“Animal Farm” by George Orwell
How in the world have I not read this book much earlier?
This is an incredible book that teaches us about the nature of politics, disguised in a fable of animals that live in a farm owned by humans.
The book begins with an organised gathering by the animals to stage a coup against the cruel human ruler Mr. Jones, led by a wise elderly pig named Old Major whom passed away too soon and becomes immortalised as the father of the movement. And then the actual coup occurs quite accidentally, when an unplanned incident gives an opportunity for the animals to get rid of the humans once and for all.
And so the Manor Farm is freed and the animals then change the name into Animal Farm, with the place is now controlled by 3 pigs that are the protégés of Old Major: Snowball, Squealer, and the alpha, Napoleon.
What happens next is a masterclass of political analogy by the author, George Orwell. First, the exiled humans begin to badmouth the animals to fellow farm owners, which is acknowledged by other powerful farm owners (not unlike political dissidents backed by Australia, the UK, and the US). The humans then stage a counter coup, which failed but was enough to be used by the pigs as a propaganda of “the common enemy” (that is similar with how the Nazis demonised the Jews), alongside the chant rituals and the revolutionary-type national anthem.
The Iranian and Cuban revolutions also come in mind when reading this part of the book, just like the case with most draconian rulers that use the same template. This also includes the way they handle the proceeding inner struggles of how to actually manage the farm, which causes a rift between Napoleon and Snowball (the intellectual architect of the new regime in the farm).
And then one day Napoleon stages an internal coup himself, where he get rid of Snowball with the help of 7 attack dogs that he has secretly trained. Hence begins the period where Snowball becomes the pariah of the state, being smeared as the root cause of every future misfortune that ever going to happen in the farm. Which reminds me of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s usage of Fethullah Gülen as the boogeyman in Turkish politics, or Israel’s tactics of using the excuse of Hamas as a justification of all the nasty crimes they’re doing.
Furthermore, with one competing pig exiled, the other, Squealer, becomes the chief propagandist and the mouthpiece of the ruling regime, as well as the overall number one ass kisser to Napoleon. And thus, Napoleon becomes the sole leader of the farm and – just like the real story of his namesake Napoleon Bonaparte – increasingly transformed the place into a dictatorship. They even create a presidential election, with Napoleon wins as the sole candidate.
Soon after, the Sunday Meetings (that symbolises democracy) is being cancelled. The original 7 rules of the farm, which was created to assert equality among the animals, are constantly violated by Napoleon and his cronies with the rules are constantly modified to fit their actions.
And so the idealistic dream of a free Animal Farm ruled by equal animals has turned into an Orwellian nightmare. And true to the dictatorial nature that strikingly resemble North Korea, the Napoleon regime constantly feeding propaganda on the brutality of other farm towards fellow animals, exiling or even killing those dare to speak up against Napoleon and brand them as traitors or spies, constantly diverting issues by creating false flag operations to make the citizens forget about the real problems, and creating more propaganda with songs, speeches, false news that things are better now. They even scrapped the revolutionary-style national anthem and change it to a “more mature” anthem that signals things are now stable and prosperous.
Moreover, squealer keeps on producing statistics showing that things are much better now economically, while in reality they are creating a system where the hardest working animals will get the least food, while animals like pigs and dogs who don’t work to produce food will get abundance of food and will never get hungry. Indeed, an apartheid system has been developed, with pigs and dogs are on top of the caste, while the rest of the population are kept illiterate and stupid so that they will accept everything being told to them without the ability to fight back. Even those few who can read and understand what’s really going on, like Benjamin the donkey, cannot do anything about it.
The book ends on a sour note, where their original revolutionary motto “four legs good, two legs bad” is edited to “four legs good, two legs better” when the pigs are starting to learn how to stand up with two legs like humans. They begin to dress like humans, drink alcohol like human, have diplomatic relations with other human farm owners, and have gatherings with them up to a point where we can no longer differentiate between pigs and humans. The scene where the critical bunch of sheep suddenly change their idealistic chants to chants that support the regime, after a “retraining”, gives me the creeps.
And then as a final touch, they change the name of the farm back to Manor Farm, “its original name.” But now with pigs ruling the land in a much worse condition than the previous human regime.
The book was written with the Russian revolution as the inspiration, and we can see how the characters nicely embodying it. The deposed Mr. Jones is Tsar Nicholas II, the wise pig Old Major is Karl Marx or Lenin, Napoleon is Joseph Stalin, Snowball is Leon Trotsky, and while there’s no specific real-life character assigned to Boxer the horse, his story is the most heart breaking for me and presumably the most common one among the ordinary citizens who simply love their country no matter what.
What a gripping read from the beginning to the end, and I finished the book in one sitting. Absolutely phenomenal.
THE CHAOS THEORY 