There is a discussion about Orwell's "1984" and its meaning. Strangely, when I read the end of the novel:

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

I remembered another book I read recently, "My Traitor's Heart" by Rian Malan. He is "an Afrikaner, scion of a centuries-old clan and relative of the architect of apartheid". At certain point of his life, he left his country (otherwise he had to serve in apartheid Army) and emigrated to the USA. Here he had fun washing the dishes, picking up crops, selling his blood... Finally ended up in some newspaper. He describes a dinner party in New York, around Easter 1985, where he was invited.

I could have told the truth, I suppose, but the raw facts of the matter were as remote and irrelevant to most Americans as the fact that gravity bent light. In their imagination, South Africa was a distant place where everything was simple -- a country adrift from its continent, populated by caricatural white villains and black victims. They thought the struggle was a replay of their own civil right movement, and who was I to disillusion them? I didn't. I said the easy and obvious things, the things they expected to hear. I told them about Boer colonels who sputtered comically at the thought of Jimmy Carter, about little girls banished from white schools for having suspiciously kinky hair. By the time I was done, they were shaking their heads knowingly over white South Africa's racial backwardness, and I was counting my silver. My thirty pieces of silver.

I was angry reading this. Why did he capitulate so fast? Why such submission? Why did he want to fit somebody's stereotypes?

Recently something happened, that changed my perspective a bit. I read this in JavaRanch "Job Discussion" forum "Apart for the single case of communist countries where you are given a job or authorized to have the one you chose" and wanted to jump in: what communist countries? Who would give you a job in communist countries? Who would "authorize" it??? and for the first time did nothing. I have been fighting this kind of nonsense for a few years already, and the result is close to zero. I am tired. The first stage of compliance... As somebody said: "because educating the universe one by one is a task apt to daunt ever the most enthusiastic".

What's next, saying what I am expected to say?

"And yes, before I forget... In communist countries you are given a job! And you need to authorize the one you chose! Where? Um... In the Ministry of Unemployment?"

"I say easy and obvious things, the things they expect to hear. But it's all right, everything is all right, the struggle is finished. I won the victory over myself."