I was rather surprised to see a copy of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ on our bedside table the other day. When questioned about it, my wife said she’d read the novel many years ago and felt she should read it again now. “Why now?”, I asked.
Thought police & doublethink
Apparently, it was the news that Isabel Vaughan-Spruce had emerged victorious after the Court case which followed her arrest for praying silently in her head outside an abortion clinic. The policing of thought and the limiting of freedom of religion had evoked memories of Orwell’s classic 1949 novel and she wanted to revisit the author’s ‘Big Brother’, ‘Thought Police’, ‘Doublethink’, and ‘Newspeak’ – all of which she thought so relevant in our era of ‘fake news’, ‘alternative facts’ and ‘misinformation’.
In Orwell’s masterful work of dystopian fiction, The Ministry of Truth is just one part of an authoritarian government, referred to as INGSOC and led by the menacing ‘Big Brother’ figure of Oceania. The function of the Ministry of Truth is to create propaganda, to change history, and to produce educational and entertainment materials appropriate for all class levels, including the elite Inner Party, the proletariat, and the poor.
It’s an enormous web of deceit – and the Bible has a lot to say about those who practise deceit – which includes distorting the facts. Psalm 52 says “You love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than speaking the truth….Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin” (Ps 52:3,5). But the book makes for fascinating, if disturbing, reading.
Days later I got to have an Orwellian experience of my own.
Night to remember
Earlier this month, I received an unexpected invitation to the Carlton Club in London – the historic epicentre of the Conservative establishment. The gathering of fifty people was described as ‘An evening celebration of the importance of Freedom of Speech outside and inside Parliament and our vital need to ensure safety of medical protocols’.
Senior cardiologist and government advisor Dr Aseem Malhotra, mRNA technology inventor Dr Robert Malone and pathologist Ryan Cole from the U.S. would be speaking, as would the amazing Eva Vlaardingerbroek a Dutch Christian Conservative, political commentator and television personality. I felt it was an invitation I just couldn’t refuse – and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.
Yesterday I read the Newspeak – I’m sorry, The Evening Standard account of the event they couldn’t get access to: ... Their report ... was pure misinformation textbook work.
Yesterday I read the Newspeak – I’m sorry, The Evening Standard account of the event they couldn’t get access to: ‘Vaccine sceptics gather at the Carlton Club, traditional home of the Tory party’ was the headline. Their report, which made no mention of the main purpose of the meeting, was pure misinformation textbook work:
“The Carlton Club, traditional home of the Conservative Party, hosted a champagne reception last week, held by Andrew Bridgen MP and featuring other controversial ‘vaccine sceptic’ figures. Bridgen had the Tory whip withdrawn last month after he compared vaccinations to the Holocaust. Organiser John Mappin invited Robert Malone, a vaccine-sceptic doctor, to give ‘evidence of the harms that the injections have done to innocent civilians’. Guests included Lawrence Fox and Nigel Farage. Evidence that Covid vaccines are unsafe are unproven.”
‘Vaccine sceptics’
Orwell wrote ‘1984’ just two years after the Nuremberg Code laid down standards for the conduct of experiments on human subjects following the atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War 2.
It is an incontrovertible fact that all the hastily developed Covid vaccines were used under Emergency Use Authorisation. We all had an inalienable human right to choose – to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to these medical interventions. Informed consent, bodily integrity, freedom to refuse vaccination and the prohibition of coercion were all accepted standards in Orwell’s day. Not anymore.
Dr. Robert Malone’s pioneering experiments in 1988 showed how fat could ease the passage of mRNA into frog embryos, research which paved the way for the vaccine technology used in the Covid mRNA jabs. Dr Malhotra was formerly a strong advocate for the Covid vaccines, appearing on ITVs ‘Good Morning Britain’ two years ago to counter vaccine hesitancy. The death of his own father following vaccination, and his own investigations revealing mounting evidence of harm, changed his mind.
That these eminent scientists of worldwide stature can be conveniently dismissed as ‘controversial vaccine sceptic figures’ is as simplistic as it is offensive. Yet many of The Standard’s readers will read and digest this garbage and accept the lie as truth.
Orwell as prophet
I was grateful to get the opportunity to speak with Dr. Malone and Andrew Bridgen, whom I commended for bravely taking a stand. Chatting with Laurence Fox and others afterward, it was clear that most had simply come to honour and support these courageous people in speaking out their informed expert opinion at great personal cost and risk.
Thought Police, Newspeak, Ministry of Truth – all fictional, but all becoming frighteningly real in today’s world.
Each speaker stood under the enormous statue of Winston Churchill silently presiding over this act of defiance at the heart of the Establishment. I was reminded of another Winston, Orwell’s character Winston Smith, who in the novel had a job in the Records Department at the Ministry of Truth. Winston’s daily tasks were to alter historical documents so that they would match the continuously changing party line.
Sound familiar? I think perhaps Orwell got it wrong - at least with the title, but he did seem to have a quite prophetic vision of the future. Thought Police, Newspeak, Ministry of Truth – all fictional, but all becoming frighteningly real in today’s world. What title, I pondered, would I have given to Orwell’s book? I'd probably have added another forty years.
The evening was focused on the importance of freedom of speech, which in turn is vital in maintaining truth in all matters of life. Psalm 45, written for a king’s wedding, but alluding also to Jesus, says “In your majesty ride forth victoriously in the cause of truth, humility and justice.” In the end there is nothing “hidden that will be not be made known” (Matt 10:26) so let us continue to “speak the truth from our heart” (Ps 15:2).
