IB individual oral uitgeschreven

Today for my individual oral I am going to address the global issue of the critique on
justification for slavery and oppression. I will be doing this on George Orwell’s novel 1984
and a political cartoon from the 1899 Judge magazine. Before I dive into these texts, I will
first explain why I chose this global issue.
The justification for slavery and oppression is a sub-topic from the broader global issue
colonialism. The colonial times started in the 15th century with Spain and Portugal. After that
other European countries such as France, The Netherlands and Great Britain followed. In the
late 18th century, the decolonization started with the United States who separated from
Great Britain and many followed after. Ironically, the United States established its own
colonies in the late 19th century, but those also gained their independence some years later.
In the post-colonial times, many people justify the horrors colonialists brought with things
like “we brought them democracy and civilization”. These however, in my opinion, are not
valid excuses for slavery and oppression. I think it is important that this is addressed in our
modern times and people become aware of the impacts the colonial times had on the
countries involved. The after-effects are still present, take for example the systemic racism
in the united states which is starting to be addressed now that George Floyd murderer was
found guilty yesterday, and therefore colonialism is still a relevant topic to be discussed.

Orwell expresses a similar critique in his novel 1984: a dystopian novel published in 1949,
therefore a vision and a kind of warning for the future. Orwell’s novel criticizes the concept
of a totalitarian state, which involves taking away people’s freedom and rights. He does this
through a close third person narrative regarding the main character Winston. The reader
gets access to his thoughts, for example what he thinks when he is reading the book from
the Brotherhood, but they also see Winston fall victim to the state and be manipulated.
Because of this, the reader gets a personal view of the terrors of oppression.

The extract I chose contains a segment of a book from the Brotherhood, which consists of
an explanation of each of the famous lines WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY and
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. Each of these is an oxymoron. The seemingly contradictory line
WAR IS PEACE, which is the main focus of this extract, is explained in line 33 and 34. War is
solely fought for the purpose of using the labour and machinery produced to keep the level
of prosperity at a low and maintain the Party’s power. The continued power is an important
note in this line, because this is what colonisers also strived for: as long as the indigenous
people, who were under their control, continued to live in poverty, they could keep
benefiting from it.

This situation, where the dominance of one group over the other is accepted by both sides
is called hegemony which is one of the main topics of Orwell’s novel. The acceptance is
achieved through doublethink which you can read in line 32. It is a juxtaposition of two
things in which people are able to hold on to both of the ideas. Through this the Party is able
to force the people in the dystopian world to accept their lack of freedom.

This seemingly endless cycle of life and lack of freedom of living under oppression is
perfectly integrated into the story of 1984. Orwell often uses repetition throughout the
novel, take for example the famous line “Big Brother is watching you”. He also uses
repetition in line 11 to 13 to describe the never-ending cycle of war. The reader is warned
for the torturing reoccurrence of the same dangerous and sombre life every day. While
1984 mainly focuses on the dystopian world of living under constant surveillance and
oppression, the extreme violation of basic human rights gets the reader to think and be
scared of a life like that in the future. Although an exact situation of 1984 never happened,
the colonial times had the same effect on people and were as much of a violation on their
rights as violations described in 1984. Therefore, trying to justify these horrors is
unacceptable, even if the colonizing countries had any small positive effects on the
civilizations that fell victim to them.

Gillam is trying to convey this exact message in his political cartoon about the colonization
of the Philippines by the United States. Gillam was a political cartoon who often made
cartoons for the magazine Judge in the late 1800’s and beginning 1900’s. In many of his
cartoons, he criticizes the United States regarding their justification of serious crimes. He
often does this through irony, which is very clear in the cartoon that I picked. The
apologetics argue that Western countries brought the uncivilized countries a chance for
development and liberty. In this cartoon especially, the United States is shown when they
invaded the Philippines. They promoted liberty. It is ironic, however, that this was forced
upon them. The United States justifies their behaviour by saying they’re doing the
indigenous people a favour when they are actually doing themselves a favour: through
slavery they’re getting cheap labour which increases their own wealth.

The indigenous man in the cartoon seems helpless and unable to defend himself from Uncle
Sam, which is a symbol often used for the United States. Gillam shows this inequality
through stereotypes and labelling. The indigenous man is wearing minimal clothing, has no
developed weapons to defend himself, etcetera. Whereas Uncle Sam is depicted as a
sophisticated man with a modern weapon, clearly superior to the indigenous man. In this
way the reader will recognize the characters depicted and how the oppressed is not able to
defend himself because of the further developed leading power. Gillam often uses
stereotypes to show the characters’ characteristics and labelling to show their intentions,
this can be seen through his Body of Work and it strengthens and clarifies the message he is
trying to convey.

So, in conclusion Orwell uses a close third person narrative to give readers a personal view
on the terrors of oppression, an oxymoron to explain the maintaining of the power division,
juxtaposition to clarify the hegemony present in colonies and repetition to show the endless
cycle of living in a dystopian world. All this together critiques the justification of oppression
and slavery in the dystopian world of 1984.
Gillam criticizes the reasons for colonization by the United States in 1899. He does this
through irony to explain the flawed justification of the United States for invading the
Philippines, symbolism to show a personification of the United States, labels to show
characters’ intentions and stereotyping to show the character’s characteristics.
Both authors want to reach people and warn them about the, in their days especially,
ongoing slavery and oppression and what the future might hold in that aspect.