Rebuilding After Big Brother: A 1984 Story

[DrDerp]

Nanjing, Republic of China

Professor Fu Xinyi took a quick detour from her route home to visit a spot she frequently visited. Near the tomb of Sun Yat-Sen on Purple Mountain was a monument to the victims of the Cultural Revolution who came from Nanjing. It resembled a giant scroll carved from black stone with the names those killed by the Red Guards during the course of Mao's final major social campaign.

Before the CCP caved in on itself. Before the Kuomintang returned. The names of two of her uncles were on this monument. She didn't know if she was fortunate or not, but she'd spoken to one of the men responsible for their deaths. A broken man, one hollowed out by shame. He was far from the last she'd spoken too.

She'd spoken to former Red Guards and their children, providing her research to the UN administration in London. There were many disturbing similarities to the Year Zero campaigns Mao undertook and the attempt to erase history in Oceania. The past was to be consigned to the flames, those who dared to entertain the notion of a Britain before the Party were to be killed. To imagine Oceania before the Party was to imagine it without the Party.

Just as to be nostalgic for a China before Mao was to think of one without him. That very line of thinking was something many of her interviewees committed murder in order to stamp out. There was no new China without the Communist Party, and they'd destroy any who dared suggest otherwise. It was these scars that Professor Xinyi was hoping to help heal, bit by bit.

In helping Britain heal, China hoped to heal itself. What they'd been through was too similar for her to think that nothing she learned could be applied to helping restore British culture.

 

[Whiteshore]

Before the CCP caved in on itself. Before the Kuomintang returned.

Let me guess, a Sino-Soviet War allowed the KMT to return to the mainland owing to the Soviets wrecking the PRC?

 

[Aluma]

Let me guess, a Sino-Soviet War allowed the KMT to return to the mainland owing to the Soviets wrecking the PRC?

Maybe the communists didnt have that much of a solid victory in the Civil War due to the Soviet Union being busy helping the Ingsocs

 

[Pangur]

Let me guess, a Sino-Soviet War allowed the KMT to return to the mainland owing to the Soviets wrecking the PRC?

Another brilliant touch

 

[Michel Van]

I have to say i'm impress

it's nice idea that Oceania is just run down Britain by totalitarian Government
giving the illusion to people their part of bigger scene, by propaganda.

What issue some questions
Who does attacks on Britain the 1984 novel mentions, is Ingsoc bombing it own nation ?
had Ingsoc nuclear weapons to keep their European neighbours (and USA) at bay, not to intervene in Ingsoc affairs ?
like with Black Streaks MRBM, V-bomber Fleet and Submarines ?

i could imagine that French would have profit from situation, and under there rule consolidated the Western European Union and European Economic Community.

Another open question how Ingsoc manage to take rule over Britain,
Their Propaganda mention a nuclear war and some were between 1945 and 1965 Ingsoc took power, happen this in TL for real ?
or was story complete different and modified in Ministry of truth to brain wash the people ?

 

[Emperor Norton I]

She totally has found healthy ways to deal with her trauma/s

The best human reaction to trauma is healing. Unfortunately, human nature is such that trauma often begets a reaction of another or worsening trauma. Revenge begets revenge, which begets further revenge in reaction, begetting it yet further. Things defined in black and white are reacted to in black and white. And when we define ourselves by contrast to something, we often become a reflection of that something because we are still existing in its terms. And we often come to embody precisely that which we find fault with.

Its a hell of a thing to take the high road and truly overcome something. It's a hell of a thing to live with and as yourself not because of or despite anything, but only for who you are. It takes time, experience and wisdom. Unfortunately the victims of trauma are denied an easy instinct for wisdom precisely by what victimized them. Truly recovering becomes a road of struggle. It must be traversed with courage, confidence and grace, seeking truth and whatever is right and good for who that person is at their ideal. There are weights of personal baggage that people carry with them. But they can also be put down when the person truly understands they can put them down.

 

[stirlingdraka]

Another wonderful update. Maybe China and Cambodia can help repair post-Insgoc Britian.

 

[Parma]

Nanjing, Republic of China

Professor Fu Xinyi took a quick detour from her route home to visit a spot she frequently visited. Near the tomb of Sun Yat-Sen on Purple Mountain was a monument to the victims of the Cultural Revolution who came from Nanjing. It resembled a giant scroll carved from black stone with the names those killed by the Red Guards during the course of Mao's final major social campaign.

Before the CCP caved in on itself. Before the Kuomintang returned. The names of two of her uncles were on this monument. She didn't know if she was fortunate or not, but she'd spoken to one of the men responsible for their deaths. A broken man, one hollowed out by shame. He was far from the last she'd spoken too.

She'd spoken to former Red Guards and their children, providing her research to the UN administration in London. There were many disturbing similarities to the Year Zero campaigns Mao undertook and the attempt to erase history in Oceania. The past was to be consigned to the flames, those who dared to entertain the notion of a Britain before the Party were to be killed. To imagine Oceania before the Party was to imagine it without the Party.

Just as to be nostalgic for a China before Mao was to think of one without him. That very line of thinking was something many of her interviewees committed murder in order to stamp out. There was no new China without the Communist Party, and they'd destroy any who dared suggest otherwise. It was these scars that Professor Xinyi was hoping to help heal, bit by bit.

In helping Britain heal, China hoped to heal itself. What they'd been through was too similar for her to think that nothing she learned could be applied to helping restore British culture.

Truly impressive story, especially this update, making a clear connection between the fictional madness of Oceania, and the gruesome reality of a Marxist state like Mao's communist China.
The ideological inspired madness in China caused millions of deaths, not to mention the ones in the Soviet Union or any other Communist dictatorship.
Deaths who are often forgotten by present day media

 

[Seandineen]

I'm interested in the reeducation of fanatics among the ranks of English Socialism INgsoc. Could exposure to kind treatment from enemies very simmilar to how the US and British treated ordinary Japanese and Germans, lead to a greater relaxation of tensions? I know it won't happen over night.

 

[Michel Van]

I'm interested in the reeducation of fanatics among the ranks of English Socialism INgsoc. Could exposure to kind treatment from enemies very simmilar to how the US and British treated ordinary Japanese and Germans, lead to a greater relaxation of tensions? I know it won't happen over night.

This is extrem case since INGSOC used unique methods of Propaganda and manipulation of Masses: Newspeak
Its difficult to lear for someone the language of freedom, if there raised with language of lies and hate

 

[Emperor Norton I]

The first story post gives me hope. I'm very much generalizing but the last generation embodies the problems. The generation that follows it fights those problems in its own ways but even fighting them is being defined by them and existing in the context of them. It cleans house and sets a foundation for the future but it will carry its own baggage and individual flaws and the future won't come in its own time.

The generations that then follow that one are where the true healing can begin. The danger is they can forget and fall back into what happened before. Or they truly move forward because they no longer live in the context of those problems. They are free from the original sin. The past is not a personal controversy to fight over or defend their personal part in, but a warning from the dead of what to do or what to avoid.

 

[arrowiv]

There was the atomic bombing of Colchester in the book. In the Tales from Oceania TL, this was an airdropped nuke (probably by Canberra bomber) upon Oswald Mosley's troops in Colchester by the "legitimate" government (soon to be the INGSOC regime by the Sixties). With Mosley now defeated, it is now decided by the INGSOCs, including one Rupert Murdoch, to make Mosley into Big Brother! Would Mosley be BB in this TL as well?

 

[Michel Van]

it is now decided by the INGSOCs, including one Rupert Murdoch, to make Mosley into Big Brother! Would Mosley be BB in this TL as well?

Big Brother is watching you
I think that BB is not Real, but imaginative figure head, created by Inner Circle to control the Masses.
the catch phrase Big Brother is watching you play double function, the one that state is watching you what you do and State care for you in this constant War.
in Novel Smith try to remember wen he hear first time about BB, only vage memory during 1960s
Another and malicious concept is Big Brother the Saviour he one that protect Airstrip One from Evil lurking beyond the shore of Britain.
This is clever propaganda, like Nazi or Stalinist dit and also North Korea still does to consolidated control and power.

INGSOC rule over Britain, how they manage to isolate Britain and build up that regime ?
The so called perfect isolation of British isle help them allot,
Then with total control over media they could tell the population everything they want.
Telling that there is War that world is MUCH WORST as Britain and Big Brother is watching you to protect you.
Here the nuclear attack on Colchester would excuse by INGSOC to "evacuate" the Coastline of Britain (evacuate in form deportation or extermination ?)
i can't clearly remember the book, but we're Radio & TV forbidden under death penalty and only States view screens allowed ?
Last one could run like two way cable television preventing the receptions broadcast from Radio and TV stations on Europa and Irland.

 

[Neoteros]

The IRL World Cup is over, and this got me thinking - what's the status of sports in general in Oceania, and post-Oceania Great Britain?

Even the most oppressive IRL dictatorships have allowed their athletes to travel abroad, or have hosted some international competition or another but, given how totalitarian Oceania is/was, they'd either be banned from international competitions (kind of like South Africa was), or they would forbid their athletes to ever set foot abroad, since doing so would expose said athletes to the truth - that Eastasia and Eurasia do not exist, and that Oceania is complete fiction as well.

Even so, were any sports played at an organized (not even professional) level, in Oceania, if only to keep the proles entertained, or was the whole concept deemed too subversive? In either case, Great Britain will have to start from scratch - and the lack of UK athletes or UK anything on the global stage has probably caused quite a few butterflies in the world of sports, from association football to Formula One.

 

[Ryker of Terra]

quote

I doubt Oceanian government interacts with the outside world at all. As you said, it would reveal the giant lie about the forever war. The only ones that would know about the lie are the Inner Party, and although they have access to more luxuries in Airstrip One, actually leaving to play football is something even they aren't allowed to do.

 

[Brylyth]

I believe there was football matches for the proles to get hyped about but that was it.

 

[Whiteshore]

And on that note, where do the IngSoc regime get their Victory Cigars? My headcanon is that, much like how the Tokugawa Shogunate had foreign trade with Chinese and Dutch merchants via Nagasaki/Dejima, the regime trades luxury goods with the outside world via a remote port in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

And on that note, where do the IngSoc regime get their Victory Cigars? My headcanon is that, much like how the Tokugawa Shogunate had foreign trade with Chinese and Dutch merchants via Nagasaki/Dejima, the regime trades luxury goods with the outside world via a remote port in the middle of nowhere.

Possibly some foreign port still under government control. Or some strain grown in Britain itself. It is noted that the quality of everything is poor and subject to the changes of the war (or "war" in this case which can stand in for the fortunes of foreign trade agreements). At the extreme, the tobacco they smoke may not even actually be tobacco.

 

[The Wooksta!]

There was still proper tea, coffee, sugar and chocolate available to Inner Party members, which was also available on the black market.

 

[Whiteshore]

There was still proper tea, coffee, sugar and chocolate available to Inner Party members, which was also available on the black market.

Which I headcanon for this scenario would be obtained via something similar to how the Tokugawa Shogunate conducted foreign trade with the Chinese and the Dutch via Nagasaki/Dejima during the era of sakoku.