An article I posted in Digo was entitled “Egypt’s 1984” written in Sada comparing Egypt to the George Orwell’s novel “1984”. What I found most interesting in the article dealing with my topic was the comparison to the current media situation in Egypt. In the book, the government controls all knowledge, specifically altering history and current events and only announces what it wants to announce to the public. During the whole book, the people are thought to be under attack by outsiders, when in reality they are not and are just what the government wanted to believe. This sort of mind-control is talked about in the article in how the government has now formed agreements with public and private newspaper companies to not undermine the government. To further compare the book with Egypt, Egypt is also using military force to imprison journalists that are against the state.  Essentially, the Egyptian government wants the people to believe they are free speech, but in reality want to control what is said about the state. This ideology in 1984 remained throughout the book and brings up the radical approach in altering social structures in Egypt. Is the Egyptian government becoming this “Big Brother” type of system? If so, how will the people respond to this? I personally am very fascinated on how the current suppression of free speech in Egypt is being compared to 1984. From my understanding, most modern societies have been compared to this book and the idea of how the government is always “watching” us. It is interesting to see how now it this ideas and themes in 1984 are now being compared to Egypt. By comparing the two together, It also appears to be taking this radical and extreme rule of government seen in 1984 and inferring that this is happening in Egypt right now. From an outsiders view on this, it’s interesting to see how the author of the article is very opposed to this and how there needs to be a better form of government.

This image above is a response to this idea of Egypt’s 1984. Anwar published this image in Al-Masry Al-Youm. The image evokes how the some of the people in Egypt feel about the suppression of media.  The comic is entitled Media Freedom: Closed until further notice, a feeling that most Egyptian have on the situation. It seems that Anwar is against the radical approach to try to change social structures of basic freedoms. Instead a more liberalism and cosmopolitanism standpoint would a better approach to try to keep free speech and would still have a strong state. In reading how the artist tries to symbolize his perspectives on this event, I find how there is more to an image of a lock on a door. In analyzing these simple cartoons, it is a learning process of how these artists are trying to incorporate their own views on a specific issue.