I read Animal Farm by George Orwell in high school, but I must admit I didn’t remember much of it, other than the high-level premise and “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”. A sentence my father used during my childhood whenever someone tried to apply double standards or argued for doing so.
The original introduction of this book, written by Orwell himself is added to the back of the edition of the book that I read. I found it very interesting to read the introduction, but it was probably a good decision to place this text after the main story. The introduction is almost as long as the entire book and I’m not sure I’d have gotten to the main story had I tried to read the introduction before the rest of the book. This qualification needs a little bit of clarification. The introduction is really long for an introduction to a book, but also, the book itself is very short, it’s only 69 pages. A lot of people probably know this, as it was this characteristic of the book that meant the book got chosen to be on many a high-school reading list.
The main story is about a farm where the animals chase the human owner, who they feel isn’t treating them well, away.
At first, the animals are very happy. They have more autonomy. Even though they still work hard, they feel like they are working for themselves and each other and morale is soaring. All the harvested crops and earnings go to the animals, so they benefit directly from their hard work.
Together the animals draft seven commandments that help the animals to govern themselves and the farm and that provide a framework that they should live by:
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.
These commandments might sound good and sensible if you’re an animal and they are. Theoretically. Unfortunately, the pigs in the story, like humans in real life, are unable to resist the temptation of power.
After a while, the pigs slowly start to take more power and allow themselves some privileges. They also slowly change the (written) commandments, but they do it by only making one small change at a time and each small change doesn’t seem bad enough to fight.
Eventually, the pigs end up being mean, hypocrite and lying dictators, living a comfortable life, while they work the other animals to death.
Orwell wrote the book in 1943 and it was published in 1945. The story reflects the events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Stalinist era in the Soviet Union following that. If anyone wasn’t able to recognize the story Orwell helps a bit by letting the animals address each other as “comrades”.
Even though the story was written a long time ago, it’s still relevant today, and not just in Russia. The small steps that are taken to break down democracy and that don’t appear to be worth protesting about are visible in many countries around the world. Trump has already gone through many small steps in the US. In Australia Scott Morrison’s government had journalists’ houses raided to try and find the source of an article they felt shouldn’t have been published. In the UK Boris Johnson wants to put the BBC up for sale.
Communism doesn’t have a patent on slowly destroying democracy in favor of a power-hungry dictator.
I hope we won’t let history repeat itself, but I’m afraid that we will. Decent people are just too…decent. And perhaps too scared and too comfortable. We might not start fighting back until it’s too late.
These power-hungry thugs don’t play by the rules. They break as many of them as they can and then change them to suit their needs.
I’m not any better than anyone else. I will avoid conflict if I can and lay low instead of stepping into the ring to stand up to thugs and bullies until I get angry and emotional.
This isn’t easy, but let’s try and stop the thugs before they take over the world.
Kalliope's Journey 