Fiction becomes Fact

“How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?“

Winston thought. “By making him suffer”, he said.

“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”

 

An estimated 85,000 children under the age of five may have died from acute malnutrition in three years of war in Yemen, a leading charity says.

 

“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself.”

 

Hundreds of residents have taken to the streets of a Mexican border town, in protest at the arrival of thousands of migrants trying to get to the US.

 

“Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy – everything.” 

― George Orwell, 1984

 

More than 1,500 others were wounded when Israeli forces fired live ammunition at protesters