Carefully distribute copies of Orwell's 1984

From Drcampaign

Orwell's classic '1984' has numerous obvious references to the current situation. The omnipresent cameras and the far-away secretive war are just two that are relevant to most, if not all European countries. I always thought '1984' is a book that 'everybody has read', but that appears not to be the case. Lots of people have not, and I fear this applies to lots of people in influential positions as well. This is something to be remedied. An easy way to do so is to offer free copies of '1984' to politicians (and possibly others).

The main reason for doing so would obviously not be the politicians, but the publicity. '1984' is fascinating reading, though perhaps a bit outdated, and states very well what is the unchanged problem with an overly powerfull government. The book can be a vehicle to bring forth numerous parallels to the present situation with rescpect to civic liberties. At the same time it does present the issues in a relatively accesible form, being fiction. In this way it can offer an easier inroad on the theme of this campaign than complicated political and/or technical texts.

This is clearly a very young idea that needs to mature. For one thing, the availability of books is an obvious issue (The text is still copyrighted in the European Union, but in the public domain most countries, such as Serbia, Canada, China, and Australia and therefore available on the Internet, see the Wikipedia page [[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four)]for the book). Given the good cause, we could hope for some support from one or more editors. Before thinking about that, an elaboration of the parallels seems in place. I may have a shot at it, shortly.