began a complicated story about having arrived from Colombo on a ship
and wanting money to get back. His manner and appearance were difficult
to "place", and I said to him:
"You speak very good English. What nationality are you?"
He answered eagerly in his chi-chi accent: "I am a JOO, sir!"
And I remember turning to my companion and saying, only partly in joke,
"He admits it openly." All the Jews I had known till then were people
who were ashamed of being Jews, or at any rate preferred not to talk
about their ancestry, and if forced to do so tended to use the word
"Hebrew".
The working-class attitude was no better. The Jew who grew up in
Whitechapel took it for granted that he would be assaulted, or at least
hooted at, if he ventured into one of the Christian slums nearby, and
the "Jew joke" of the music halls and the comic papers was almost
consistently ill-natured. [Note at end of paragraph] There was also
literary Jew-baiting, which in the hands of Belloc, Chesterton and their
followers reached an almost continental level of scurrility. Non-Catholic
writers were sometimes guilty of the same thing in a milder form. There
has been a perceptible antisemitic strain in English literature from
Chaucer onwards, and without even getting up from this table to consult a
book I can think of passages which IF WRITTEN NOW would be stigmatised as
antisemitism, in the works of Shakespeare, Smollett, Thackeray, Bernard
Shaw, H. G. Wells, T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and various others. Offhand,
the only English writers I can think of who, before the days of Hitler,
made a definite effort to stick up for Jews are Dickens and Charles Reade.
And however little the average intellectual may have agreed with the
opinions of Belloc and Chesterton, he did not acutely disapprove of
them. Chesterton's endless tirades against Jews, which he thrust into
stories and essays upon the flimsiest pretexts, never got him into
trouble--indeed Chesterton was one of the most generally respected
figures in English literary life. Anyone who wrote in that strain NOW
would bring down a storm of abuse upon himself, or more probably would
find it impossible to get his writings published.
[Note: It is interesting to compare the "Jew joke" with that other
stand-by of the music halls, the "Scotch joke", which superficially it
resembles. Occasionally a story is told (e.g. the Jew and the Scotsman who
went into a pub together and both died of thirst) which puts both races on
an equality, but in general the Jew is credited MERELY with cunning and
avarice while the Scotsman is credited with physical hardihood as well.
This is seen, for example, in the story of the Jew and the Scotsman who
go together to a meeting which has been advertised as free. Unexpectedly
there is a collection, and to avoid this the Jew faints and the Scotsman
carries him out. Here the Scotsman performs the athletic feat of
carrying the other. It would seem vaguely wrong if it were the other way
about. (Author's footnote.)]
If, as I suggest, prejudice against Jews has always been pretty
widespread in England, there is no reason to think that Hitler has
genuinely diminished it. He has merely caused a sharp division between
the politically conscious person who realises that this is not a time to
throw stones at the Jews, and the unconscious person whose native
antisemitism is increased by the nervous strain of the war. One can
assume, therefore, that many people who would perish rather than admit
to antisemitic feelings are secretly prone to them. I have already
indicated that I believe antisemitism to be essentially a neurosis,
but of course it has its rationalisations, which are sincerely
believed in and are partly true. The rationalisation put forward by the
common man is that the Jew is an exploiter. The partial justification
for this is that the Jew, in England, is generally a small
businessman--that is to say a person whose depredations are more obvious
and intelligible than those of, say, a bank or an insurance company.
Higher up the intellectual scale, antisemitism is rationalised by saying
that the Jew is a person who spreads disaffection and weakens national
morale. Again there is some superficial justification for this. During
the past twenty-five years the activities of what are called
"intellectuals" have been largely mischievous. I do not think it an
exaggeration to say that if the "intellectuals" had done their work a
little more thoroughly, Britain would have surrendered in 1940. But the
disaffected intelligentsia inevitably included a large number of Jews.
With some plausibility it can be said that the Jews are the enemies of
our native culture and our national morale. Carefully examined, the
claim is seen to be nonsense, but there are always a few prominent
individuals who can be cited in support of it. During the past few years
there has been what amounts to a counter-attack against the rather
shallow Leftism which was fashionable in the previous decade and which
was exemplified by such organisations as the Left Book Club. This
counter-attack (see for instance such books as Arnold Lutin's THE GOOD
GORILLA or Evelyn Waugh's PUT OUT MORE FLAGS) has an antisemitic strain,
and it would probably be more marked if the subject were not so
obviously dangerous. It so happens that for some decades past Britain
has had no nationalist intelligentsia worth bothering about. But British
nationalism, i.e. nationalism of an intellectual kind, may revive, and
probably will revive if Britain comes out of the present war greatly
weakened. The young intellectuals of 1950 may be as naively patriotic as
those of 1914. In that case the kind of antisemitism which flourished
among the anti-Dreyfusards in France, and which Chesterton and Belloc
tried to import into this country, might get a foothold.
I have no hard-and-fast theory about the origins of antisemitism. The
two current explanations, that it is due to economic causes, or on the
other hand, that it is a legacy from the Middle Ages, seem to me
unsatisfactory, though I admit that if one combines them they can be
made to cover the facts. All I would say with confidence is that
antisemitism is part of the larger problem of nationalism, which has not
yet been seriously examined, and that the Jew is evidently a scapegoat,
though for what he is a scapegoat we do not yet know. In this essay I
have relied almost entirely on my own limited experience, and perhaps
every one of my conclusions would be negatived by other observers. The
fact is that there are almost no data on this subject. But for what they
are worth I will summarise my opinions. Boiled down, they amount to
this:
There is more antisemitism in England than we care to admit, and the war
has accentuated it, but it is not certain that it is on the increase if
one thinks in terms of decades rather than years.
It does not at present lead to open persecution, but it has the effect
of making people callous to the sufferings of Jews in other countries.
It is at bottom quite
irrational and will not yield to argument.
The persecutions in Germany have caused much concealment of antisemitic
feeling and thus obscured the whole picture.
The subject needs serious investigation.
Only the last point is worth expanding. To study any subject
scientifically one needs a detached attitude, which is obviously harder
when one's own interests or emotions are involved. Plenty of people who
are quite capable of being objective about sea urchins, say, or the
square root of 2, become schizophrenic if they have to think about the
sources of their own income. What vitiates nearly all that is written
about antisemitism is the assumption in the writer's mind that HE
HIMSELF is immune to it. "Since I know that antisemitism is irrational,"
he argues, "it follows that I do not share it." He thus fails to start
his investigation in the one place where he could get hold of some
reliable evidence--that is, in his own mind.
It seems to me a safe assumption that the disease loosely called
nationalism is now almost universal. Antisemitism is only one
manifestation of nationalism, and not everyone will have the disease in
that particular form. A Jew, for example, would not be antisemitic: but
then many Zionist Jews seem to me to be merely antisemites turned
upside-down, just as many Indians and Negroes display the normal colour
prejudices in an inverted form. The point is that something, some
psychological vitamin, is lacking in modern civilisation, and as a
result we are all more or less subject to this lunacy of believing that
whole races or nations are mysteriously good or mysteriously evil. I
defy any modern intellectual to look closely and honestly into his own
mind without coming upon nationalistic loyalties and hatreds of one kind
or another. It is the fact that he can feel the emotional tug of such
things, and yet see them dispassionately for what they are, that gives
him his status as an intellectual. It will be seen, therefore, that the
starting point for any investigation of antisemitism should not be "Why
does this obviously irrational belief appeal to other people?" but "Why
does antisemitism appeal TO ME? What is there about it that I feel to be
true?" If one asks this question one at least discovers one's own
rationalisations, and it may be possible to find out what lies beneath
them. Antisemitism should be investigated--and I will not say by
antisemites, but at any rate by people who know that they are not immune
to that kind of emotion. When Hitler has disappeared a real enquiry into
this subject will be possible, and it would probably be best to start
not by debunking antisemitism, but by marshalling all the justifications
for it that can be found, in one's own mind or anybody else's. In that
way one might get some clues that would lead to its psychological roots.
But that antisemitism will be definitively CURED, without curing the
larger disease of nationalism, I do not believe.
FREEDOM OF THE PARK (1945)
A few weeks ago, five people who were selling papers outside Hyde Park
were arrested by the police for obstruction. When taken before the
magistrates, they were all found guilty, four of them being bound over
for six months and the other sentenced to forty shillings fine or a
month's imprisonments. He preferred to serve his term.
The papers these people were selling were PEACE NEWS, FORWARD and
FREEDOM, besides other kindred literature. PEACE NEWS is the organ of the
Peace Pledge Union, FREEDOM (till recently called WAR COMMENTARY) is that
of the Anarchists; as for FORWARD, its politics defy definition, but at
any rate it is violently Left. The magistrate, in passing sentence,
stated that he was not influenced by the nature of the literature that
was being sold; he was concerned merely with the fact of obstruction, and
that this offence had technically been committed.
This raises several important points. To begin with, how does the law
stand on the subject? As far as I can discover, selling newspapers in the
street is technically an obstruction, at any rate if you fail to move
when the police tell you to. So it would be legally possible for any
policeman who felt like it to arrest any newsboy for selling the EVENING
NEWS. Obviously this doesn't happen, so that the enforcement of the law
depends on the discretion of the police.
And what makes the police decide to arrest one man rather than another?
However it may be with the magistrate, I find it hard to believe that in
this case the police were not influenced by political considerations. It
is a bit too much of a coincidence that they should have picked on people
selling just those papers.
If they had also arrested someone selling TRUTH, or the TABLET, or the
SPECTATOR, or even the CHURCH TIMES, their impartiality would be easier
to believe in.
The British police are not like the continental GENDARMERIE or Gestapo,
but I do not think [sic] one maligns them in saying that, in the past,
they have been unfriendly to Left-wing activities. They have generally
shown a tendency to side with those whom they regarded as the defenders
of private property. Till quite recently "red" and "illegal" were almost
synonymous, and it was always the seller of, say the DAILY WORKER, never
the seller of say, the DAILY TELEGRAPH, who was moved on and generally
harassed. Apparently it can be the same, at any rate at moments, under a
Labour Government.
A thing I would like to know--it is a thing we hear very little
about--is what changes are made in the administrative personnel when
there has been a change of government.. Does a police officer who has a
vague notion that "Socialism" means something against the law carry on
just the same when the government itself is Socialist?
When a Labour government takes over, I wonder what happens to Scotland
Yard Special Branch? To Military Intelligence? We are not told, but such
symptoms as there are do not suggest that any very extensive shuffling is
going on.
However, the main point of this episode is that the sellers of newspapers
and pamphlets should be interfered with at all. Which particular minority
is singled out--whether Pacifists, Communists, Anarchists, Jehovah's
Witness of the Legion of Christian Reformers who recently declared Hitler
to be Jesus Christ--is a secondary matter. It is of symptomatic
importance that these people should have been arrested at that particular
spot. You are not allowed to sell literature inside Hyde Park, but for
many years past it has been usual for the paper-sellers to station
themselves outside the gates and distribute literature connected with the
open air meetings a hundred yards away. Every kind of publication has
been sold there without interference.
The degree of freedom of the press existing in this country is often
over-rated. Technically there is great freedom, but the fact that most of
the press is owned by a few people operates in much the same way as State
censorship. On the other hand, freedom of speech is real. On a platform,
> or in certain recognised open air spaces like Hyde Park, you can say
almost anything, and, what is perhaps more significant, no one is
frightened to utter his true opinions in pubs, on the tops of busses, and
so forth.
The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public
opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether
they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general
temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in
freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law
forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will
be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them. The decline in the
desire for individual liberty has not been so sharp as I would have
predicted six years ago, when the war was starting, but still there has
been a decline. The notion that certain opinions cannot safely be allowed
a hearing is growing. It is given currency by intellectuals who confuse
the issue by not distinguishing between democratic opposition and open
rebellion, and it is reflected in our growing indifference to tyranny and
injustice abroad. And even those who declare themselves to be in favour
of freedom of opinion generally drop their claim when it is their own
adversaries who are being prosecutued.
I am not suggesting that the arrest of five people for selling harmless
newspapers is a major calamity. When you see what is happening in the
world today, it hardly seems worth squealing about such a tiny incident.
All the same, it is not a good symptom that such things should happen when
the war is well over, and I should feel happier if this and the long
series of similar episodes that have preceded it, were capable of raising
a genuine popular clamour, and not merely a mild flutter in sections of
the minority press.
FUTURE OF A RUINED GERMANY (1945)
As the advance into Germany continues and more and more of the
devastation wrought by the Allied bombing planes is laid bare, there are
three comments that almost every observer finds himself making. The first
is: 'The people at home have no conception of this.' The second is, 'It's
a miracle that they've gone on fighting.' And the third is, 'Just think
of the work of building this all up again!'
It is quite true that the scale of the Allied blitzing of Germany is even
now not realised in this country, and its share in the breaking-down of
German resistance is probably much underrated. It is difficult to give
actuality to reports of air warfare and the man in the street can be
forgiven if he imagines that what we have done to Germany over the past
four years is merely the same kind of thing they did to us in 1940.
But this error, which must be even commoner in the United States, has in
it a potential danger, and the many protests against indiscriminate
bombing which have been uttered by pacifists and humanitarians have
merely confused the issue.
Bombing is not especially inhumane. War itself is inhumane and the
bombing plane, which is used to paralyse industry and transport, is a
relatively civilised weapon. 'Normal' or 'legitimate' warfare is just as
destructive of inanimate objects and enormously so of human lives.
Moreover, a bomb kills a casual cross-section of the population, whereas
the men killed in battle are exactly the ones that the community can
least afford to lose. The people of Britain have never felt easy about
the bombing of civilians and no doubt they will be ready enough to pity
the Germans as soon as they have definitely defeated them; but what they
still have not grasped---thanks to their own comparative immunity---is
the frightful destructiveness of modern war and the long period of
impoverishment that now lies ahead of the world as a whole.
Fifty Orwell Essays Page 46