Revisiting "Newspeak"
More than half a century after its first publication, British writer George Orwell's novel 1984 is as prescient as ever. In order to resist the illusions of "newspeak" and "doublethink" we need to be continuously on our guard, argues Gerda Mansour*
The British novelist George Orwell's 1948 novel 1984, a classic that is well worth re-reading, has given us many expressions that have settled into the English language and become part of the colloquial repertoire, such as "Big Brother is watching you" and "doublethink". Some of Orwell's projections sound terrifyingly familiar even though the future he imagines in the novel, an authoritarian society ruled by the Party and Big Brother, is not what in fact came to pass.
"Oceania" in the novel stretches from England to the Americas, taking in Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica, with the other two powers being "Eurasia", with which Oceania is at war, and its ally "Eastasia". The novel's protagonist, Winston Smith, remembers that only four years previously the situation had been reversed: "But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. ... The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible."
Oceania is permanently at war, and Orwell, with images of war-time London still fresh in his mind, evokes for the modern reader another seemingly permanent state of war. Though the novel's plot is not important for our purposes, Smith is a minor functionary who starts to deviate from the party line by writing a diary, then by having a forbidden love affair with Julia, a party colleague. Growing awareness sets them apart, and after their involvement in a conspiracy they are caught, imprisoned, tortured and brain- washed.
Winston Smith works in the "Records Department" and his task is to rewrite history. Since the ideological needs of the party and the vicissitudes of permanent war contradict many of the events of the past, records have to be changed wherever they appear in old newspapers and books. He is, therefore, a practitioner of "Newspeak", the language created out of "Oldspeak", or Standard English, to serve the ideological needs of the party. While the features of Newspeak are clear in the course of the novel, Orwell saw fit to write an appendix entitled, "The Principles of Newspeak". It is this part of the novel that catches the attention, since it is an explicit description of this new language.
"The purpose of Newspeak," this appendix states, "was not only to provide a medium of expression for the worldview and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc [English socialism], but to make all other modes of thought impossible."
Large changes have been made in vocabulary, with many new words being created, others eliminated and still others stripped of their secondary or non-orthodox meanings. For example, "the word 'free' could only be used in such statements as 'this dog is free from lice'. It could not be used in its old sense of 'politically free' or 'intellectually free', since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless."
In the novel, the innovations of Newspeak vocabulary are organised into three categories: A, B and C vocabulary. Closest to Standard English is 'A vocabulary', consisting of words for concrete objects and physical actions. Orwell goes into some detail in describing new compounds, the drastic reduction of vocabulary and the simplification of grammar. "C vocabulary," for example, consists entirely of scientific and technical terms, of which each person only needed to know what was specific to his or her occupation. Yet, it is the section on 'B vocabulary' that is the most interesting, for Orwell defines this vocabulary as being "deliberately constructed for political purposes: words which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them ... No word in the B vocabulary was ideologically neutral. A great many were euphemisms. Such words, for instance, as 'joycamp' (forced-labour camp) or 'Minipax' (Ministry of Peace, actually the Ministry of War) meant almost the exact opposite of what they appeared to mean."
Much abstract vocabulary (honour, justice, morality, etc.) has been suppressed, and concepts of rationalism and objectivity summed up under the new compound 'oldthink' and others (like 'liberty' and 'equality') by 'crimethink'. "What was required in a Party member was an outlook similar to that of the ancient Hebrew who knew, without knowing much else, that all nations other than his own worshipped 'false gods'."
The linguistic situation described in this appendix is one of the transition from Oldspeak to Newspeak, since there are still people who had been brought up with the English language as their mother tongue and who remembered the old meanings. However, Orwell assures us that in due time this will disappear and that a faithful Party member is well-grounded in "doublethink" to avoid any traps. Anything written before 1960 will eventually become unintelligible or will have to undergo "ideological translation".
Faced with the political discourse used by today's US and British politicians and faithfully reproduced by journalists and commentators all over the world, Orwell's description of Newspeak is very relevant. There are hundreds of new terms, or old ones with new meanings, that have spread like wildfire in newspapers and in TV or radio broadcasts, requiring or enabling "doublethink". Examples abound and can be picked at random. The following, for example, comes from a report from Washington, quoting US Congressman Joseph Lieberman: "Israel has been under siege /.../ from a systematic and deliberate campaign of suicide and homicide attacks by terrorists" (Al-Ahram Weekly 9 -15 May, 2002).
The primary meaning of "siege", as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is military: "The action, on the part of an army, of investing a town, castle, etc. in order to cut off all outside communication and in the end to reduce or take it." The Congressman, however, used the term metaphorically, referring to acts by individuals, "terrorists", allegedly "laying siege" to a country of five million inhabitants that has one of the most powerful armies in the world.
He also uses the popular term, "suicide attacks", which is nonsense since "suicide" presupposes the wish to die and refers to the action of taking one's own life, not that of others. However, these young Palestinian men and women do not want to die: they use their bodies as the only weapons available to them in the struggle for liberation. Any reader who wants to distill the truth from Lieberman's biased description will need to recall a lot of suppressed information: (a) that Israel is one of the world's strongest military powers; (b) that it brutally occupies Palestine; (c) that in reaction to this, and in the absence of any other weapons, young people sacrifice their lives, and (d) that they hope, by this action, to liberate their country, so that others may one day live in freedom and dignity.
In the same article there is a quotation from a US House of Representatives Resolution: "Israel's military operations are an effort to defend itself ... and are aimed only at dismantling the terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian areas." Attacks against Israelis "are attacks against liberty, and all free people must recognise that Israel's fight is our fight".
This is a wonderful example of Newspeak: military operations in self-defence, again suggesting that Israel has been attacked by an army. These operations aim at "terrorist infrastructure" -- a harmless sounding abstract noun that wants us to forget that it means just about everything needed for the survival of the whole community: schools, hospitals, the electricity grid and water supply, telecommunications and roads, and, last but not least, homes with families inside. All of this is not to be destroyed, as with real bombs, missiles and bulldozers. Instead, it is merely "dismantled", another seemingly innocent word.
It is perhaps not strange that the most inventive Newspeak vocabulary is related to war, since aggressors are always eager to disguise their methods so as not to arouse moral indignation. Since the Gulf War and even earlier, weapons and military aircraft have borne names made up of incomprehensible acronyms (SAM, ICBM, AWACS, SCUD), the meanings of which are vague and unlikely to be grasped by the public. In addition, in today's warfare we encounter metaphors that evoke a different reality, often associated with games or with the fantasy world of "cowboys and Indians".
Thus, there are fighter jets named Wild Weasel, Raven, Eagle, Fighting Falcon, or Tomcat, a bomber called Warthog, as well as helicopters called Hornet, Black Hawk and Cobra, all of which are names recalling the tradition of Native-American heroes who adopted the names of animals and birds. There is even a helicopter bearing the name of a Native-American tribe (Apache), a cruise missile named Tomahawk (a type of axe) and a fighter jet called Thunderbolt. The effect is to domesticate these murder weapons and remove their association with warfare.
For Orwell, the most characteristic feature of Newspeak is its tendency to use euphemisms whose real meaning is exactly the opposite of their surface meaning. Thus, Sharon has been called "a man of peace", and Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize. US military jargon also shows a preference for names that have a belittling or ridiculing effect: Daisy Cutters for 15, 000 pound bombs, Mavericks for laser- guided and heat-seeking anti-tank weapons, Smart Bombs, which are kept on course by a crewman who follows images relayed from the bomb, and Dirty Bombs, which are types of nuclear weapon.
Euphemistic phrases from the Gulf War have become familiar in the reporting of other wars. Thus, "collateral damage" is a term referring to dead or wounded civilians who should have picked a safer neighbourhood; a "preemptive attack" is an attack against any perceived enemy based on nothing but suspicion; a "surgical strike" is so deadly that it is likely to cripple the enemy. "Soft targets" are in reality electrical power grids, water reservoirs, petrol tanks and unprotected installations, such as industrial plants; whereas "to paint a target" means marking it with lasers so that attack bombers can find and destroy it. "Flying a mission'" sounds like a nice enough outing, but in fact it refers to a bombing raid. "Carpet bombing" and "steel rain" are graphic enough and need no explanation; however, they show the extent to which such euphemisms signify destruction and death.
Today, Newspeak seems to be with us to stay because it is an essential tool in disinformation campaigns. In order to refuse to be taken in, we need to convince journalists not to parrot government sources and not to use such slick turns of phrase. Instead, they should spell out what such phrases really mean. The public has a right to know, particularly the US public, since it is this public that voted for the current US administration.
However, as readers we also need to make a mental effort to liberate ourselves from the stupefying effects of Newspeak. One test is to ask whether the expressions that daily flood our newspapers and TV broadcasts are used universally or not: is the word "terrorist", for example, used for anyone who uses violence to achieve his or her goals, or does it mainly refer to Arabs, Muslims and other non-Westerners? Is the talk of "eliminating weapons of mass destruction" directed only against "rogue states" -- those not liked by the US -- or does it refer to this threat wherever it exists?
Language, as Orwell might have said, can only be what we, the users, want it to become. It can be a tool for telling lies, but it can also be a tool for telling the truth.
* The writer is a lecturer in sociolinguistics, formerly at Cairo University, and Macguarie University, Sydney
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 13 - 19 March 2003 (Issue No. 629)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/629/op11.htm