‘The classic’ by Orwell first published in 1949 became an instant hit as the world had just seen the end of Nazis/ Fascists and was watching the rise of Totalitarian government under Stalin’s Soviet Union.
The significance of the book could have waned during the early 90s when the world saw the end of the Soviet Union and Apartheid in Africa and the proliferation of Democracies across the world.
Fast forward 25 years and the book holds no relevance greater than what it does today, thanks to the entrenching roots of the internet and social media fuelled by Smartphone ownership.
Contrary to all the conveniences and panacea for humankind envisioned by its creators, it has resulted in Frankenstein- possessing every sort of vices ranging from surveillance, espionage, infiltrating personal privacy to the commodification of individuals, cyberbullying and, worst of all, elongating the arms of the modern-day dictators to reach the dissidents in distant lands.
The development of high-resolution cameras, face recognizing systems, artificial intelligence and data analytics has further aided the cause of Modern Despots.
The Orwellian lexicons like ‘Newspeak’, ‘Thought crime’, ‘Unperson’ and ‘Doublethink’ have come further alive with the unfolding of contemporary socio-political events in the world.
Let’s start with the social credit scoring system introduced in China in 2014. This analyses the credibility of individuals’ public behavior like jay-walking, traffic violations, their criticism of the government actions, failing to pay taxes on time, and so on.
Instead of using secret police, they use technology and media to cut off the political opposition, garner their calculated support through populist and attractive government policies and create a system of chaos while forwarding suspicious policies.
On one hand, it awards those with higher scores with benefits like shopping discounts, waiver in deposit while buying or renting properties; on the other hand, it restricts low scorers from traveling, booking flights, and banning their social media accounts.
A large number of reports have also surfaced accusing the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province. This completely matches the concept of Orwell’s ‘Thought Crime’ and Vaporizing (forced disappearance) of the dissidents (Thought criminals).
Coming to Putin’s Russia, according to reports, in 2020, Russia was Third in terms of the number of CCTV cameras per 1000 people. It reportedly spent 53 million USD in facial recognition technology in 2019 alone.
Media propaganda, regarded as one of Russia’s powerful weapons resurfaces time. For example in 2016, when Sweden was undergoing debate to join NATO, the Russian propaganda machine flooded the Swedish public with the appalling rumor that NATO could use the Swedish land to launch attacks without prior information and in case any NATO soldiers raped Swedish women, the perpetrators would be immune to the criminal charges.
Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia (popularly known as MBS) has upped the spending in surveillances, unleashed Social-media Army and even allegedly planted Pro-Saudi tech-expert inside Twitter itself.
The acquiring of Pegasus, mobile-spying software by the Saudi Government from Israeli Tech Company in 2017 also explains a lot.
Besides the Totalitarian Governments, the media companies also hugely manipulate the thoughts of the general public. One such example is the brash, aggressive and religiously polarizing Television show broadcasted by Arnab Goswami. The most recent was wrongly blaming Muslims for the spread of the Coronavirus in India.
The USA, the biggest champion of liberty and personal freedom is not free from surveillance charges. As a matter of fact, the USA passed the Patriot Act immediately after the 9/11 attacks stating the need to intercept any terrorism-related activities.
This act would allow US security agencies unrestrained rights and access to wire-tap, collect information of suspicious persons based on their cell-phone conversation, Email and Internet browsing histories, credit card usage, break in without the owner’s permission, and so on (The Act was substituted by revised Freedom Act in 2015 as a response to the 2013 leaks by Edward Snowden).
Thus, Big Brother still exists, watching for all our actions, nudging us into particular directions, careful that we do not take any actions or conspire that would oppose his eternal exercise of power over us.
The world of surveillance and control by Big Brother is even scarier than Orwell thought
The scariest thing today as John Keane states is- the modern Despots have learned to customize themselves to the changing world.
They no longer suppress their subjects with iron fists, but very cleverly, they invite them to submit and lead them to enjoy their powerlessness.
They persuade and convince the citizens to obey the necessities in the name of freedom. The new rulers manufacture cowardice and submission.
Instead of using secret police, they use technology and media to cut off the political opposition, garner their calculated support through populist and attractive government policies and create a system of chaos while forwarding suspicious policies.
These new tyrants offer the taste of democracy like concerted elections, no tolerance on corruption, public forum for participation, easy and quick review and complaint-lodging mechanism to government through the use of social media.
The fact is, those complaints get lost, rarely get noticed by the responsible authorities and the situation of eternal status quo persists.
Thus, Big Brother still exists, watching for all our actions, nudging us into particular directions, careful that we do not take any actions or conspire that would oppose his eternal exercise of power over us.
The only difference is, the state does not have to pay for all the Winstons and thought policies today. We pay for the surveillance that monitors and manipulates us.
Earlier, the goal of the surveillance was to sustain the power of The Rulers; now it has transcended to large business companies maintaining their brand loyalty.
If Orwell warned us of one type of Big brother, our current reality presents us with multiple Big Brothers from Facebook, Instagram to Amazon.
(Chaudhary is a Student at Department of International Relations and Diplomacy, Tribhuvan University)
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