1984

Finishing this one left me feeling the most empty I've ever felt after reading a book. A little bit about me: I like to read, like it is actually -almost always- fun for me; however, I felt serious and uneasy while reading this one. It has a bleak and a depressing theme that continues throughout the whole book except for fleeting moments here and there. What makes it especially depressing for me is how realistic it seems, you can easily see the pattern in power-hungry dictators throughout history and how we are slowly but surely getting there; to the kind of extreme oppression and thought surveillance as depicted in the book. If there is one thing the I fear more than living in such a society, then it must be how winston smith -our protagonist- was ultimately alone in his struggles and hate for the union. Yes, he wasn't actually the only one opposing the union, but they have put all people's thoughts and simplest actions under microscopic supervision to the extent that no one will ever be able to express anything against it. So you're basically just live with it until you kill that part of you that feels that way. it kills you, or the union kills you. To put it in other words, the bleak first half of the book where Winston lived in a routine of fear, work and fake compliance would probably have been the rest of his life, just secretly waiting for something to change; something that will never happen.

The book describes the life of Winston Smith in the year 1984 under the rule of the union in a country called Oceania. The country, which is a superstate of the two American continents, Australia, and southern Africa, is under a tyrannical rule of an association called the Union. We see the his life as a typical union worker in faking history to suit the union's stories and statements. It talks about how for hundred of years people have been divided into three: the rich ruling party, the middle class, and the poor majority. Every few years, the middle class rebels against the rich, claiming it's to create equality and ensures peace and equal distribution of wealth; whereas truth is, when they get in power, they choose -willingly or unwillingly- to be the same version of their successors or even worse, and according to certain timely factors they will fall to other middle-class revolts too and the cycle will continue. The union, however, has found the ingredients to perpetual rule: governing thoughts, never-ending wars, and expending human powers without purpose to ensure people are always hungry and poor. The union has erased most of the known history and reattributed all the achievements to the union, and all the shortcomings to capitalism. It has banned all sexual interactions, and created a daily -I think it was daily- event known as the two minutes of hate, where people are shown videos of the nation's enemy Emmanuel Goldstein to trigger hateful shouting and screaming which is in a way an escape route for all the piled up sexual frustration. It has been implied that Goldstein might not even be a real person and it's just a front to keep the people controlled with hate and fear.

In conclusion, as someone who believes in global conspiracies in some way and the corruption of world leaders, 1984 has really spooked me, yet organized some of the thoughts that I might have randomly had at different times. Especially in our Arabic world where not a single leader is not a foreign agent controlled by the west, this book is a must read. You have to learn that you can't take anything for granted, a lot of stuff is monitored, done for a reason, has been changed in history etc.. and until they find a way to control and monitor our thinking they will continue to do so using the media in the shadows.

This an easy 10/10