In a time of universal deceit, George Orwell may have said, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Having found this quote on a website, not Wikipedia, a fact-checked biography, a memoir by the man himself, or in my well-thumbed Penguin Dictionary of Quotations, I inserted the qualifying may, since my trust in online facts has decreased in direct ration to the increase in fake news and manipulated content, not to mention the rapid rise of AI, and cannot be certain it has been verified.
Fiction, Albert Camus is alleged to have said, is the lie through which we tell the truth. A statement, as a prose writer myself, I believe to be true, continuing to write short stories that connect the reader to what makes us human. I may be capable of plotting a block-buster crime novel or a serial-killer thriller, but my ability to produce a well-crafted genuine manuscript in these genres – one more likely to be published – would be a dishonest act on my part. And so with literary fiction sales down and a novel still preferred by agents and publishers, my chances of a best-seller are close to zero.
Memoirs remain popular. But although two of my short stories concern my own life experiences, I did not decide to write about myself, and have no desire, as the years go by, to spend my writing life looking back. Fiction writers give a bit of themselves away with every story, the words commanding what is written. Not that the horrors of the present day – a treasonous, misogynistic, narcissistic President, unbelievably back in the White House, galloping climate change, bonkers, power-hungry, techno-boffin zillionaires, warmongering genocidal leaders hanging on to power – makes for the best here and now ever. Looking back would certainly be the more comforting option. But where do we live if not in the present?
Two weeks ago I finished Alexei Navalny’s memorable memoir. If only there could have been a sequel . . . A really good read I was bereft, for several reasons, when the inevitable end came. It reminded me of two other affecting memoirs read in recent years, which should more people read, take on board, take to their hearts, might contribute to a more tolerable present and a better future.
Here they are!
PATRIOT by Alexei Navalny.
A surprisingly joyous/sad, philosophical page-turner of a book by a highly intelligent, funny, brave lawyer and politician, who loved Russia and hoped, by speaking truth to power, to help make it a genuine democracy. Returning home, having survived the near-death experience of Novichok, almost half the book written under difficult circumstances while in different penal institutions, being shipped back and forth to kangaroo courts charging him with further ‘crimes’. His humour and resilience shines through the darkest of times, his remarkable ability to face his situation and remain true to his ideals never wavers. It is also a love story. Yulia Navalny his equally strong political partner in everything, fighting for truth alongside her husband in life– and beyond.
This book should be read by everyone who values democracy and anyone who is complacent about its efficacy; those who don’t bother to vote because ‘politicians are all the same’, but are too lazy to read or listen and find out how different they can be. We who are fortunate to live in a well-functioning democracy, if an imperfect one, must value what we have by using our democratic right to vote in a free society. With tyranny on the rise, complacency is dangerous. Alexei Navalny was the once living, breathing example of George Orwell’s words, exposing the many lies told to keep the people down, remaining true to truth, and thus true to who he was, until the scared tyrant who was terrified of the prisoner’s power, had him killed.
TECHNOFEUDALISM: What Killed Capitalism, by Yanis Varoufakis
Economist and one-time finance minister of Greece, writer of among others, Talking to My Daughter: a Brief History of Capitalism as well as an economic history And The Weak Suffer What They Must? The book tackles the steady rise of capitalism by way of the creeping, exploitative powers of big tech, which, having privatised the internet, replaced capitalism’s ‘twin pillars of markets and profit, with platforms and rent.’ By signing up to a clicking and scrolling way of life, he suggests, the users of these services become serfs, labouring to fill the coffers of a handful of techno-boffin zillionaires. This new power, technofeudalism, he sees as a threat to social democracy – Elon Musk being a case in point, his actions deliberately fuelling the social unrest in Southport.
I read TF in 2023, already sharing similar views on this subject, having for many years been an Amazon refusnik (who aside from treatment of their workers, was also responsible for a worldwide closures of bookshops), not signing up to any social media platform’s, supposedly essential to today’s writers, and rarely shopping online.
A wake-up-call book for the Amazon/Deliveroo/ Facebook/ X addicts, who think they are living the touch-screen good life, when merely serving and supporting a handful of the super, super, super-rich, while increasing their powers.
A LIFE on OUR PLANET: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future, by David Attenborough.
The great David Attenborough has been a part of my life from his Zoo Quest programmes as a child, to sometimes walking behind or overtaking him when he, as Controller of BBC2, and I an art student, might emerge from Shepherd’s Bush tube station at similar times, the Art College opposite the Lime Grove BBC studios, and following his many programmes subsequently. A book for anyone and everyone who cares about the planet and the creatures that live on it. Each section begins with three facts; the first in1937: World Population: 2.3 billion. Carbon in atmosphere: 280 parts per million, Remaining Wilderness: 66% The last figures, in 2020, WP: 7.8 billion, Carbon: 415 ppm, RW: 35%, tell some of the horrifying facts. Finishing the book in early 2021, I felt like sending copies to governments and councils everywhere – and to the current government, our chancellor obsessed with growth as she is, and now a third runway at Heathrow Airport?! Madness, when, decades ago, a much greener attitude to growth should have been adopted. A PPP not GDP approach, as suggested in the book. Planet, People and Profit working in relation to each other.
Written in his 94th year, our wise man of the natural world came into it in the Holocene period and is destined to leave it, as am I, in the Anthropocene, a period dominated and determined by human activity – and, I might add, by human greed and selfishness.
Read this book if, having looked out on a grim, wet, windy day, and blaming it on climate change and what governments have not done about it, your next step is to go online and book a cheer-up holiday in the Maldives! Read it if, refusing to connect the drowning islanders you will see on the TV news, six years, six months or six weeks hence, watching their bodies being washed up on some distant shore, you see no connection with what you yourself do.
We can make amends, D A wrote in June 2020. All we need is the will.
The future depends on what we do in the present, Mahatma Gandhi is said to have said.
We the people, demos, count. We all play a part in speaking out, in voting to preserve democracy, in clicking or not clicking, in cooking or not cooking. In thinking or not thinking, before allowing selfishness to rule what we do, and how we will affect the lives of others on this planet that is everyone’s home. Individuals, as well as governments, institutions and companies, have a role to play. For better or worse, we make up the society in which we live. Let’s go for better!
Last Tree: published in ENVIRONMENT: Essence & Issue (Pig Iron Press, 1992, USA)