that contradict the political philosophy of Ingsoc, individuals possess neither the intellectual capacity nor the motivation to challenge the Party’s authority. A similar practice was employed by the China during its hosting of the 2008 summer Olympics. In an effort to maintain its national reputation, the Chinese government imposed a series of restrictions on beliefs opposing both government policies and China’s role as host to the event. Paul Syvret of the Courier Mail elaborates upon this act of censorship, “...great swathes of the net [that dare to criticize the Games] have been blocked altogether – not just for citizens but for visiting journalists as well [...] And that's before we even consider the rules that, among other things, ban spectators waving team flags or sporting T-shirts that might dare to question China's human rights record”
(http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24125956-27197,00.html). Under a totalitarian rule characteristic of Ingsoc and Oceania, the population of China was forced to conform to the political ideals of its governing body. A government perpetuates this notion of infallibility as an act of self-preservation- to discourage the development of opposing beliefs and maintain control over the general public. This idea of conformity is also evidenced with the “pledges of ‘civilised behaviour’” that residents of the Olympic site’s surrounding area were coerced into signing. This application of the phrase “civilised behaviour” bears a distinct similarity to the term “orthodoxy” in 1984- either method of identification can be used to distinguish between those in support of government policies, and in turn discipline those with conflicting ideals. Thus, it appears that the Chinese government has, in effect, modelled its process of suppressing insurgency after the authoritarian regime depicted in Orwell’s novel.
As a political ideology, totalitarianism involves a second principle of arguably equal importance- the control of a nation through the continual surveillance of its citizens. Within 1984, Ingsoc makes avid use of technology referred to as a telescreen, the amalgamation of a television, video camera, and communications device. The telescreen itself is designed in order to serve two distinct functions: the continual exposure of Air Strip One to the Party’s political philosophy, as well as a remarkably efficient method of controlling the population through fear of disciplinary action. Winston Smith, the protagonist of the novel, outlines the ramifications of revealing “unorthodox” behaviour under the observation of a telescreen, “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen [...] to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime...” (Orwell, 1954, p.54). This degree of surveillance is prevalent in all aspects of the Outer Party caste, and is effectively utilized to discover and execute civilians who demonstrate the slightest indication of independent thought. In its preparation for the 2008 summer Olympics, the Chinese government employed a similar technique to monitor the activities of its residents. Paul Syvret discusses this level of surveillance within the Beijing society, “Tens of thousands of surveillance cameras monitor the streets of Beijing and an estimated 110,000 security personnel (more than the total number of men and women in Australia's armed services) are on hand in the capital to ensure the Chinese version of
‘order” prevails’ (http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24125956-27197,00.html).
Through a technique distinctly reminiscent of Ingsoc in 1984, the Chinese government exploited video surveillance as a means of discouraging political upheaval. As Winston reveals in Orwell’s novel, the fear of arrest and subsequent detention will often force a community to accept the values outlined by an existing government, regardless of whether this equipment is actively monitored.
From a logical perspective, it is relatively easy to draw parallels between the dystopia envisioned in Orwell’s 1984 and the Communist Party of China highlighted in the article, Owellian Haze over Beijing. One would assume that these practices are common only among ideologies that emphasize authoritarian control of the state- surely a government as politically developed as western democracy has absolved itself of these primitive traditions. North America has witnessed, however, the dramatic transformation of governing policy in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. We have witnessed those suspected of terrorism imprisoned and questioned for days without a justification for arrest. Other individuals have been convicted without a lawyer or trial, and sent to prison camps to suffer endless bouts physical and psychological torture. We have bellowed in anger over Saddam Hussein, a figure placed at the heart the September 11th attacks- the harbinger of death, the ultimate antithesis of democracy. In the throes of hatred we seem to overlook the fact that no substantial evidence links Saddam Hussein to 9/11, or to any weapons of mass destruction for that matter. Whether we exist under communist or democratic philosophies, we cannot condemn ourselves to the ignorance of the government influence on societal values.
Article:
Owellian Haze over Beijing
By Paul Syvret
Published: August 4, 2008 in The Courier Mail
GEORGE Orwell almost got it right. He just slipped up on the timing and the location.
1984, set in the fictional land of Oceania, was his seminal novel about a totalitarian state where all citizenry are monitored by a Thought Police and any dissent is brutally suppressed.
Just think of Beijing 2008 as the Oceania of 1984.
Winston Smith wouldn't have lasted a week. He would have been declared an unperson within days of Beijing being announced as host city for the Olympics, and promptly carted off to China's equivalent of Room 101 for re-education.
Residents are being ordered to sign pledges of "civilised behaviour", and popular internet blogs that dare to criticise the Games are shut down.
In fact, great swathes of the net have been blocked altogether – not just for citizens but for visiting journalists as well – by the Great Firewall of China.
Countless thousands of Beijing workers have been forced to take unpaid leave, and numerous homes and businesses have just been torn down to make way for Olympic venues.
Ye Guozhu, whose Beijing home and restaurant was bulldozed in 2004 to make way for an Olympic venue, was jailed for four years for having the temerity to organise a protest. He remains in detention.
Tens of thousands of surveillance cameras monitor the streets of Beijing and an estimated 110,000 security personnel (more than the total number of men and women in Australia's armed services) are on hand in the capital to ensure the Chinese version of "order" prevails.
Smile in the wrong direction, or break wind near an Olympic banner, and you're likely to find yourself taken in for questioning.
And that's before we even consider the rules that, among other things, ban spectators waving team flags or sporting T-shirts that might dare to question China's human rights record.
So what could be done to make the 2008 Games – which by reports to date have about as much Olympic spirit as the Villawood detention centre – more representative of life in China in 2008?
Perhaps we could stage an event to recognise the Falun Gong movement, which was banned in 1999 and whose members make up half of China's labour camp population.
At the time, China's Ministry of Civil Affairs, in a statement straight from the pages of 1984, said: "According to investigations, the Research Society of Falun Dafa had not been registered according to law and had been engaged in illegal activities, advocating superstition and spreading fallacies, hoodwinking people, inciting and creating disturbances, and jeopardising social stability."
I guess a spiritual movement that advocates truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance has "subversive" written all over it.
So maybe the International Olympic Committee should suggest a special Falun Gong event in Tiananmen Square, modelled on the schoolyard game of Red Rover, except instead of using a tennis ball the "Red Rover" is given a heavy truncheon to bludgeon any truthfulness, compassion and forbearance out of contestants.
Come to think of it, the Olympic shooting events also could be moved to Tiananmen Square, but instead of shotguns and clay pigeons, we could use .50 calibre machine guns and university students.
After the shooting, the dead and wounded could be left where they'd fallen, making for a variety of interesting obstacles for equestrian events such as show jumping.
And to celebrate Beijing's famously invigorating air quality, the Olympic marathon could also begin in the square and be run through the streets of the city. The rules would be simple – the last man still standing without the need for an oxygen mask or cardiac massage would be declared the winner. A similar approach could be adopted for the road racing events in the cycling program.
Here Chinese authorities might like to consider lifting the traffic bans they have in place for the duration of the Games, making such events as much a demolition derby in the perpetual half-light of Beijing smog as a race per se.
And let's face it, as spectator sports, the likes of archery and target shooting are about as exciting as watching paint dry.
China has thousands of Tibetan monks who apparently are surplus to requirements, so why not let them loose on the archery and rifle ranges and see how well our Olympic sharpshooters go against a moving target.
At least the Chinese really have got into the spirit when it comes to the Olympic motto of citius, altius, fortius – faster, higher, stronger.
According to a report in The Financial Times, the Tibetan capital's most senior Communist Party official cited the 84-year-old motto to urge people to crack down on supporters of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, at an Olympic torch relay ceremony in Lhasa last month.
"Encouraged by the Olympic spirit of faster, higher, stronger, Lhasa people of all nationalities will . . . resolutely smash the Dalai clique's scheme to destabilise Tibet, sabotage the Olympics and split the motherland," said Qin Yizhi, Lhasa party secretary.
Way to go Qin. That's gold, mate.
Source: Syvret, Paul. (2008). Orwellian Haze over Beijing. Retrieved November 30, 2008 from
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24125956-27197,00.html.
Works Cited
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1954.
Syvret, Paul. (2008). Orwellian Haze over Beijing. Retrieved November 30, 2008 from
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24125956-27197,00.html.
The most intriguing quotation of this article, entitled “When Surveillance Cameras Talk” is also the most frightening: “the talking cameras are the latest advance in a country that [has] embraced video surveillance with an enthusiasm that would make Orwell shudder”. The country is England and the technology is known as CCTV cameras or closed circuit television. The cameras were covertly introduced in London’s downtown core circa 1964, (notbored.org, 2008). The CCTV cameras have the capability to either declare proper behavior by means of automated, prerecorded messages, or to catch offenders in the act, by operating in real time (Grose, 2008). Prerecorded broadcasts may sound something like, “CCTV is in operation in this area and antisocial behavior will be reported to the police,” (Grose, 2008) whereas a real time message may ask a civilian to pick up a piece of garbage they have just dropped.
Although this operation of surveillance is somewhat effective in keeping the streets clean and safe, it does take away from specific liberties. It is also striking in resemblance to Orwell’s 1984 in the operation of ‘telescreens’. As defined by Privacy International (1997), CCTV cameras are “designed for monitoring a variety of environments and activities,” in the same way telescreens are placed in the homes, streets, community centres, and workplaces found in 1984. A civil rights group, know as Liberties, had estimated that “there are 4.2 million CCTV cameras in operation in the UK. That is one for every 14 residents”. Both Liberty and Urbaneye.net (2004) support the fact that anyone living or working in London has the potential of being recorded on camera 300 times a day. After reviewing this data, I have come to agree with the reference Richard Thomas makes towards Britain in the article. He had appropriately labeled it as a “surveillance society,” (Grose, 2008). To me these numbers suggest a presence of cameras that gives more than enough reason to make a criminal think twice about committing a crime. The decision to make a portion of the cameras vocal makes the location of the cameras more evident, consequently fortifying the system. England’s certainty in the system’s performance is evident in the way its criminal prevention budget is spent.
In 1995, the UK had spent “more than three quarters (78%) of its crime prevention budget to fund the introduction of CCTV systems” (Urbaneye.net, 2004). The method in which the cameras discover criminal activity is much more effective than patrolling police cars. In addition, it requires less action and instills more fear into civilians. This is because the thought of being watched is even more terrifying than actually being watched. Criminals are less likely to commit an offence because operating in front of a camera is risky, even if the recording is not currently being observed. It is assumed that the system has been successful in decreasing the crime rate in London, but where are the statistics?
Liberty’s group media director, Jen Corlew, challenges this thought. She explains that “there is no [concrete] evidence that it actually deters crime,” (Grose, 2008) and while the system’s supporters view it as an effective breakthrough, Liberty stands confident in their choice to label the system as a “gimmick” (Grose, 2008). Upon completing my research on the effectiveness of the cameras, I found that the majority of the results came up negative. An article from News.bbc.co.uk (2002) entitled ‘CCTV Fails to Reduce Crime’ supports the statement that the cameras were not as successful as predicted. Lord Falconer of the Manchester Scheme (which is another camera installation initiative) stated that "in terms of providing people both with security and a sense of security, this is a good investment”. However, given the research, the cameras are more likely to provide a sense of security than actual security. Nevertheless, “the initiative is currently operational,” (News.bbc.co.uk, 2002).
We see the same outcome in Orwell’s 1984. Civilians are only vapourized when they commit, “thoughtcrime”, “facecrime” or speak against the Party, and since people keep disappearing, it must mean that the Party’s efforts are flawed. Big Brother can establish a plethora of cameras and thoughtpolice, but he cannot distinguish the human spark. This is why ‘crime’ is still committed. Nonetheless, the Party continues to carry out its regulatory procedures of operating telescreens, Two Minutes Hate, and so on and so forth.
Another mirrored image from Orwell’s 1984 is the proposal suggested by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham’s Community Safety Council. Glynis Rogers, the council’s director, enlightened Thomas Grose to the idea of organizing elementary “school contests, to find children that are interested in voicing some of the messages,” (Grose, 2008). This reminds me of the Spies, Junior Anti-Sex League, and the Youth League found in 1984. In both cases, children are expected to issue and act upon the Party’s slogans and procedures. As well, both scenarios are terrifying upon imagining the authority and liability given to said children.
Now, whether or not these similarities are a good thing, in the sense that they may eventually decrease crime rate, or a bad thing, considering the lack of privacy and other liberties, depends on which side of the playing field you are on. The Home Office, which is the leading government in the UK, would say that these similarities are necessary to protect the people of Britain. However, research has proven that thus far, the multi-billion dollar initiative has “solved a total of 3% of street crimes,” (guardian.co.uk, 2008). On the other side are the people of Britain. They are highly opinionated about the situation, yet are unable to avoid the operation’s expansion. In my opinion, the only thing one could do is send letters, write e-mails and call council directors to get their voice heard. Unfortunately, if London’s present society is as similar to Orwell’s as I think it is, those actions may get an individual into a little bit of trouble.
To conclude, I feel that the article “When Surveillance Cameras Talk” was an excellent source to begin my research towards understanding a present-day, “Big Brother state” (Thisislondon.co.uk, 2007). London is not alone in this comparison – South Korea, China, and North America, just to name a few, are all victims of this horrific comparison. We need to question the amount of privacy we are willing to sacrifice in order to feel safe. In addition, we need to question our government and our individual awareness of government policies. Having an opinion is vital, but only by becoming aware of the issues can we develop that opinion and make change.
Sources
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2071397.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1
http://www.notbored.org/england-history.html
http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-61925
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23394391-details/CCTV,+computers+and+the+'climate+of+fear'/article.do
http://www.urbaneye.net/results/ue_wp6.pdf
When Surveillance Cameras Talk
By: Thomas K. Grose
11 Feb 2008
Big Brother is not only watching you; in Barking and Dagenham, Big Brother wants a word. The disembodied voices of authority offering advice and warnings that now issue as if from thin air in the hardscrabble east London borough are, in fact, talking CCTV cameras — the latest high-tech weapon in the war on littering, graffiti, vandalism and other antisocial behavior. Sixteen of the borough's 84 surveillance cameras have been wired for sound, making London's first video monitoring network with a broadcasting capacity. A second borough, Southwark, will soon adopt the same system.
Both communities are among the 20 nationwide awarded $50,000 grants by Britain's Home Office to test the cameras, following an initial trial run last year in the Northern city of Middlesborough. The talking cameras are the latest advance in a country that's embraced video surveillance with an enthusiasm that would make Orwell shudder. Liberty, a civil liberties group, conservatively estimates there are 4.2 million CCTV cameras currently in operation in the UK, one for every 14 residents. Anyone living or working in London will likely be captured on camera 300 times a day, the group claims. Indeed, the government's information commissioner, Richard Thomas, has called Britain a "surveillance society" in danger of becoming overly reliant on tracking technologies.
But Glynis Rogers, Barking's head of community safety, counters that CCTV surveillance is popular with the public, and calls the talking cameras "a natural progression" of the technology. She's also dismissive of Big Brother parallels. The vocal cameras, she says, assure residents that the council is "actively managing the [boroughs] open spaces ... so for us, it's actually far more open than a Big Brother scenario." Barking's cameras mostly transmit such prerecorded spiels as: "CCTV is in operation in this area and antisocial behavior will be reported to the police." Another message reminds folks to keep an eye on their valuables. Eventually, the council wants to run contests to pick school children to voice some of the messages.
The system can also operate live, in real time. CCTV operators, keeping a vigilant eye on a bank of 39 monitors in their windowless office, can ad lib broadcasts, asking people, for instance, to pick up the litter they've just dropped, or warning them that their behavior's unacceptable.
Liberty is not impressed. While not wholly opposed to video surveillance, the group thinks it's been oversold as a crime-prevention method. "There's no evidence whatsoever that it actually deters crime," says Jen Corlew, the group's media director, and adding voices to the mix won't change that. "'Gimmick' is the word we've been using to refer to it."
For the most part, the people on the streets of central Barking were taking the audio messages in stride — on a recent day, few even stopped to seek the source of the sound each time one was broadcast. Barking's a working-class area with a large population of senior citizens. Incomes are low; unemployment is high; and the shopping area is bereft of the chi-chi stores and expensive coffee bars so prevalent in central London. Officials brag that crime rates are falling faster in Barking than in all of London, but many residents remain afraid to venture out at night. Not surprising, then, those asked on the streets and in shops were quick to voice support for the cameras. Typical was Maureen Lovely, a 66-year-old retiree: "I know it's a bit like Big Brother is watching you, but it's a good way of making people be aware. Hopefully, it will make things cleaner and quieter."
Still, some question how effective the talking cameras will be on Friday and Saturday nights, when crowds can get rowdy. Hussain Scandari, a 19-year-old college student, doubted if troublemakers and people who have been drinking heavily will pay much heed to the audio admonitions. "They'll just do their own thing." Still, if they're arrested, they won't be able to say they weren't warned.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1711972,00.html
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