Orwellian And so to the Merrion Range at Castlemartin where
the great convoy of coaches packed into the narrow lanes overlooking the limestone coastal plateau. Out poured the bejeaned and banjo-strumming demonstrators to get on with the chorus of hate while Foot and Abse and others delivered the protest resolution at the gates of the camp. From the terrace of a white house among the trees overlooking the road an elderly couple looked on as the emotive phrases crackled out from the loudspeaker over the silent haymakers and cud-chewing cows to the lolling redcaps and police a few hundred yards away. Auschwitz. Stalingrad. The Pentagon. The forces of peace and democracy. Eastward expan- sion at the expense of the German Democratic Republic. An offensive alliance. War criminals of the Bonn regime. Nazism. Revanchism. Anti- democratic forces. Peace. Listening to the newspeak, 1 saw in the shimmering air the mina- torY features of Orwell. It was very hot, and everywhere the demonstrators were sprawled on the grass. Nowhere, I was thinking, is there such concentrated venom as in the voices of those who speak most loudly of 'peace,' when I heard a shout: 'We are for the Germany of Thomas Mann; we are for the cause of peace.' That orator was mistaken. Whether he knew it or not, he was for the Germany of Walter Ulbricht; his cause was the cause of tyranny.
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