In George Orwell’s famous novel 1984, Winston Smith gulps down bottles of the foul-tasting “Victory Gin” to numb his consciousness, and smokes “Victory Cigarettes” to exhale, with their smoke, the misery of his reality. Wherever he turned in wretched London, his eyes fell upon posters of Big Brother and the Party’s three slogans, emblazoned in bold letters:
“War is Peace,”
“Freedom is Slavery,”
and “Ignorance is Strength.”
In much the same way, though in a different geography and a different time, after the smoke of bombs cleared from the skies above Beirut’s southern suburbs and South Lebanon in the summer of 2006, distinctly Orwellian features began to seep into everyday life.
Suddenly, through a carefully engineered linguistic and ideological framework, Shiites in particular and Lebanese society more broadly awoke to find themselves surrounded by a different kind of “victory”: one packaged for daily consumption and imbued with an overwhelming divine charge.
Shopfronts, cafés, fast-food restaurants, and stores began adopting names such as “The True Promise,” “Victory,” and “Triumph.” It was something akin to the commodities that flood the markets in Orwell’s novel.
These names were not merely a spontaneous expression of popular jubilation. Rather, much like Orwell’s “Victory Gin,” they functioned as a psychological mechanism for packaging material defeat and transforming it into a fluid moral victory.
The aim was for citizens to consume victory, drink it, and shop through it, until it became woven into their very biological fabric. Any questioning of the war’s cost would then appear as a deviation from the “natural order of things.”
It was a process of collective brainwashing that, by 2026, had left supporters, despite an existential catastrophe, occupation of land, and the displacement of people, programmed to repeat much the same concepts: that “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength.”
The July 2006 War marked the pivotal turning point in the formulation of Hezbollah’s concept of “victory.” During that war, despite the immense destruction inflicted on Lebanon’s infrastructure and the heavy human toll, the party succeeded in maintaining its military resilience and preventing Israel from achieving its stated objective of crushing the organization.
This resilience was subsequently leveraged politically and through the vast propaganda apparatus of both Hezbollah and Iran, to be proclaimed a “Divine Victory.” With it, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, came to be regarded by many supporters as a near-mythic figure, elevated to an almost sacred status.
The narrative of 2006 established a new cognitive framework within Hezbollah’s support base. Victory was no longer measured by the scale of destruction, the number of casualties, or the living conditions of the population, but rather by the “survival of the resistance and its weapons.”
This concept evolved into a deeply entrenched doctrine, one that would later be invoked to justify every subsequent choice.
From military intervention in Syria, to dominance over key institutions of the Lebanese state, to the decision to open the “support front” in October 2023, and later the decision to support Iran in retaliation for the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on March 2 of this year.
This insistence, indeed this act of denial, is not merely a form of political obstinacy. It is a vital tool for preventing moral and organizational collapse. And it is here that we are brought back directly to the Orwellian factory for the manufacture of terminology.
In Orwell’s famous novel, the ruling Party’s three slogans are used to eliminate the capacity for rational judgment. When these slogans are mapped onto the reality of Hezbollah and the Shiite constituency that supports it, one finds a striking structural similarity between the mechanisms employed and the outcomes produced.
Let us take, for example, the slogan “War is Peace.”
In Orwell’s world, those in power keep the state in a permanent state of war in order to preserve internal stability and direct the public’s anger toward an external enemy.
In Hezbollah’s case, continuous warfare and permanent mobilization are transformed into existential prerequisites for both the party and the Shiite identity it has helped reshape.
Its constituency is persuaded that security and stability are not achieved through state-building, strong institutions, or adherence to international agreements such as UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Rather, they are attained through maintaining a constant state of military readiness and perpetual mobilization.
The slogan of “protecting Lebanon” is used to justify drawing the country into regional conflicts tied to Iran’s broader project, until death and destruction come to be presented as the only available means of securing “civil peace” and maintaining “deterrence.”
What, then, of “Freedom is Slavery”?
In Orwell’s novel, the independent individual is portrayed as weak and destined to fail, while true freedom is said to come from complete dissolution into the collective body of the Party.
Within Hezbollah’s framework, individuals in the party’s supportive environment are stripped of their intellectual and political autonomy under concepts such as religious obligation (taklif shar‘i) and Wilayat al-Faqih (the Guardianship of the Jurist). In the party’s discourse, unquestioning obedience to the decisions of an infallible leadership is presented as the highest form of human and spiritual liberation and as a source of dignity.
Conversely, any attempt to break free from this dominance, criticize military decisions, or call for the sovereignty of the Lebanese state is swiftly categorized as “subservience to foreign embassies” or branded as treason and collaboration.
As for the slogan “Ignorance is Strength,” the ruling Party in Orwell’s novel employs it to suppress citizens’ historical and logical awareness, for a population kept in ignorance is easier to lead and lacks the tools to hold power accountable.
Within Hezbollah’s sphere, the party engages in a systematic process of cognitive isolation directed at its audience through its media apparatus, ideologues, and religious preachers. Historical and geographical realities on the ground are continuously reframed and distorted.
When Israel occupies villages in southern Lebanon, media coverage shifts its focus to a military ambush or the targeting of a tank by a drone, creating an impression of control and forward momentum. The result is a manufactured perception that separates followers from the geographical reality unfolding around them.
Ignorance here does not mean illiteracy. Rather, it refers to the denial of hard realities, such as the scale of the catastrophic human and economic losses borne by both the Shiite community and the country as a whole, and their replacement with metaphysical narratives and recurring promises of divine victory.
It also manifests in the party’s claim to possess absolute truth, coupled with a call for its followers to distrust their own judgment and place their faith solely in the party’s version of reality.
The success of this Orwellian mechanism within the Shiite environment cannot be understood without considering its organic and institutional ties to Iran. Iran’s project in Lebanon has extended far beyond military support; it has built a parallel network of social, economic, and religious structures operating alongside the state.
This integration has made the interests of broad segments of the Shiite community existentially tied to the party’s continued existence, making its propaganda easier to absorb. Acknowledging defeat would mean acknowledging the collapse of the very system that provides identity, livelihood, and a sense of symbolic security.
Fear also serves as a central force in shaping collective behavior. When narratives circulate about the possible deportation of Shiites to Iraq, or about assigning Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and his forces to attack Lebanon’s Shiite population, particularly in light of the abuses committed by such groups against Druze and Alawite communities in Syria, fear becomes the dominant emotion.
In such circumstances, many are left clinging to the promise of protection and survival offered by the “Big Brother” figure, holding fast to the assurances that he alone can guarantee their safety and deliverance.
