Orwellian Prophecies

No Surprises There

All political ideologies, of whatever stripe, seek to control language and vocabulary.  George Orwell portrayed this so powerfully in 1984 and Animal Farm.  He coined the term "newspeak".  If you can legislate or require certain descriptors or nouns or verbs you can influence the way people think about issues.  You can shape the mind and opinion.

The use of the word "gay" as a noun substituting or replacing "homosexual" or "lesbian" is a classic example of modern newspeak.  Regrettably it has sullied a wonderful English adjective, and we are all the poorer for it.  Sometimes newspeak is so politicised and so connected to a government's policies an incoming administration will change some of the language of official communication and government administration to reflect its view of reality.

In Australia, the incoming Liberal Coalition is changing some nouns and adjectives used to denote folk arriving on Australian shores by boats (mainly), declaring themselves refugees and seeking asylum.
   The recently defeated Labour government had instructed that illegal arrivals on Australian shores be called "clients" of the administration.  The new government has instructed that they be called "illegals", "detainees", or "transferees".  So, newspeak in this instance has been rolled back to oldspeak.

Regardless of the merits or otherwise of such a change those opposing the reversion are arguing that it dehumanises the boat people.

The chief executive of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre Kon Karapanagiotidis said the language change was ‘‘profound’’ because it shaped the public debate over asylum seekers who arrived by boat.  ‘‘He’s [the minister] deliberately trying to dehumanise asylum seekers by making them less than human,’’ Mr Karapanagiotidis said.  ‘‘They’re ‘detainees’, not people, and that suggests criminality. And calling people ‘transferees’ suggests they have no rights; they’re a package, a parcel, in transit.’’  (Sydney Morning Herald)

This is silly.  What is best is to use language which is accurate, not misuse it to forge a particular cause for the sake of propaganda.  Calling people "detainees" or "transferees" does not dehumanise people, making them animals.  One can imagine animals rights activists insisting that all farm animals be called "detainees" and those on the way to the abattoirs, "transferees"in an attempt to do the precise opposite--that is, to humanise animals.  Does calling airline passengers changing from one airline or terminal to another "transferees" dehumanise them?  It's a nonsense.

When we call a prisoner a "criminal" or an "incarcerate" he or she is not being dehumanised.  They are in prison because they are human and have convicted of committing crime.  Animals do not commit crimes.  They are not morally responsible. 

We are all for treating illegal immigrants or economic migrants with the utmost of human dignity.  But that demands and requires, amongst other things,  that we hold them morally accountable for all their actions.

We don't pretend to know how to deal properly and successfully with the "economic refugee" problem.  But we are very sure of one thing: newspeak is not part of the solution.  It just muddies the waters.  But that is always the intent of newspeak; so, no surprises there.