Expat CJ Hopkins’ views on COVID masks have become their own Orwellian reality, he faces German trial

In the world of literature and political commentary, there are few figures who embody the spirit and insights of George Orwell quite like C.J. Hopkins.

For years, Hopkins has drawn on Orwellian themes in his work, offering biting satire and incisive critiques of social and political norms. Now, in an apparent twist of fate, Hopkins finds himself trapped in a place reminiscent of the dystopian scenarios he has long warned about.

In other words, the author became the subject.

Hopkins, an award-winning playwright, novelist, and political satirist, is an American transplant based in Berlin. His plays have been performed and performed around the world. Through his blog Consent Factory and his Substack publications, Hopkins has solidified his reputation as an astute, fearless commentator on the excesses and absurdities of contemporary politics, including the abuse of power and mass surveillance.

His work, most notably The Rise of the New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. III (2020-2021) has garnered acclaim and controversy, reaching bestseller status in political science categories in many countries. His work has also landed him in trouble with the German authorities.

Reflecting on his decision to leave the U.S. 20 years ago, Hopkins said: Only news“I emigrated to Europe in 2004 partly because I wanted a better standard of living than I could have as a writer in the US, and largely because I could no longer stand the atmosphere in the US.”

More specifically, Hopkins began planning his departure after the United States invaded Iraq.

Berlin was the easiest European city to settle in at the time,” he said. It was “cheap and sexy,” as the slogan went. It reminded me of San Francisco in the mid-1980s, before the dot-com boom. It felt like home, right up until 2020.

But the country that once welcomed Hopkins with open arms has transformed into a battleground for freedom of speech. While Germany once symbolized a haven for artists and intellectuals, the climate has changed dramatically in the past few years.

Hopkins’ ordeal began with a series of tweets in August 2022 criticizing COVID-19 mask mandates. His statements, such as “Masks are symbols of ideological conformity. That’s all they are. They always were. Stop pretending they ever were anything else or get used to wearing them,” drew the ire of German authorities.

He compared modern Germany to Nazi Germany and all hell broke loose.

The subsequent sequence of events – criminal investigations, book bans, and contentious legal battles – point to a coordinated effort to silence dissent.

Despite the acquittal by the Berlin District Court in January this year, the Berlin District Attorney filed an appeal, demanding a retrial scheduled for August 15, just a few weeks away.

He tried to explain the complicated legal process that he believes is intended to “ultimately find him guilty or bankrupt him due to attorney fees.”

“I expect the Kammergericht (Berlin Supreme Court) to overturn my acquittal in August, at which point, as I understand the process, I will be sent back to the Amtsgericht (Berlin Criminal Court, where I was acquitted in January), where I will be found guilty on the basis of the Kammergericht ruling,” he said. Then I will have to appeal. … And so on, and so forth, and so forth.”

But he still believes his experiences should be assessed in a global context.

“My case is just one of countless examples,” he said. “My columns and essay collections since 2016 have been an attempt to document what I see as the transition to a more authoritarian (or totalitarian) version of global capitalism, the system we all live in in the EU, the UK, the US, Russia, China, etc. That transition has been going on for about 30 years, since the end of the Cold War. I’ve written about it extensively.”

He also argues that “the criminalization of dissent is a global phenomenon. … Most of us can’t see it or can’t connect the dots because we look at the world through a 20th-century prism. That’s not the world we live in anymore. We have to look at the world through a much, much broader prism. A global prism. A global prism.”