George Orwell's novel 1984 powerfully describes a dystopian world where totalitarianism has won out over democracy. After a long period of war and chaos, the world's divided between three superpowers: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. These leviathans are so powerful that even if two joined forces against the third, they wouldn't be able to destroy it.
An unknown number of cities have been destroyed by atomic bombs, including Colchester, but these weapons are no longer used. The elites view them as too disruptive.
Between these superstates is disputed territory, most of which can be found in the parallelogram between Tangiers, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hong Kong. Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet are also contested. It's worth noting that the parallelogram encompasses not only all the poorest countries in the world (the 'Bottom Billion') almost perfectly, but also most of today's ongoing conflict zones.
Conditions in these regions resembles what Timothy Snyder has termed 'The Bloodlands', the territory between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (more specifically Berlin and Moscow) before and during the Second World War. It was occupied repeatedly by each side to devastating effect. Resources and industry were plundered and the population exploited, enslaved, or exterminated. The Soviets targeted Polish intellectuals, for example, for liquidation after occupying eastern Poland in 1939 as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, they repeated the liquidation process, adding Jews into the target mix. But that's not all! The NKVD carried out further executions when the Soviets reclaimed the region in 1944. The inhabitants had a choice between a rock and a hard place. In 1984, disputed territories are similarly coveted for their labour pool and resources, which can be put to use in the ongoing war effort.
Perpetual war serves several purposes. First, it provides a ready enemy to rally the public against and keep them in a constant state of anxiety and fear. Second, it wastes vast amounts of production in the form of war material, which prevents standards of living from improving. Tanks and bombs can't be worn or eaten. The extractive, ruling elite of the superstates deliberately sends the very possibility of progress up in smoke in order to preserve their own power. Third, it directs aggression outward and away from the ruling party. All of this helps maintain the status quo. As O'brien puts it: think of a boot stomping on a human face, forever.
At the beginning of the year, Oceania is allied with Eastasia and at war with Eurasia in Africa and India. Mention is made of fighting along the Malabar Coast, which suggests that Oceania has either been reduced to only a sliver of India, or that Eurasia is invading by sea.
"Attention! Your attention, please! A newsflash has this moment arrived from the Malabar front. Our forces in South India have won a glorious victory. I am authorized to say that the action we are now reporting may well bring the war within measurable distance of its end. Here is the newsflash…"
Oceania then allies with Eurasia, albeit briefly.
Before you can blink, they're back fighting Eurasia. A massive Eurasian army attacks in Africa and drives Oceanian forces back, threatening to take Brazzaville.
Winston is all in knots over this while he sits at the Chestnut Tree Cafe, post-Room 101:
"The news from the African front was disquieting in the extreme. On and off he had been worrying about it all day. A Eurasian army (Oceania was at war with Eurasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia) was moving southward at terrifying speed. The mid-day bulletin had not mentioned any definite area, but it was probable that already the mouth of the Congo was a battlefield. Brazzaville and Leopoldville were in danger. One did not have to look at the map to see what it meant. It was not merely a question of losing Central Africa: for the first time in the whole war, the territory of Oceania itself was menaced."
Winston's equilibrium is restored with a victory bulletin: Oceania has launched a massive amphibious invasion of Northern Africa. The Eurasian army has been encircled and destroyed, delivering Africa 'safely' back into Oceanian hands, as if they were territories in a game of Risk. Nothing will change for the inhabitants, of course; their condition will be as miserable as before. This is a world without individuals:
"The trumpet-call had let loose an enormous volume of noise. Already an excited voice was gabbling from the telescreen, but even as it started it was almost drowned by a roar of cheering from outside. The news had run round the streets like magic. He could hear just enough of what was issuing from the telescreen to realize that it had all happened, as he had foreseen; a vast seaborne armada had secretly assembled a sudden blow in the enemy's rear, the white arrow tearing across the tail of the black. Fragments of triumphant phrases pushed themselves through the din: 'Vast strategic manoeuvre--perfect co-ordination--utter rout--half a million prisoners--complete demoralization--control of the whole of Africa--bring the war within measurable distance of its end--victory--greatest victory in human history--victory, victory, victory!'"
And Winston declares his love for Big Brother.
Not much detail is given regarding the current state of the world's remaining disputed territory. Indonesia could be held by either Oceania or Eastasia, for example. Ultimately, it doesn't matter as this territory is always contested.
Timothy Snyder also had some things to say about the ongoing crisis in the Ukraine (one of the former Bloodland nations):
"From Moscow to London to New York, the Ukrainian revolution has been seen through a haze of propaganda. Russian leaders and the Russian press have insisted that Ukrainian protesters were right-wing extremists and then that their victory was a coup. Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, used the same clichés after a visit with the Russian president at Sochi. After his regime was overturned, he maintained he had been ousted by “right-wing thugs,” a claim echoed by the armed men who seized control of airports and government buildings in the southern Ukrainian district of Crimea on Friday.
Interestingly, the message from authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Kiev was not so different from some of what was written during the uprising in the English-speaking world, especially in publications of the far left and the far right. From Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review through Ron Paul’s newsletter through The Nation and The Guardian, the story was essentially the same: little of the factual history of the protests, but instead a play on the idea of a nationalist, fascist, or even Nazi coup d’état.
In fact, it was a classic popular revolution. It began with an unmistakably reactionary regime. A leader sought to gather all power, political as well as financial, in his own hands. This leader came to power in democratic elections, to be sure, but then altered the system from within. For example, the leader had been a common criminal: a rapist and a thief. He found a judge who was willing to misplace documents related to his case. That judge then became the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There were no constitutional objections, subsequently, when the leader asserted ever more power for his presidency."
More at The New York Review of Books. Also here, and here.
He has an interesting perspective.
So does Mark Ames over at Pando: Everything you know about the Ukraine is wrong.
