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The Forum > Article Comments > Occupied Europe dystopic but unfortunately not fictional > Comments

Occupied Europe dystopic but unfortunately not fictional : Comments

By Lorraine Campbell, published 22/10/2014

Over the last few years, there has been a boom in Young Adult dystopian fiction. The most notable is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, a trilogy of novels set in a post-apocalyptic North America.

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I think that the author has taken a rather shallow view of the historic development of a dystopic state. The Soviet Union represented another dystopic state that shared a similar world view with National Socialism, evidenced by the Nazi Soviet Non-aggression pact of 1939 the precursor for WW11. Significantly, whilst the author identified the NAZI invasion of Poland and the Baltic States, no mention was made of the Soviet occupation of these states following WW11 and the creation of dystopian police states policed by the NKGB (later the KGB) and the STASI, only ending in 1989.
The common element for a dystopian state is a totalitarian governance system, with the major examples being the Soviet Union – totalitarianism based on class, The NAZIS - totalitarianism based on race and recently the emergence of radical Islamism - totalitarianism based on religion.
Posted by Sharpie, Wednesday, 22 October 2014 9:24:07 AM
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Exactly Sharpie!
And the latter example, would put all the other examples in the shade, or make them look positively benign in any fair comparison; if the Islamists are ever allowed to dominate the world!
Their ultimate, myopically focused on, exclusive goal!
The Middle East and its oil wealth/funding, is but the start!
We who likely have a veritable bonanza of the stuff under our very feet, still buy ours from them; and in so doing, add four times as much carbon to the atmosphere, as would be the case, if we but used locally available alternatives!
And only because one incompetent government,followed by several others, insist that the government (moronic mantra mumblers) has no business in business!
Unfortunately for the world and hard won personal freedom; Isil believes exactly the opposite! And is already in the oil business.
One wonders how much we are helping Isil, by buying some or any of their purloined/ill gotten oil/oil products?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Wednesday, 22 October 2014 11:40:21 AM
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Regardless of the times there will always be those with power that will try to create their own personal utopia at the cost of others, After all someone has to pay. However one thing we have to keep in mind is that the powers that were mentioned in the original article don't exist any longer. and the only so called power that is claimed to have an agenda that would make the whole world subservient to the Muslim faith I suppose in the way we of the west were made subservient to the Catholic church. I cant see it happen though the Muslims are a religion and as such don't have the power to coerce each other to any effective degree let alone the whole world.No Muslim nation has the educational or the manufacturing base to bring any plan of domination to fruition. that The fact is that the powers that once created the so called dystopia are now small and powerless a perfect example would be Korea.
Posted by Robbb, Wednesday, 22 October 2014 12:04:38 PM
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Germany is still an occupied country.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Wednesday, 22 October 2014 7:14:52 PM
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This article is such a pile of nonsense, this is the result of using Novels and fictional films to teach "history".
Novels don't reflect reality, they can't teach you anything about the past or the future because they're fiction.
You can read any number of accounts of life under the NSDAP and they're all remarkably consistent in their description of how after 1933 the party and the security services were scrupulous in keeping a low profile and keeping out of people's hair as much as possible.
They also talk about how the NSDAP ideology wasn't pushed in schools and that Hitler Youth meetings were like any other youth group, a minority of kids took it seriously, most of them saw it as a chance to muck about with their mates.
You can also read and hear speeches given by Hitler, Himmler and the other senior party members where they describe the NSDAP and SS as an elite or an elect whose function was not to convert the entire nation to a horde of Soviet style automatons but to form a new, Germanic ruling class for Europe from only the best and brightest people of that continent.
Every society has it's fanatics, there are probably people on my street who'd inform on me to the government if they knew I held a dissenting opinion but the NSDAP had no more "control" over it's citizens than the U.S or U.K governments at the time and far less information on individuals than today's governments.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Wednesday, 22 October 2014 7:45:30 PM
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This dystopian system has operated in many places, in many forms and throughout much of history.

It routinely operated throughout the much-admired Roman Empire, under European feudalism and in many countries occupied and ruled by the British, French, Belgian, Spanish and Portuguese empires.

Britain enforced such a dystopia on Ireland for centuries, especially after Cromwell. Also, the harshness of Britain's dystopian penal laws in its own country led to the colonising of Australia, as its prison's could no longer control the exploding prison population or keep up with a legal system that had well over 100 crimes punishable by death.

Such a dystopia operated in the slave states of America for centuries.

More recently, it operated in Spain under Franco, in Latin America in the 70s and 80s under the right-wing, US-backed juntas and in Iran under the US-backed Shah. At present, Rwanda under Kagame and Uganda under Musoveni, both US-backed dictators, have all the hallmarks of a dystopian totalitarian state.

One could go on and on. However, Germany under Nazism is the dystopia we are all programmed to trot out on cue whenever we need quick-fix reference to evil incarnate (with the USSR under Stalin as the back-up evil incarnate).

Mostly, in both fiction and in real life, it's all about building and maintaining an evil monster (i.e. the 'bad') in order to frame ourselves and our own system as 'the good'.
Posted by Killarney, Wednesday, 22 October 2014 10:07:15 PM
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