‘Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.’
– O’Brien speaking to Winston, Chapter 20, 1984 by George Orwell
As three British mechanized battlegroups smash their way into central Basra and the Americans are showing they can intrude into the capital city Baghdad itself regardless of Iraqi resistance, the reports coming out of the Iraqi Information Ministry are starting to sound more and more like the articles which appeared in ‘Der Panzerbar’ (The Armoured Bear) in 1945.
Der Panzerbar was ‘The news journal of the defenders of Greater Berlin’ in the last few weeks of World War II. Right to the end it was filled with increasingly fantastical claims that victory was being snatched from the jaws of defeat, even as Soviet infantry were remorselessly inching their way ever deeper into the Third Reich’s capital city.
That we should hear echoes of Nazi Germany’s dying days from the mouths of Ba’athist Socialism’s doomed spokesmen is interesting but hardly surprising. Iraq has long been Orwell’s ‘Room 101’ writ large, but reality itself is not a matter of opinion, only our understanding of it. Objective reality is coming to Iraq and it is coming at bayonet point no matter how much ‘Ba’athist truth’ and its apologists around the world try to pretend otherwise or wish it out of existence.
Excellent post. Time for a wakeup call for a great many people, and not just in Iraq’s evil regime.
Nice one Perry.
As a militarily ignorant wimp civilian, deciding the destiny of nations from my armchair unencumbered by actual detailed knowledge of anything very much, I too am struck by the sheer unreality of the Iraqi response to, well, reality.
As I write this, for example, the BBC is reporting that there is ONE TANK that has conked out in the Baghdad area. They have pictures. It is being yanked about with tow ropes and crowed over by a few Iraqis and gawped at by a few more Iraqis. And apparently this one piece of military junk is playing a “major part” in the “propaganda war”.
This “propaganda war” is being talked of – and seems in the minds of the Iraqi leadership to be – a substitute for winning the actual war. It’s as if they think that if they convince themselves completely enough that they are winning, they really will be.
On the other hand, and this is what stopped me posting a piece along these lines myself, I wonder what I would be thinking or doing if a bunch of technologically bewildering Martians showed up on the outskirts of London, smashed their way into Heathrow, and then proceeded to take over my life and the life of my country. I too might take mental refuge in “unreality”, and in the solipsistic philosophy that you describe. If one of their space ships crashed nearby, I too might want to take a look, and when I got there to raise a cheer for any passing Martian camera crews. After all, confidence in some kind of “final victory”, however absurd it may be in this or that case, is at least a necessary condition for putting up any kind of fight.
But even so … you do also need a few spaceships of your own, and the ability and the will to use them effectively. That Minister of Information is indeed a very strange man, doing a very strange job. I wonder what he will have to say for himself when this is all over.
Ah, George Orwell is an author of which I know a little about…
While it is always possible, all over the world at any time, to find analogies to scenes and characters from Orwell’s masterpiece of double think “1984”, it should be remembered that, in the scene quoted, he was writing about what we might today loosely term “Anglosphere” social philosophy.
It would be a wonder of double think (that even Orwell would be proud of) to assume that any governments achieving a “victorious” outcome in Iraq will bring the troops home and leave it at that.
The reality of Orwells “constant struggle” is already being revealed in the USA and UK where the government uses the excuse of terrorism to erode our hard won national liberties even further.
Rather like Mr. Byers using the terrible actions of September 11, 2001 to disguise local domestic bad news, the governments of our dear anglosphere now seem to be able bury more domestic government intervention and encroachment on our liberty by pointing to the terrible things that are happening far away. As has been reported elsewhere on this blogboard, the Patriot act is the thin end of an authoritarian wedge. So remember boys n girls. The same governments that are depriving Iraq of its freedom is also depriving you of yours.
However, unlike many of us, the Iraqis seem to be prepared to die to defend their rights. And for that, at least, they deserve some credit.
Well, tell me I am wrong…
(you’re wrong – ED)
“However, unlike many of us, the Iraqis seem to be prepared to die to defend their rights. And for that, at least, they deserve some credit.”
Hey, Perry, seems the Iraqi information minister, aptly calling himself “mad dog barker” has found time between briefings, to post on Samizdata !
Not so much a Ba’ath as a shower…
Back in 1972, George McGovern’s campaign did a Panzerbar. A couple of days before Nixon’s landslide victory, they sent out telegrams to supporters asking for money, on the grounds that there was a massive shift in public opinion to McGovern.
So what’s behind the Iraqi Panzerbar? Maybe they are buying time for something. Or someone.
I wonder if Mad Dog Al Ba’qar has seen the film of Fedayeen heroes running like girls from the US Marines in Baghdad. They don’t seem too bothered about fighting for their right to thieve, rape and kill at will.
The Misinformation Minister kind of reminds me of that Monty Python scene – was it in Holy Grail — the knight has no more arms or legs and demands they come back and fight him — “merely a flesh wound!”
The Minister for Making It Up’s latest outpouring is priceless; he has said that the UN must condemn the war before it:
“becomes a place for prostitution if it remains underneath the feet of the Americans.
What is wanted from the U.N. is clear — condemn the aggression before the U.N. becomes a brothel if it remains under the control of the U.S.”
Ah, sweet isn’t it? The poor love is so out of touch that he doesn’t realise that becoming a brothel would represent a massive improvement in the UN’s moral standing, and indeed, usefulness.
Sadly, that is too much to hope for.