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‘Big Brother will be watching’

Mar 09, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
On collecting my paper last Sunday morning (07-03-10) I was immediately put off by a most unpleasant quote printed on the front page of the Chronicle: “Big Brother will be watching”. This quote was taken from a press conference held by Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee.
I wouldn’t even bother to debate here whether or not Georgetown needs to have cameras installed throughout the city – a strategy which is usually reserved for metropolitan cities under serious threat of domestic and/or international terrorism, such as London. I wouldn’t even bother to mention that this proposal is a threat to privacy or the ways in which this technology could be abused – hence the reason it is, seemingly, a strategy of last resort.
The fact that Minister Rohee used the incidence of chain- and purse-snatchers as a rationale for deploying this expensive and invasive technology is, well, probably just a poor selection of words from the Minister; I assume the Ministry of Home Affairs has broader scope for the use of such technology.
What really bothers me is the use of the phrase “Big Brother will be watching”. I don’t know whether the Minister knows the origin of the quote he paraphrased; it comes from George Orwell’s ‘1984’. In that book Orwell depicts a terrible, terrible nightmare of a future; and not a futuristic, ‘sci-fi’ version of the future that we can easily divorce ourselves from. The book is timelessly relevant. From my recollection Orwell based his fiction on real events which took place in Spain between the World Wars. 1984 is based in a world of fear and fascism where the populace is kept in a permanent state of mass hysteria and mind-control. In this world there is no thought, no sense of purpose or of a national identity which does not first originate from the State, sired by and ruled by the all-powerful, all-knowing and all-present Big Brother. Big Brother is always watching. Big Brother knows what is in your heart!
The idea that the Honorable Minister Clement Rohee could have such diabolical and Machiavellian plans is, well, a ridiculous one. In saying, “Big Brother will be watching” I am most certain that the Minister was only trying to bring some flourish and drama to his speech. Let us hope that the Minister chooses his words more carefully in the future and that his words do not become deeds in this most recent case.
Kojo McPherson

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