[MAPC-discuss] Taliban: terorists or freedom fighters? A

[MAPC-discuss] Taliban: terorists or freedom fighters? A

born-digital

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2001-10-30

From G. Orwell's 1984

"On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the
shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks,
the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet,
the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the
booming of guns - after six days of this, when the great orgasm was
quivering to its climax and the negeral hatered of Eurasia had boiled up
into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the two
thousand Eurasion war crimilas who were to be publicly hanged on the last
day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces -
at just this moment it had been announced that Oceana was not after all at
war with Eurasis. Oceana was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.

There was of course no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it
became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia
and not Eurasia was the enemy. Winston was taking part in a demonstration at
one of the central London squares at the moment when it happened. It was
night, and the white square was packed with several thousand people....

....A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the
neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of
a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made
metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities,
masscres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of
civilians, lying propoganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was
almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then
maddened. At every few moments, the fury of the crowd boiled over and the
voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beastlike roaring that rose
uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came
from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty
messages when a messenger hurried onto the platform and a scrap of paper ws
slipped into the speaker's hand. He unrolled it and read it without pausing
in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of
what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words
said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceana was at war
with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners
and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half
of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of
Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were
ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The
Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and
cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or
three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the
microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air,
had gone straight on with his speech. One minut more and the feral roars of
rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as
before, except that the target had been changed."

....


Anybody remember the last 4 words of the novel?

Tuesday, October 30, 2001 7:00 AM

[MAPC-discuss] Taliban: terorists or freedom fighters? A