Since his death in 1950, George Orwell has been canonised as England's foremost political writer, and the standard-bearer of honesty and decency for the honourable 'Left'. In this controversial polemic, Scott Lucas argues that the exaltation of Orwell, far from upholding dissent against the State, has sought to quash such opposition. Indeed, Orwell has become the icon of those who, in the pose of the contrarian, try to silence public opposition to US and U K foreign policy in the 'War on Terror'. Lucas's lively and readable critique of public intellectuals including Christopher Hitchens, Michael Walzer, David Aaronovitch, and Johann Hari - who have all invoked Orwellian honesty and decency to shut down dissent - will appeal to anyone disillusioned with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Lucas contends that these leading journalists and commentators have used Orwell to justify their own political transition from radicals to upholders of the establishment. All of them play influential roles in supporting the UK and US governments' charge that opponents of war -- and those who question the motives behind American foreign policy and its implementation -- should be condemned as 'appeasers of mass murder'. This controversial book shows how Orwell has been used since 9/11 to justify, in the guise of independent thought, the suppression of dissent. We must rescue ourselves from Orwell and from those who take on his guise so, as Lucas puts it, our 'silencing is. . . vital to a "manufacture of consent" for the wars which are supposedly being fought in our name and for our good'. 'Scott Lucas is the first writer to engage at length with the extraordinary split on the left created by the Iraq war. He does it brilliantly' New Statesman Scott Lucas is a regular contributor to the New Statesman. He is Professor of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham and author of numerous books on US and British foreign policy, intelligence services, culture and ideology. He is the author of Orwell: LIfe and Times (2003). The Betrayal of Dissent Beyond Orwell, Hitchens and the New American Century By Scott Lucas Pluto Press Copyright © 2004 Scott Lucas All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-7453-2197-4 Contents Acknowledgements, vii, Introduction, 1, 1. Orwell, Policeman of the 'Left', 9, 2. The Canonisation of St George, 32, 3. Christopher Hitchens: Becoming George, 43, 4. 9–11, 63, 5. Beyond the Spirit of '68, 87, 6. Our Friends in America, 116, 7. How we Dissent: On Bushmen and the 'Preponderance of Power', 142, 8. On the Eve of War: March 2003, 164, 9. Dissent and 'Liberation', 193, Conclusion, 218, Notes, 233, Index, 317, CHAPTER 1 Orwell, Policeman of the 'Left' In 1942 the American journal Partisan Review set up a debate between three pacifists, D.S. Savage, Alex Comfort and George Woodcock, and the pacifist-turned-patriotic warrior George Orwell on 'Pacifism and the War'. Savage was a poet who held to pacifism as a 'moral phenomenon' and who claimed (as had Orwell up to 1940) that Britain's prosecution of the war was leading to Fascism at home rather than vanquishing it abroad. Comfort, destined for fame as the author of The Joy of Sex, was a physician, novelist, poet and 'aggressive anti-militarist', who added that in this environment, 'It looks as if Mr Orwell and his warlike friends were being not objectively but constructively supporters of the entire philosophical apparatus which they quite genuinely detest.' It was the anarchist Woodcock, however, who laid the most damaging charge: If we are to expose antecedents, Orwell does not come off very well. Comrade Orwell, the former police officer of British imperialism (from which the Fascists learnt all they know) in those regions of the Far East where the sun at last sets for ever on the bedraggled Union Jack! Comrade Orwell, former fellow-traveller of the pacifists and regular contributor to the pacifist Adelphi – which he now attacks! Comrade Orwell, former extreme left-winger, ILP partisan and defender of Anarchists (see Homage to Catalonia )! And now Comrade Orwell who returns to his old imperialist allegiances and works at the BBC conducting British propaganda to fox [mislead] the Indian masses! Orwell was in no mood to compromise. He established, 'Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is clear common sense ... I am not interested in pacifism as a moral phenomenon.' Although he offered to differentiate between individuals in his judgement of 'true intellectuals', no examples were given, as he continued to target 'the Catholic gang, the Stalinist gang, and the present pacifist or, as they are sometimes nicknamed, the Fascifist gang'. As for his past, Orwell offered a response to the charge that he served imperialism in Burma and at the BBC. However, he renounced the 'independent' Marxist organisation POUM, which he had hailed in Homage to Catalonia, and somehow failed to mention his pacifist proc