You have to hand it to George Orwell. He knew a thing or two about how the world operates, and the difference between how dictators and oligarchs pressure people to behave and the way that decent folks like to conduct their lives.
In the classic book 1984, the job of the main protagonist is to change reality. Whenever the party that rules Britain changes its views or its alliances, it uses a team of loyal officials to alter history so that all evidence in all formats now records that things have always been the way the party wants them to be. Actual, past history is irrelevant. Scientific fact is irrelevant. All that matters is what the people at the top want the truth to be this week. Winston Smith labours away at helping to change information until he gradually starts to ask himself whether there might be such a thing as truth, honour and dignity.
I have thought about that a lot in recent weeks, as a number of powerful people on both sides of the Atlantic have enthusiastically switched the truth on and off at their convenience, flipped reality on its head and actively denied glaringly obvious scientific facts that they don’t like – smiling at the cameras as they do so, and shamelessly giving a knowing wink to their audience of loyalists as they force yet another piece of obvious nonsense down all our throats.
Shifting political alliances
In most people’s understanding of the world, a country that sends tanks and soldiers over the border to invade a neighbour’s country and tries to capture its capital is starting a war. In Vladimir Putin’s world, it is merely launching a friendly special operation. One which has lasted three years and been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. In President Trump’s world, the way to bring that war to an end is to start out by agreeing to almost everything Putin wants, to demand a hefty share of Ukraine’s mineral rights and to humiliate the leader of the invaded country if he dares to complain.
The changing of sides and rewriting of history has become normalised. One week, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a valued ally. The next, a dictator. Then, a useful partner in a deal, who a couple of hours later becomes accused of being an ungrateful encumbrance in front of the world’s press.
Most people in Britain think that, for good or ill, our country fought recently alongside the US in Iran and Afghanistan, and that US bases on UK soil have been collecting information on behalf of both nations and sharing it with our allies. Now we have to listen to the vice president of the USA saying that the UK and France are “some random” nations that haven’t fought a war in decades, before being told that information gathered on British soil will no longer be supplied to Ukraine. All this regardless of what the UK thinks about the ethics of a decision it was never consulted on.
Denying climate change
Most reasonable people saw what devastation was caused by the floods in Valencia and the fires in Los Angeles and conclude that we need to redouble our efforts to limit the damage that is starting to happen as a result of climate change, before it becomes a lot more extreme and a lot more unpredictable. In the mind of President Trump, the solution is to “drill, baby, drill” [SO1] every last drop of oil regardless of the consequences.
In the mind of Richard Tice from the Reform UK Party Ltd, there is nothing to worry about because humanity has nothing to do with climate change, despite the clear factual evidence that the amount of carbon dioxide has increased from 280ppm to 427ppm since the Industrial Revolution, and we are still driving it up increasingly rapidly.
In true Orwellian style, Elon Musk is trying to deal with this problem by dismantling the agencies which collect information about climate change, getting rid of government officials who monitor and organise reactions to extreme weather events and pressuring news agencies to stop publishing factual information. He has switched from telling us all that we need to take climate change so seriously that we need to get rid of petrol cars and drive Teslas, to enthusiastically signing up for the fantasy that if the president drives down the price of gas everything will be fine and dandy.
Gaza – from ravaged to riviera?
Then there is the manipulation of reality which lies at the heart of so many of the problems in the Middle East. There remain some enthusiasts for one side in this conflict that are capable of turning a blind eye to hostage taking, murder of innocents and rocket attacks on civilians, provided they are directed at Israel. Those are horrible acts that need to be condemned whatever your political views or your ultimate sympathies. It is outright wrong to deny that reality.
It is every bit as wrong to turn a blind eye to the simple truth that evil acts have been authorised by the current leaders of Israel on an even larger scale. Anyone who looks at the pictures of Gaza with an honest open mind, must surely recognise that the place has been systematically flattened and what has happened has not been a careful operation to remove terrorists. It has been the deliberate destruction of homes in a way that has made it impossible to return and to live decent lives.
Hospitals have been destroyed and water supplies targeted. The scale of the deaths has been horrific and there is every indication that a significant part of Israeli society is determined to inflict similar damage on any Palestinian in the West Bank who seeks to defend land that their family has owned for generations.
We now live in a world where we need to take it seriously when Trump announces that all hell is going to be let loose in Gaza, the US will take over the Gaza strip and build resorts along the coast whilst two million Palestinians will be evicted. Sometimes this man means what he says. This is not an idle threat. He gives every indication of having made a direct deliberate calculation of the cost-benefit analysis of ethnic cleansing.
Defending the truth
Too many modern politicians seem to behave as if they are playing a video game which they can simply reset and start over again if things go wrong. They act as if there are no serious consequences to their words and actions and that it is OK to say utterly outrageous untruths, provided they are repeated often enough and accompanied by a knowing smirk.
The truth matters. Real people die when the US cuts off military information from Ukraine. Real people lose their homes when settlers are allowed to steal Palestinian land at gun point by a government that only values the rights of one community. Real people lost their lives in Valencia and Los Angeles, and real people many thousands of miles away are seeing the cost of slow action on climate change in raised insurance premiums. Every lie matters. Every boast matters. Every bullying action adds to the pile of damage.
Orwell’s wonderful books have at their heart one very simple principle. Truth exists and it needs defending. Trump’s shoddy politics are driven by a very different imperative – what does he, personally, gain? In such times, holding hard to the facts and remembering yesterday’s reality becomes one of the most important acts of resistance.
Each of us needs to decide what kind of world we wish to live in. One of boasts and lies and adulation of lying leaders. Or one of truth, dignity and support for those in need. It shouldn’t be a particularly hard decision to make!
