When Utopia is just in the mind

Lately, I have been reading this book "1984" by George Orwell after being introduced to it by a friend many years ago. It is one of many books in the vein of "negative utopia" which challenges the way we look at the world around us, at the trappings beneath the beautiful wrapping.

Its a pretty depressive book. It is so depressive, that I had hallucinations of me being in Oceania, a world under totalitarian rule, where freedom is almost unheard of, having "evil" thoughts (in this case, having our own thoughts and opinions) is an offense that can get ourselves killed and our soul belongs to no one, except "Big Brother", the ultimate ruler.

It kind of reminds me of the reality I am living in, and the little similarities of mine and that of Oceania. Its a wake up call.

Imagine living in a world where every person's movement and facial expression is monitored for signs of betrayal to the ruler, phone lines are tapped, televisions act as spy cameras, the media consist only of false political propaganda created by the government, history books are rewritten from time to time to cover up mistakes made by the government. Love can only be aimed towards the ruler, there is no love between parents and children, children turn the parents in to the Thought Police when they show signs of curiosity or contempt for the government and spouses are only for reproduction purposes.

In short, it's a writing about the method used by a small group of elite members of our hierarchical society to deprive us of our basic rights in order to induce dependency and thus allow ourselves to be governed with unquestioning loyalty. The basic principle of gaining control is by depriving the society of access to "true", unabridged version of news, food, independence, education and the right to speak up freely. Its a way to keep the subjects from being equally intelligent to ensure they would feel a need for governance.

In many ways, this book reminds me of the similarity of Oceania with fundamentalist Islamic countries, my own and every other developed or developing countries in the world. Despite being in the year 2005, absolute freedom is still not yet achieved as long as the desire for dominion over others and the power hungry still exist.

I thank Orwell for having the foresight (in the year 1949) to write this book as a warning. I'll never look at things the same way anymore.

Don't you think the fact that the world is such and you can't do anything to change it is depressing?

Its a sad book, but I love the melancholy of reading it.