“All issues are political issues,” said George Orwell, and “politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
Words for our times, aren’t they? Politics has become an inevitable part of our life. I want to argue with Orwell on not just one issue but several. The quoted statement by Orwell, when peeled down to its core, probably reveals that he does not approve politics getting into all aspects of life.
However, we have to feel sorry for George because he did not get his wish come true. On the contrary, all issues indeed have become political issues more or less and there is no point in denying it because this is the truth. It is the reality whether one likes it or not. Politics started all the way back from the early ages; when men wore mere rags, hunted down animals for living, were learning to make chiseled weapons for effective hunting and drove out other tribes from their own territory.
But ‘driving out other tribes from their own territory’ is not so different from recent times, in which people do feel the same way. Consider the case of white supremacy, for example. White people from all over the world feel that the land where they are living is rightfully theirs only and outsiders (or immigrants) do not deserve to belong there. The ‘practice’ of politics started all the way back to those ages where men could not even speak properly and had to use signs or crude voice. Then there was the medieval age where feudal system, scheming, butchery, incessant war, etc had been part of life for both the nobles and common folks. So, we can see that politics had always been there, only it is now so intense everywhere.
There are many who say they are ‘non-political’apolitical) or ‘neutral’. They prefer not to take any side and lead their lives by believing in this principle. The word ‘non-political’ is often ambiguous, let’s say a bit ‘hypothetical’. In order to understand that, we have to delve into the psychological state of people. Not all people share the same state of mind but they do possess a certain ideology deep down inside, whether they are prepared to reveal it or not.
All of us have a certain feeling of right or wrong, that much we do have in common. Because that is what makes us ‘humans’ and not animals. We have been blessed with the ability to think (at least to some extent even for the worst dullards) and not just eat, sleep, constipate and expire. And this sense of right and wrong gives us the ability to lean toward a certain ideological direction, whether or not they are ‘labelled’ as such.
You don’t have to be a leftist or rightist to possess an ideology. An ideology can solely be based upon what is right or wrong for the betterment of all sorts of beings and the social environment. What distinguishes us is only the choice we make or the path we choose. Some choose the right way, others take the wrong one. A doctor can use dishonest means to earn money, in addition to his regular professional income by becoming a victim to greed. This is a choice that he/she makes, but that decision is a product of ‘thinking’ about cheating initially,which the person later executes.
Hence, he/she is a human being just like the rest of us with an ideological direction. And he/she need not be a leftist or rightist to possess that. People don’t go down in the history books being a criminal and saint simultaneously. When you commit a crime, the crime overshadows your previous good deeds and those deeds generally do not favour you in the present circumstances.
Consider this certain instance where a teacher commits a murder. He was a good teacher in his life, always open to his students and very passionate about his profession. But one day, his emotion took the better of him in a certain situation and he found himself doing murder. This happens in the world often. In such instances, this teacher would no longer be judged upon his previous activities, only the present one.
Bad deeds quickly taint the good ones so that in real life, it is nearly impossible to find a ‘grey’ character, in terms of action of course. At least our mind tells us to think that way in general; most of us prefer to see the world in black and white and not in grey. We analyze a person by what he is doing at the present, we don’t particularly think whether he or she had a certain motive behind it. When a thief steals, he will get beaten up for stealing but the ones beating him would not be thinking about whether the man had a wife and son, whether they were starving in the cold of the night without any food. This has become a part of the human nature. And nature is reality.
Each of us makes a certain choice between right and wrong. What appears wrong to some might appear right to others. This is what shapes our ideological sense. When living in a community, we have to encounter various crisis in one way or another. Oft times, we cannot help but voice on the problems that we face. Even the ‘mute’ ones who say they are content with everything around them don’t often feel that way in their minds. The mind itself is a tricky thing which plays with our thoughts and provokes us to voice our feelings.
Suppose we consider a bestseller writer who considers himself ‘non-political’. He writes about non-political stuff, like those of horror fiction and fantasy books. In the long run, he found himself, along with his country in the midst of an epidemic. He is witnessing countless people getting killed without proper medical treatment and he also knows that the government isn’t doing much about it. Yet he wishes to remain silent because of his reputation as being ‘non-political’.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a ‘thought criminal’ because even in that tiniest faction of nanosecond, he couldn’t help but feel that things are not going right at the moment in his country. He is bound to think that way otherwise he is no different from a robot! He certainly isn’t a robot because he is a well reputed writer, a person who wrote books before and is therefore, capable of ‘wishful thinking’. No one noticed that but he did notice. And in the process of doing so, he became something of an unorthodox.
Although he is not aware of it himself, he is no longer a ‘non-political’ guy. When you claim that the price of rice is going up and things should improve, you are bound to encounter those who will say “No, I believe things are alright and we have more than we require. I am quite satisfied.” The rest of them will choose to remain silent on the issue but does that imply they are incapable of thought? Of course not, it’s just that they choose not to say anything.
What this means is that we all are ‘political’ more or less, in that we possess the capability to act on our send of right and wrong and thereby create an ideological direction in the process, even if that ideology is based on what is right or wrong only for us.
George Orwell’s 1984 is a masterpiece that will continue to haunt readers through generations. The key message the book is trying to deliver is disturbing, even more considering its increasing relevance to the current world. It depicts a dystopian world in which people have become helpless creatures under the watchful eyes of the totalitarian government. Almost all the people are incapable of speaking openly for fear of torture and death.
In addition, they are also extremely wary when talking with each other,as there is no trust among them, no friendship, no harmony. Each thinks the other as a spy or member of the secret police organization (also known as the ‘Thought Police’ in the books).
The worst part, however, is that people are terrified to even think a single contradictory thought, a thought that unveils some dissatisfaction over anything. In case they mutter their thoughts aloud in their sleep, the surveillance telescreen would detect it and send them to death. It’s a dark, nightmarish world where there is no sense of hope, only despair; a world where people have become mere working machines, no different from robots.
A real world equivalent could be the contemporary North Korean society — a living prison. But can such a society have vitality? Would it not disintegrate eventually? Is it possible to hold a world in tight grips indefinitely using despair, hate and fear? Yes, if it only has ‘non-political’ people, people with no thought, no feeling, no sense of ideology, and no ‘politics’. But then again…we are all humans, so each of the said things is possible for us and such a world would certainly not endure forever. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow but it will be one day in the distant future. The reason is that none of us are ‘non-political’ because we are all humans.
Taoheed Al-Rabbi is a student of Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP). He can be reached at [email protected].
