osama bin laden

[goldenboy]

is osama bin laden the new goldstein?

[VINNY100_2]

Could you elaborate..  who's goldstein.??..

[goldenboy]

the villain in 1984

[jno]

he sounds less Jewish

[goldenboy]

in 1984 goldstein was the supposed leader of the resistance against the party that ran oceania, but may or may not have existed at that time as a real person, rather he was used as a figure head of evil on which to pin the crimes of the parties enemies.

[VINNY100_2]

nope..?still havent got a clue...um..do you mean george orwells book..(:)

[jno]

I think Goldstein was based on Trotsky - or rather on the way Lenin had him brushed out of communist history so nobody could be quite sure if he'd really existed. If you're suggesting bin Laden also doesn't exist, or is being used as a scapegoat for other problems, I have to say the evidence in favour of his existence, and of his having in some way directed the 9/11 attacks on the USA, is pretty compelling.

Not so clear if he had a big role, or any at all, in subsequent attacks such as those on Bali or London; but it's always been acknowledged that al-Qaeda is a pretty loose organisation, maybe not really an 'organisation' at all.

[bernardo]

No, because Goldstein was one of the original leaders of the Party, who still believed in its original (unperverted) principles of socialism and democracy.  As the leader of the resistance (real or imaginary doesn't matter), he was trying to bring the Party back to the basic ideals for which the Revolution was fought in the first place.

Osama bin Laden, however, is a deranged murderous fanatic who has distorted the message of his own creed (Islam) and has used it and misquoted it as an excuse for murderous and terrorist activities.  If ever a government were to come to power on the basis of Osama bin Laden's philosophy (e.g. the Taliban in Afghanistan) then the equivalent of Goldstein would have been a moderate Islamic leader preaching peace and tolerance rather than hate and oppression.

Incidentally, it would have helped if you had said more clearly whom you meant by "goldstein" in the first place.  Emmanuel Goldstein was the leader of the resistance and the principal enemy of the Party in George Orwell's novel, "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (which, incidentally, is not entitled "1984" as some of the previous answerers seem to think)

[jno]

whereas Emanuel Goldenberg was Edward G Robinson...

[goldenboy]

i must admit that the question that i posted was a bit confusing, but what i'm trying to say is that at the present time, i feel that our world has many parallels with the world of 'nineteen eighty four'; especially with a faceless enemy, a constant state of fear for the population, a national lottery to keep us proles subdued, faceless manufactured pop music, and constant war. even though 1984 is taken to be a satire of the extremes of communism, i feel that it can apply to extremes in any form of political thought. i in no way advocate that osama bin laden would create a better world through his techniques, and apologise if i implied this.