By Tom Fowdy
"Doublethink" as defined by the Oxford Companion to the English language, is "a process of indoctrination in which subjects are expected to simultaneously accept two conflicting beliefs as truth, often at odds with their own memory or sense of reality." The term was famously coined by writer George Orwell in his work Nineteen Eighty Four, which ironically was intended as a critique of Communism.
In the past two weeks, three British MPs were denied entry to several destinations on grounds deemed to be "political." The first incident saw two Labour Parliamentarians denied access to Israel. The second saw Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse denied entry to Hong Kong. Hobhouse is a member of the "Interparliamentary Alliance on China" (IPAC), a hostile Anti-China organization that is funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and Taiwan, the latter who uses it as a vehicle to push revisionist policies.
Although British Foreign Secretary David Lammy condemned both incidences, he notably referred to the Hong Kong incident as "undermining" the city's "international reputation." He made no such remarks about Tel-Aviv at any point. Likewise, the media circus surrounding the Hong Kong incident has also been much more prolonged than the one in Israel. While some figures on the left backed the refused MPs, there has been a "media circus" around Hobhouse with new stories appearing every single day, with her inferring there is some kind of "list of critics" and sinister conspiracy going on.
Naturally, from these events we can see that there are diverse political criteria on how to respond to each country. For Israel, as with all things related to this country, it usually equates to a soft statement of condemnation, which must never at any time be followed up with action. However, for China or Hong Kong, the response is a stronger sense of condemnation, enhanced publicity, and an emphasis on pushing a narrative that the given "incident" is a reputationally damaging or immoral move. In reality, it is entirely normal for countries to refuse entry to individuals, especially political figures, who have been deemed a threat to national security, and in today's politically unstable, polarised world, this kind of behavior is becoming more uncommon.
Not only has Netanyahu's Israel blacklisted critics for years, but the Trump administration is actively deporting students who criticize Tel-Aviv on University Campuses, and Taiwan has enhanced its refusal of pro-China figures (even some critics!). Ironically, the United Kingdom has a long-standing policy of denying entry to high-profile people whose political views risk stoking unrest and harm domestically. When you look at this way, why is Hong Kong and China as a whole deemed an exception? And how can we see such a brazen double standard by media and political classes in such a short-period of time?
The answer is that politics sets the discourse and not principles, thus creating "doublethink" or "doublespeak" the scenario whereby politicians can in a short-space of time, with no adherence to memory, say two completely different and contradictory things, revealing how underlying political interests dictate the nature of the response. Not only that, but the UK media also pretends as if this "double standard" simply does not exist, piling controversy on the latter incident but happily brushing over the former. Israel's policy of refusal is not given any scrutiny, yet Hong Kong is framed as being oppressive and authoritarian, while IPAC is framed in vague terms as some "innocent" and "concerned" organization despite that it is, in fact, very sinister and manipulative in its goals and operations. Ultimately, the nature of these responses all feed into another tier of discourse that Hong Kong has no right to defend its scrutiny amidst the violent riots of 2019-2020, and thus all attempts at restoring stability and quashing unrest must be deemed as a "form of oppression" which must, according to the narrative, contribute to the decline of the city because it does not fit the west's geopolitical purpose for it. Ironically, this itself is a form of doublethink, because the UK has absolutely no qualms whatsoever of jailing violent protesters who seek to disable or destroy critical infrastructure. Yet, the key element of it all is that the public, who receive such double standards, do not seem to have any awareness of what is happening.
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