Oceania, meet Egypt

A Washington Post article about a political protest on Facebook paints an Orwellian picture of modern day Egypt. Young Egyptians came together in a Facebook group to organize a passive rebellion against the 27 year reign of President Hosni Mubarak. They wore black shirts, stayed home from work, and wrote slogans on currency. Then they were crushed by Egypt’s brutal security services.

That Wednesday, police arrested Maher as he tried to return to his empty home for the first time in days. Police and then State Security forces beat him from 1 p.m. Wednesday until 3 a.m. Thursday, stripping him naked, slapping him, dragging him across the floor tied to a rope and threatening to rape him, Maher said. They demanded passwords to the Facebook groups, although the groups do not require passwords, and the real names of those who had registered, he said.

Maher was released with bruises and one ear deafened by blows. “This time we were just tugging on your ear,” Maher quoted a State Security official telling him. “Next time it will be serious.”

But the Egyptian government’s Orwellian ethos is even more profound. The following shows that they’ve mastered the concept of Newspeak.

On May 4, Cairenes woke to new billboards in main squares. “Young people love Egypt,” the signs said. “Serious people create, not destroy.”