Sales of both Origins of Totalitarianism, written by the German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt, and 1984, by the famous English novelist George Orwell, are soaring this year. These two books describe the most freedom hating phenomenon: totalitarianism.
It was the 4th of August 1944, the 15-year- old Dutch diarist Anne Frank was arrested in her house in Amsterdam by the Grüne Polizei (Green Police, led by the German SS). Along with many millions of other Jews, she died in one of the terror apparatuses of Nazi-Germany, the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. All of this was because she was born with the identity that would make her one of the people who couldn’t avoid falling into the tentacles of the totalitarian prophet hiding in his bunker in Berlin: the führer, Adolf Hitler.
Jews were the most prioritized group of people to perish completely according to the Nazi-ideology; along with homosexuals, political opponents, Roma (Gypsy’s), prisoners of war, a-socials, and musselmänner (translated as Muslims in English, musselmänner were those who were called the walking dead. these people were in the most horrible physical and mental condition compared to all the others groups in the concentration camps. They were called Muslims because they sat in the pray-position that Muslims practice, they were too weak to stand up). These are some of the many groups that had to perish, they were all taken and owned by the terror apparatus of totalitarianism.
Totalitarianism is thus the ideology of complete ownership of the people by a state. It seeks to intervene in every part of human life and society, its tentacles can get everywhere. It destroys individualization, human dignity, spontaneity and above all: freedom of thought, economic freedom, freedom of private ownership, freedom of religion etc. Hence it destroys all the things libertarians seek and appreciate: individual liberty and the principle of non-aggression.
One could think that totalitarianism is a thing of the past because of our modernized and globalized world. We think that, because we have a globally interdepended economy, it would make it very irrational and expensive for states to be completely secluded from other states. That is just simple economic theory, we are able to trade with other countries and companies are able to compete with others all around the globe. Free trade has given us our very high rate of welfare. But the awkward thing is: totalitarianism still exists and will not be disappearing anywhere soon. Just like Hannah Arendt wrote in her book from 1975, there are states, anno 2017, who could be called totalitarian or states, ones that have one of the many totalitarian tentacles.
North Korea is the perfect example of totalitarianism, life is completely oppressed and has left very little joy to its people. North Korea can be compared quite easily to the Soviet Union led by Josef Stalin. Both states’ leaders execute everyone around them who they do not like or trust (including many army generals), both have (had) a collectivized economy (which is in a terrible condition, just like every other socialist state), both countries have a hateful ideology which has no sympathy left for ethnic and sexual minorities, and both countries own their people.
Totalitarian states have full ownership of their people, which means that one order could lead to one’s death, or one could be deployed somewhere in a position which lets him suffer horribly, like a concentration camp. But here is the thing: owning the people is totalitarian because it has total intervention over one’s life. So what is the difference between totalitarian country A which forces men to join the army and to risk their lives, and non-totalitarian country B which forces men to join the army and to risk their lives? Well the answer is: nothing.
When someone hesitates, and doesn’t want to die for his country just because some men in the national assembly (or a head of state) had decided to: a) go to war and b) to force men (or women) between a certain age to fight and risk their lives for their country, then it is ought to be called a totalitarian tentacle, a totalitarian policy.
Here is where liberty-advocating people ought to come in.
First: realize that even non-totalitarian states (and modern states with free trade) can obtain power to force someone to do something which is against his core moral values, even to risk his life ‘for the sake of mankind’.
Second: use this knowledge, and every time someone advocates force which is against his morality, or a force which could destroy his most valuable object – his life – speak out. This is needed, even in 2017.
Freedom of expression and press is under pressure. The World Press Freedom has concluded last year that freedom of press was in decline. Authoritative leaders are back in many countries (or are going to be back), even in modern countries like America (Trump) and France (Le Pen). Many semi-totalitarian countries are still here: countries which execute homosexuals (Iran, Saudi Arabia) or imprison them (almost everywhere across the African continent) because of one of the most beautiful objects possible in a sphere of freedom, namely love.
Many countries force men (and women) to join the army, many countries imprison people for their opinion (even in modern countries), liberty-advocating people – we need you!
Libertarians, liberal-democrats, and any others, who’s moral and political values are based on freedom: speak out against every totalitarian tentacle of a state, underline policies, advocated by your conversationalist, as freedom-hating when they are a totalitarian tentacle which could change an individual’s life. Unite with other libertarians, speak out against the evil force of socialism. Your life is more valuable than a state’s policy or advocated policy.
* Olaf Leeuwis is a Dutch political science student living in Leiden, The Netherlands. Advocating freedom, blues, capitalism and whiskey.
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