In George
Orwell’s 1984, the Ministry of Truth
is the propaganda ministry responsible for ensuring that historical events are
falsified in order to maintain the status quo. It changes historical archives
and rewrites recorded history for propaganda effect. Unless people can actually
remember what really happened, there is no choice but for the general public to
accept what is on record and in the “history books”.
But even if
people do remember the actual events, there is nothing to corroborate and
substantiate their claims if the history books have been rewritten. This thus makes
it impossible, for example, for future generations to believe such claims. And
of course, once people have forgotten the events themselves, or indeed once the
people who experienced the events are no longer alive, people then have no choice
but to rely on what exists as a record to present the “facts”.
Following
the current obsession with all things World War I, I am reading and researching
as much as I can get my hands on (and that’s a lot more than I had previously
thought). The wealth of material just lying around waiting to be read is
unbelievable, considering it all happened 100 years ago. The fact of the matter
seems to be that people just wrote more back then and hung on to it. Or perhaps
they just had better quality paper, as most of the stuff I have seen is in
better condition than some of the things I wrote just 10 or 15 years ago.
Letters home from soldiers in the field, newspapers, photos, diaries, the stuff
just keeps on coming if you go looking for it.
