He’s the most powerful man on planet earth. And he is known in many circles as "Dubya".
George W Bush Jr. has been the president of the United states of America for a good 7 years now, since the latter half of 2000. What that means is that he has been ridiculed and mocked at for 7 years, and yet, unfazed, he sticks at his job. An Indian newspaper (The Times of India) even ran a daily comic strip called "Dubyaman", penned by one of my favourite columnists Jug Suraiya.
Why Dubya ? His given name is George, a name that doesn’t lend itself easily to abbreviation, like Richard, or William. But still, Dubya ? I did a bit of digging around for the origin of this name, and I’ve been laughing ever since I found it.
Dubya is apparently a play on his southern accent and his pronunciation of the alphabet W. He introduces himself as "George Dubya Bush Juniah".
Fun stuff aside, I am keen to draw parallels between Bush’s rule and the rule of the entirely more sinister Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984.
| Dubya | Big Brother |
| USA has waged a relentless war on what Dubya calls the sponsors of terrorism. First Afghanistan was annihilated, and then Iraq was the target. He still hasn't finished the job in Iraq, and all signs seem to indicate Iran is next. | Oceania waged a relentless incessant war against an adversary. It started off with Eurasia, and later, Eastasia. |
| USA had initially declared 3 primary adversaries, who they fashioned as the "Axis of Evil": Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Never mind that two of these were in conflict for most of the eighties, and the third had little to do with the first two. |
"We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia." "We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia." |
| The "Axis" was later "expanded" to include Libya, Syria, Cuba, Belarus, Zimbabwe and Myanmar. Not to mention the Hamas-run Palestine. Someone ought to tell them that we live in a three dimensional world; there can only be 3 axes. It is convenient to have an all-inclusive list of "potential" enemies. It ensures that USA wouldn't have to stop fighting anytime soon. | Oceania went a step further. All the coalition countries merged into a single administrative entity, who is at war with the other coalition country. This reduced the list of "foreign" coalitions to just two. Either Oceania fights both, or partners one against the other. |
| The USA had a ready-made enemy face in Osama bin Laden. The CIA created him and trained him. He was/is an abandoned child of the United States, who chose to turn around and bite the hand that stopped feeding him. | Oceania's enemy face was Emmanuel Goldstein. Replete with two minutes hate and everything. Of course, Winston Smith knew that Goldstein was once a party member, and a close associate of the Big Brother. |
| The entire purpose of the war was to distract people from them real problems affecting them: namely an incompetent government unable to control a nose-diving economy, rampant inflation and domestic crime. | The entire purpose of the war was to subjugate people into accepting a substandard quality of life as the "only" life, and make them accept their lot not as problems, but as the natural order of things. |
I think it is very clear that the USA is heading for a totalitarian regime. The government seems intent on limiting the lifestyle and very thought of the people who elected it. And the people will come come to accept that way of life, and live it with absolute faith, and love for Dubya.
Remember, DUBYA IS WATCHING YOU.