George Orwell has always been one of my favorite authors, I think he successfully predicted how an oppressive dictatorship would be run so precisely that I sometimes wonder if dictators read his books and design how their states are run based on his books. These days with the things going on with the Egyptian State Security I couldn't get Orwell's fictional ministry of love out of my mind, in "1984" a dystopian Oceania is being run by the 4 ministries, who make sure that the people are busy, under control and know nothing about reality other than what the regime tells them.
I recall reading the novel once, and then trying to read it again however I wasn't able to finish it as it got too depressing for me to complete, now I know why i got this inexplicable depression while reading it, I think Orwell as he wrote this novel was actually predicting how Egypt is going to be run, including how when the main character in the novel, who was against the regime throughout the entire novel realizes that he really loves the regime, reading this now I can't help but go through all the facebook groups about how we should apologize to "Mubarak", by people who genuinely love him, who believe he was up to the responsibility handed over to him by his predecessor (by the way you do realize we didnt really pick him right?).
I think the best thing to close this entry with is a quote from "1984" when the the novel's protagonist who was against the regime all along, was able to see through all their lies, got caught, tortured and lost his love thought the following:
to read more about the novel please check
http://www.gradesaver.com/1984/study-guide/short-summary/
- Ministry of Peace : througout the modern history the country was always on war with some entity or another, no one knows if it is real or not, however it provides the company the ability to accuse anyone of being a spy, and claiming that any issue suffered by the people is due to that enemy. Remember how the regime kept convincing us that there are so many forces of evil that want to destroy us, be it islamists, copts, Palestinians, Zionists, al Jazeera, the regime made sure we always had that fictional enemy that was responsible for all these bad things happening to us.
War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.
- Ministry of Plenty : The Ministry of Plenty rations and controls food, goods, and domestic production; every fiscal quarter, the Miniplenty publishes false claims of having raised the standard of living, when it has, in fact, reduced rations, availability, and production. The Minitrue substantiates the Miniplenty claims by revising historical records to report numbers supporting the current, "increased rations".
- Ministry of Truth : The Ministry of Truth controls information: news, entertainment, education, and the arts. Winston Smith works in the Minitrue RecDep (Records Department), "rectifying" historical records to concord with Big Brother's current pronouncements, thus everything the Party says is true.
- Ministry of Love : The Ministry of Love identifies, monitors, arrests, and converts real and imagined dissidents. In Winston's experience, the dissident is beaten and tortured, then, when near-broken, is sent to Room 101 to face "the worst thing in the world"—until love for Big Brother and the Party replaces dissension.
I recall reading the novel once, and then trying to read it again however I wasn't able to finish it as it got too depressing for me to complete, now I know why i got this inexplicable depression while reading it, I think Orwell as he wrote this novel was actually predicting how Egypt is going to be run, including how when the main character in the novel, who was against the regime throughout the entire novel realizes that he really loves the regime, reading this now I can't help but go through all the facebook groups about how we should apologize to "Mubarak", by people who genuinely love him, who believe he was up to the responsibility handed over to him by his predecessor (by the way you do realize we didnt really pick him right?).
I think the best thing to close this entry with is a quote from "1984" when the the novel's protagonist who was against the regime all along, was able to see through all their lies, got caught, tortured and lost his love thought the following:
But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.shifting from
To die hating them, that was freedom.
to read more about the novel please check
http://www.gradesaver.com/1984/study-guide/short-summary/
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