The essence of leaders in many and all countries brings a bit a fear into the hearts of all citizens. Yet when the ruling ways of leaders are taken too far, this fear will become more until the people of the country are reduced to mechanical beings doing every wish of their master. This may seem drastic, yet many of today’s leaders are doing the minimum in order to lead their people to being such mechanical’s. Such a man is Saddam Hussain.
This leader of Iraq has turned his countrymen into haters and destroyers of all American people and things alike. Why he does such things is unknown, other than the fight for super power and the world. He will even send his own men to their deaths to ensure the better “American-free” lives of the rest. Such acts are clearly depicted by the Big Brother in numerous ways, yet I will tell of the most drastic. Instead of hating a whole country, Big Brother and his people hated one man. Yet to him, this man was the worst enemy imagined.
His name was Emmanuel Goldstein. The next moment a hideous, grinding screech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big tele screen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one’s teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one’s neck. The Hate had started. – (pg. 13) This man was so strongly hated by Big Brother that his people were taught to be disgusted by the look and sound of him at all times.
Had one person even stood up for Goldstein, that man would not live long enough to see the next rising sun. Yet all this man wished to do was teach the purer ways of life without the fury of Big Brother, much like Americans and America itself wishes to live without the hassle and fury of Hussain. But until both of the countries, fiction and not, learn to se the ways of others without the expectancy of those ways, no one will learn. Another such man is Fidel Castro, president of Cuba. Castro had great respect for his people in the first few years of his leadership, yet in the past years, his leadership skills and country have fallen drastically. Castro has let his people be sucked into a world of terror, famine, and disease, and will not care yet speak of such travesties.
Even when countries beg for him to stop these problems, he shrugs them aside, not even taking charity in order to bring his country back up. Mostly from fear of the way these countries would see him. These acts of inhumanity are very clear in the ways Big Brother has led his country and will lead in following years. Using his people to insure his good life, yet letting them rot on the streets, Big Brother has taken everything from these once free people, including their spirits and will. From the simple things such as razor blades (“At any given moment there was some necessary article which the Party shops were unable to supply.” (Pg. 43) ), to the chocolate which was tasteless yet wanted by all, all was taken and hidden from the eye in hopes that the people of Big Brother could make a better community.
Yet their excuse for such rations was an ongoing war with the “countries” of Eurasia and Eastasia, yet none knew if such countries ever existed. And all of this was due to Big Brother’s own needs and desires, and his uncaring heart to the dying of his country. Only a miracle could save either places. The final man who has sneaked behind the backs of our world is our own president, Bill Clinton. Though many feel he has done his job and has done literally no harm to our nation, I feel as though he has robbed us of many things, yet mostly ourselves. The main issue is that of the possible impending of war on Iraq had they not agreed to our terms.
The way in which Clinton jumped on the possibility of sending over men to Iraq for the purpose of dying shows to me that he has no compassion for the human life. Big Brother was also this way in his own make-believe war between Eurasia, Eastasia, and, of course, Oceania. He committed his own men to hang for the hopes of never letting the truth about the “war” escape, showing he was an uncaring and unfeeling man. It was even said by Syme, one of Winston’s “friends”, of how each death was cherished by all who watched. It was a good hanging… And above all, at the end, the tongue sticking out, and blue a quite bright blue.
That’s the detail that appeals to me. (pg. 44) Syme seemed to not only not care about the life of this individual, yet was pleased that Oceania “got another one.” Such reactions were not only expected by Big Brother, yet the people, had they not such a reaction, would be suspected of thought crimes, and mostly likely hung themselves. The circle of Big Brother’s uncaring would start again. Yet the one surprising aspect of many of these leaders, and many others not mentioned, were that had they changed one part of their leadership and ways, they would change the whole look of their country.
But until such “drastic” changes occur, our world, much like Oceania, will go farther and farther down until we hit rock bottom, where there is no where left to go. 356.