After years of teachers and friends telling me I should read George Orwell's 1984 and unconsciously rejecting the idea without giving it a second thought ('One day...'), I realised a few weeks ago that the time had come. Now that I've read it, it's impossible not to wonder what was going through Orwell's mind when he wrote it. Obviously, a world as oppressive as the one he describes, and a society that lacks feelings and the ability to think for itself, could not be possible - could it?

It's not surprising that this book was written in 1948, when the ghost of the Second World War was still alive and Germany's National Socialist dreams had threatened to take over the world. The USA and the URSS had emerged as the world's opposed superpowers, starting Cold War era. Orwell died in January 1950, the Cold War didn't end until 1991, and his vision of a future in which totalitarism would dominate a world divided into a few powerful super-states continuously at the edge of war doesn't sound all that strange. Sixty years on, the similarities between his apocalyptic prediction – with an accuracy that Nostradamus would envy - and today's world are chilling.

'War is Peace' is one of the core mottos of Ingsoc (which stands for English Socialism), Oceania's leading Party. War is needed to give people a way of expressing their repressed anger at the Party about their own lives and take it out on the enemy they fight against. The same slogan seems to have been adopted by many countries in the last few years. The wars in Iraq lead by the USA and the UK in 2003, caused by accusations of its having weapons of mass destruction - which haven't been found - are an example of the same belief. Nowadays, wars are fought in the name of peace, democracy, human rights. World leaders throw the 60s slogan 'Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity' down the drain - again.

George Orwell's telescreens are two-way-transmission machines which communicate the Party's official information. They capture images of daily life, which are taken to the headquarters to be thoroughly examined and analysed. If someone is caught in an illicit activity - or not acting in the usual way - the person is taken for re-education (1984's process of neutralisation). Internet and webcams, when used at the same time, work under the same principle, although their intention is radically different from that of the telescreens. On the other hand, there are about 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain – one for every 14 people - with the stated objective of preventing crime. It is estimated that a person may be caught on camera about 300 times a day. So you can't scratch your bum without having at least one person seeing you (and probably laughing at you).

In order to protect our identities, fingerprints and eye-scans are taken; bank information and health histories are archived; a code number is given to each of us in order to prove identity (ID number, passport); lists of everything we buy are stored when we get points for using a shop card; every transaction made with a card is registered; every time we touch in and out with an Oyster card (London travel smart-card), every time we buy online or surf the web, everything we do creates more information about us, which is registered and put away, but kept at hand. To protect our identities, our private lives are destroyed. 1984? It's 2008, and Big Brother is watching.

(c) Gabriela Scavuzzo 2008

Reviewed Tuesday 9 September 08 / London

NOTES - 1984, first published 8 June 1949, written by George Orwell, is in print and readily available from bookshops.