George Orwell, in his book...
Illustration
George Orwell, in his book, 1984, tells of a world so manipulated by those who know how to use the means of communication to their own ends, that they are able to switch alliances weekly, and to convince the mass of people that those who were enemies the week before were not only never our enemies, but are now our allies. All evidence to the contrary was simply expunged from every printed record all over the world. No one would ever be able to backtrack, to say that this relationship had ever been different. It was a prophetic book, not of 1984, but of the strange alliance of Stalin and Hitler during World War II. Like Herod and Pilate, who had been enemies until the trial of Jesus, these men might seem to be "natural" enemies, one a communist and the other a fascist. But in their mutual hatred and suspicion of democracy, their mutual lust for power over others, their mutual need to overthrow the tyranny of abusive fathers, Hitler and Stalin were able to form an alliance, however uneasy and however temporary, to attempt to achieve their goals of world domination and the end of freedom for the people of the Allied Nations. Politics makes strange bedfellows, we have heard. The gospel writer also pauses, in the midst of the travesty of the "trial" of Jesus, to point this out. Herod and Pilate, besieged by the crowds and the need to "keep the peace," disappointed in and afraid of Jesus, turn to each other in their difficulties. "From that day forward, they who had been enemies, were friends." -- Herrmann
