1984

Welcome to 1984

George Orwell was 46 years old when he wrote 1984 and passed away six months after its publication so never witnessed the cultural impact the book would have. His vision of the future as depicted in his novel was both logical and plausible, and if nothing else served as a warning of what could so easily be in regard to the dangers of totalitarianism, surveillance and the distortion of language.

'If you want a vision of the future,' Orwell wrote 'then imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.'

But oh, to be content with that vision! Particularly if the boot was a soft, velvety one rather than steel toe-capped. If only everyone could be content in being ruled by an iron fist, watched over by CCTV and fed a constant diet of bullshit? To be content with eating at McDonalds, watching mindless television game shows and reading The Sun? What a wonderful world it might be?

Gladly, however, there were still some people who wanted more than “the shit they get, the shit they get, the shit they get.” Gladly, there were still some people who wanted something other that they could call their own which wasn't “a Ford Cortina or a mortgage on a home.”

In California Uber Alles, Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra had welcomed his listeners to 1984 by asking them if they were ready for the Third World War? In 1977 on the B-side of White Riot by The Clash, Joe Strummer had counted down the years and on reaching 1984 had let out a loud gasp. Crass, on the other hand, had counted down to it by cataloguing each release on their label with numbers indicating how many years it was before 1984.

Orwell had created a sense of foreboding around his chosen year that had entered all aspects of culture, Punk being no exception. Many of his terms and slogans from the book had also entered into common language whilst his principle predictions remained standing as warning signs of unparalleled bleakness, forever struggling with the power of Newspeak whereby coercion into that bleakness was presented as free choice and that bleakness even presented as sunshine.

'If there is hope, it lies in the proles,' Orwell had wrote and indeed this had always been the case and would forever remain so but might hope also lay somewhere else too? In the creation of alternative cultures, perhaps? Freethinking, anarchist-based cultures where the participation and input of proletariats was a prerequisite?

Punk had offered hope but its initial vanguard had quickly been bought out and the creativity and destruction it had engendered had been recuperated. From out of the wreckage Crass had emerged, offering fresh hope to a jilted generation and spawning additional hope in the form of Anarcho Punk but now it was 1984 was this still the case? Did Anarcho Punk still have anything to offer apart from Punk Rock? If Stop The City was anything to go by then the answer was a most definite 'Yes' but was Anarcho Punk enough? Could the momentum of the Anarcho Punk movement be maintained? Could it be advanced?

Crass may have started to have their doubts but if Conflict had anything to do with it then the answer again was a most definite 'Yes'...