1984: Fiction or reality in Venezuela? (Translation - Original author: @orianaalej )

While I was driving around my hometown and watching the government’s propaganda, I came up with what I thought it would be an original idea: write on my blog about the frightening similarities found in both the dystopic novel by George Orwell 1984 and some nuances related to the propaganda madness evilly applied by the Venezuelan government.

The truth is I would not like to regret not doing it, so I will do it anyways but trying to be more graphic. After all, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

Chavez’s eyes

The first thing I will refer to, because of its shocking nature, are Chavez’s eyes. Quoting the book, we can find "The blackmoustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own."

In Venezuela, you may see the figure and the sinister concordance in buildings, houses, billboards, t-shirts, graffiti, vehicles and others. It resembles a way to show Hugo Chavez’s "Omnipresence" and send a clear message: "I am watching you". If there is an attribute authoritarian governments share, it is control, persecution and surveillance, whether you approve it or not. That is precisely the government’s goal: make their citizens feel like they are being monitored at all times.

Two Minutes Hate

It is as simple as the fact that an authoritarian regime must make up enemies to keep on exerting their authoritarianism. For that reason, they needed to devote time hating the party’s biggest enemy, and thus keeping the resentment intact within the people. Above all, hatred and fear do a better job in binding a nation together tan love.

The biggest promoter of hatred across Venezuela is the state television channel, throughout shows such as: Con el mazo dando (Hitting with the Mallet), Zurda conducta (Leftist behavior) and La Hojilla (The Razor). Here is a sample of how they showcase such hatred on an open signal during hours of supervised viewership.

The three slogans of the Party

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

In my country, a Minister of Education was capable of saying: "it is not like we are going to draw people out of poverty and take them to the middle class so they can pretend to be squalid (adjective used by the government to refer to their opposition)".

Watch:

Despite the fact that I only bring up these three similarities, there are many more. Frightening resemblances which make you think: "Will this all be part of a script?"

Thanks for reading me.