Is Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" just around the corner?

¿What would Aldous Huxley think of today’s world? His novel, “Brave New World,” made sardonic fun of a sort of globalized world in which everyone was happy, a world in which nobody dared or bothered to question the power structure, an unsettling view of the future, written in the midst of the crash of the 1930’s.

A number of recent events suggest at least that that imagined world is not that far away. We can mention just a few so as to spark a discussion on the subject.

1)       Ben Laden, the alleged enemy number one of the United States, who had previously worked for the U.S. in ousting the Soviets from Afghanistan, was on the wanted list for years until he was finally killed in Pakistan recently. He was killed rather than taken to trial: with his last breath he took with him important information that no doubt would have been disturbing yet helpful for an understanding of the prolonged war against terrorism.

2)       Anwar Aal-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen of Islamic faith, accused of being a terrorist, was assassinated by weapons fired from a U.S. pilotless plane in Yemen. U.S. president Barack Obama said there was convincing evidence of his involvement in terrorist activities. Under the U.S. constitution persons accused of crimes cannot be executed without trial. What information might have been revealed if he had been arrested and brought to trial?

3)       Maammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator, was seen on videos being beaten to death by his captors. Information concerning how he was found is scant, but it is logical to suppose that his whereabouts were discovered by the NATO forces which bombed the country to help insurgents win the civil war against the Qaddafi regime.

4)       The question is not whether these persons were guilty of the criminal actions they were accused of, but rather the blatant evasion of justice on the part of the accusers. If a president of a powerful nation declares an individual to be guilty does that justify his execution rather than trial? What would happen if a country, say, in the Third World were to act in the same way? What would that mean for world order?

5)        The Western nations which attacked Qaddafi under the excuse of alleged gross violations of human rights had from time to time done good business with him. Press reports indicate that in 2003, the George Bush Administration rehabilitated Qaddafi from the label of terrorist; he then became an ally of the United States in the “war on terror.” In fact, the press has asserted that the CIA used Qaddafi’s intelligence service to torture detainees that the U.S. sent over to Libya. That is, they used him until he was no longer considered convenient. (According to the Human Rights Watch, the CIA “rendered” eight or nine detainees to Qaddafi’s intelligence service and sent questions along to be asked).

6)       President Obama triumphantly announced after Qaddafi’s death: “Without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives.” No ground troops, no U.S. casualties, rebels doing the fighting. The bombing raids enabling the U.S.-NATO forces to pressure the new government for the continued supply of oil.

 7)  That looks like a precedent for the future and a clear sign that the world is rapidly materializing as Huxley imagined it would. Bombing raids against individuals or countries considered outcasts?

    What is suggestive of the “Brave New World” concept is the almost complete lack of questioning on the part of the mass media and political, social and economic institutions concerning the legitimacy of actions such as attacking countries or individuals unilaterally as a result of accusations emanating from centers of power, summary executions rather than resort to traditional judicial process. In Huxley’s world everyone was supposedly happy; at present, also in the midst of an economic crisis, people are induced not to question the decisions of the power structure; being accused is justification enough for drastic actions.