Social media has been circulating lately. image starring George Orwell, who reads a book titled 2024, And there's a concussion on his face if he's not scared. Is the situation truly that bad? Is Year1984 Orwella, published in 1949, could it be any indication of today?
It would be regrettable that European integration did not die, even after the brexit and after coming to power politicians playing for division, specified as Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico, we Italy, Hungary and Slovakia. 1 might add that in fresh elections to the European Parliament Once Again the vast majority were obtained by centroleft and centre-right parties. 1 might even say that populist politicians are better at channeling hopes and fears of “ordinary people” than liberals.
However, there is no denying – and here comes Orwell – that both communicative and political practice throughout Europe have changed dramatically, regardless of who happens to regulation in various capitals. Liberal norms and behaviours are in reverse, while non-liberal and nativistic alternatives are growing.
Mind broken to pieces
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, political parties winning elections across Europe valued liberal values: freedom, tolerance, justice, inclusiveness, restraint and self-criticism. Not only democracy but the regulation of law and human rights were praised. Open borders for capital, goods, services and people were considered not to be a threat, but to make fresh opportunities.
Historical and technological facts were not mostly questioned, and mainstream media did not let people with outrageous views to air, even at the expense of lost profits and amusement assets. Cultural tolerance and neutral religion were taken for granted. NGOs active in social, humanitarian or environmental campaigns were seen as allies in maintaining the liberal order of things. Multilateralism, based on equality, inclusion, trust and cooperation, was considered a way to guarantee peace and prosperity.
European integration was a jewel in the crown of this liberal project. The European Union, this embodiment of integration, was seen as an effective instrument to deal with globalisation, a bold experimentation to introduce transnational democracy, a clever way of stabilising its neighbours and strengthening Europe's position in the world.
Perhaps we have never experienced the “end of history” that announced Francis Fukuyama just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, but a liberal consensus united the centre-left and centre-right parties of Europe. present he challenges himself or even abandons himself liberal values – not only utmost parties, but besides mainstream parties and their electorates.
The fresh communicative focuses mainly on ‘national interest’, safeguarding borders, protecting ‘our’ producers and spiritual roots. Globalisation, multiculturalism, multilateralism and European integration have been targeted. The fashion for human rights and number rights is over. Ecology, trade unions, and even feminism are now considered extremist movements, if not even militant ones, which should be ignored or restricted in the mainstream.
The precedence is now "law and order" – not the regulation of law. Conversations focus on how to prepare for wartime, not peacetime. Politicians fight for the name of the biggest moneymaker, not the best negotiator. The enemies of the state include judges and representatives of civilian society, erstwhile so praised by liberals. Uniforms, and sometimes men in sutannas, found themselves again on the candlestick.
The fresh communicative is followed by actions. The iron fist of the state is increasingly hitting – not only people on the way, but besides NGOs that are trying to aid them. safety services monitor LGBT+ communities and environmental defenders that are harassed in various ways. Those who effort to keep independency in public media, are released or sidetracked.
I am not talking about China or Russia, but about the EU countries - any of them are inactive governed by liberal parties. In Poland, under the leadership of the erstwhile president of the European Council, self-proclaimed Liberal Donald Tusk, debate ongoing about fresh regulations under which soldiers will have "A licence to kill“ People trying to cross the border between Poland and Belarus. The erstwhile Polish government was Even worse, is simply a small comfort.
Re-assembling
Isn't that besides grim, besides black and white? Finally, the liberals from the centre-left and centre-right parties ruling Europe after 1989 said 1 thing and did the other. The invasion of Iraq took place in the name of “freedom”, and the fervent pursuit of the supposedly free economical variant (especially in Central and east Europe) took distant the power of many average people to work.
Besides, not all non-liberal politicians present are ready to shoot possible asylum seekers – a good example is Giorgia Meloni, despite the neo-fascist roots of her party. It can besides be said that voters in Europe have always displayed any latent racism, and the main difference is that xenophobia now finds a stronger expression on social media. any attribute the revival of nationalism and the deficiency of spiritual tolerance to the cultural failure of memory among liberals.
Can not initialise Bonobo rebirth Imperialist Russia, as the fear of war makes people stick together and, above all, begin to appreciate their own security. The hybrid war led by Russia most likely explains why 67% of Poles and Poles supports illegal exports At the border. Open borders have a cost: do imports from countries where safety and work standards are not respected do not "kill" home producers? Doesn't inexpensive migrant labour undermine the rights of home workers?
These are all justifiable arguments, explaining fresh rhetoric and politics. However, there was undeniably a transformation. The change has undergone the perception of what is good and what is bad, actual and false, average and abnormal. What provoked outrage a fewer years ago and was unacceptable has become a fresh “normal”. Which brings us back to Orwell and his demons.
Orwell’s dystopian future is not based solely on abuse of power and the effects of torture. It besides applies, or possibly mainly, to a intellectual transition from a coherent strategy of values to something else. “Big Brother”, anonymous repressive power described in Year1984, he wants people not only to do what they are told – he besides wants them to think that war is peace, that freedom is slavery, that ignorance is value.
According to your own preferences
We erstwhile believed that all human beings should enjoy the full catalogue of fundamental human rights. present it is claimed that granting these rights to "immigrants" threatens prosperity, safety and culture. We erstwhile believed that people should have the freedom to practice their ethnic, sexual, or spiritual traditions and customs. Today, the household model is imposed, the decline of multiculturalism is announced, and Islam is seen as a threat. We erstwhile believed that workers' rights, green transformation and sustainable improvement were signs of wisdom and modernity. present they are treated as slogans of ideology bordering on madness.
We erstwhile believed that in order to accomplish anything in the planet of interdependence, we need, if not integration, at least cooperation. present No attention is paid to the UN, and EU associate States want to take over Brussels. We erstwhile believed that ceasing arms, diplomacy and trade could bring peace. Today, reinforcements proceed to be the best, and economical sanctions and political threats are on the agenda – all in the name of “peace”.
Of course, individuals do not necessarily advocate 1 or the another of the opposite. Orwell, however, found the word, and for this – "dual thinking" meant the ability to simultaneously profess 2 mutually contradictory views. Double-thinking frequently characterizes liberals who, under force from events or the demands of power, are subjected to unliberal temptation.
One might say that in politics, even a meaningless liberal is inactive better than a non-liberal. However, I fear that the strategy of crucial non-liberals is, as He put it Orwell, to “break human minds into pieces and re-assemble these fragments according to their own preferences” [1]. This is the importance of fresh normality in European policy.
* Oh, my God *
[1] George Orwell, Year 1984Father Julia Fiedorczuk.
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The article is simply a joint publication of magazines Social Europe and IPS-Journal. From English she translated Catherine the Formers.
