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| Bungoma Governor Ken Lusaka explaining the runaway insecurity in Bungoma on Citizen TV. His county government's recent purchase of 10 wheelbarrows at a cost of 1M is just but an exposed sore thumb of a badly rotten hand that is the Kenyan government. Image courtesy Citizen TV. |
Besides the Animal Farm being an
allegory for the Soviet Union and the failure of communism, it definitely is an
intricate work of literature that has a relevance to the dirty Kenyan politics.
Furthermore, through this enduring masterpiece, George Orwell showed how human
nature inherently and consistently fails to be equal, all thanks to bad politics.
Old Major, is an old boar on the Manor
farm. He instigates a rebellion against the human rule because according to
him, humans are parasites. In preparation for a revolution, he teaches the
other gathered animals of the farm a song titled Beasts of England. Unfortunately, Old Major dies before his dream
of overthrowing the human rule in the farm comes to fruition. However, Snowball
and Napoleon are two young pigs at the farm that took Old Major’s message to
the heart and are willing to pursue his ideology to a satisfactory conclusion.
The revolution is successful as the staged coup sees Mr. Jones—the alleged ever-sloshed
and highly irresponsible farmer—flushed out of his farm which is immediately
christened ‘Animal Farm.’ The new animal government then adopts the ‘seven
commandments of animalism’ and explicitly state the commandment ‘All animals
are equal’ as the most sacrosanct.
The jubilation and optimism that greets
the Kenyan post-election period is well captured in the Animal Farm, where the
new government seems quite in charge and everybody is happy but only for a
while. Soon, evil political machinations that have brought us a hundred thousand
worth of a wheelbarrow hatch schemes of absolute power consolidation and even
manage to stage yet another coup in which Napoleon, the pig, orders his dogs
which we can take to mean the military in human equivalent, to chase away
snowball who till then was the de facto ruler of the Animal Farm. It is
interesting to note the bone of contention between these two pigs who certainly
wield a considerable amount of power in the Animal Farm. Apparently, Snowball
ticked off Napoleon by trying to build a windmill! Perhaps he was scared that
Snowball might gain considerable political mileage in the Animal Farm from the
windmill project. Napoleon is thus a true reflection of most Kenyan political
leaders who feel threatened by the goodwill of their opponents, real or
imagined, and will stop at nothing to shatter their rival’s career. This
scenario actually rings true for a majority of human conflicts; there will
always be a good and a bad guy.
The subject matter dealt with in the
Animal Farm mirrors closely the human nature and does justice to it. Kenyan politicians
are particularly notorious for ghost projects that are just a conduit for
siphoning public funds into personal pockets. The windmill project in the
Animal Farm is one such project that has been erected high enough for everyone
to see and have their spirits lifted in a false belief of a better life for
all. Unbeknownst to the animals, they tirelessly work their fingers to the
bones in what is actually akin to the chasing the wind because it will amount
to nothing other than a waste of time and other resources employed at such a
service. So, there will always be people fooling others for personal gain.
There is always a thrill in something
new and what we see in the Animal Farm is no exception. The carnival mood in
the farm and all the merry making after the deposing of Mr. Jones is an event
most Kenyans can identify with. But soon, like it always happens, the personal
interests of the coup leaders dredge up to the surface when they can’t agree to
pretend anymore. The misery that then visits the farm is legendary. Inasmuch as the pig administration in place
claims to advocate for equality, what we see is further from the truth.
Ideally, the pig government is just but a disguised extension of the deposed
human government. This is so because, soon, pigs adopt an upright gait besides
wearing clothes like man and carry agents of slavery in the form of whips. The
disillusionment towards the end of the book cannot be overlooked. Dejected
animals can barely tell apart the pigs from humans since they both look alike
and act the same. The new government has eaten its own subjects just like did
the old regime it claimed to replace.
The central theme of equality partly forms
the subject matter of the thesis statement of this essay. It literally begs the
question: can human beings be equal? Certainly not, as some people must play
second fiddle to others. Perhaps equality was just but a misconstrued notion
meant to play around with people’s minds and raise the hopes of those battered
by life that they too, just like those they consider way ahead of them, can
rise from the ashes like the proverbial phoenix and ‘make it’ someday. But the
bitter truth has it that people can never be equal—there must be rulers and
subjects for instance for a government to exist, failure to which there will
never be a government.
In the novel, the seven commandments are
for inexplicable reason(s), other than the need for personal gratification
through dubious schemes of corruption, summed up into one draconian rule which
explicitly states that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal
than others.” We have all seen this kind of thing in the Kenyan society. Some
people are just deemed ‘untouchable’ and seem to operate from a level different
than ours where neither our rules nor petitions can apply and/or affect them.
This is certainly the height of inequality considering that such individuals
live in the same towns and cities like we do, but seem to operate from a
totally different lane than ours.
The renaming of the farm back to its
original name of ‘The Manor Farm’ is a sure sign of the greatest
disillusionment that sometimes characterizes the human condition. The animals
finally reach a conclusion of hopelessness after a comedy of errors staged by
the pig government. It is utterly obvious that the pig administration is phony
and tottering the entire animals’ existence on the brink of disaster. Fed up
with risking a horrendous crash by trying to commandeer a vehicle he barely
understands, Napoleon finally throws in the towel and agrees to an alliance
with the local farmers. By ceding ground, Napoleon thus kills two birds with a
single stone. First, he successfully thwarts a simmering revolution by the
animals against him and his corrupt administration. Furthermore, he cleverly
eases off himself what was clearly to him, a debilitating yoke of governance.
But he betrays Old Major’s vision beyond forgiveness.
The promises of grandiose dreams and
lives that follow up immediately after the coup are something we can all identify
with. But of notable concern, is the fact that these promises only seem to come
true for a chosen few. Pigs particularly benefit a great deal perhaps because
‘one of their own’ now sits where it matters. They isolate themselves and eat a
rich diet that is different from the rest of the animals. Moreover, they
elevate themselves to positions of leadership and take maximum advantage of
their good fortunes to mercilessly oppress the other animals in the farm. This
is typical of a Kenyan politician’s job description and has only served to
worsen the socio-economic chasm between classes.
Somewhere along the way, it becomes too
obvious that a revolution is in the offing. All the promises of the pig
government have metamorphosed into slavery and there is a lot of grumbling
among the masses. These grumblings certainly denote lack of satisfaction from
quarters feeling less equal than others. The human version of such has always
been industrial actions, like our perennial teachers’ strikes that often end up
in running battles with the police as the government fights back in a frantic
bid to maintain law and order. If there had been equality, then nobody would
have a reason to complain.
Animal Farm is a literary classic that
combines outstanding writing with Orwell’s political leanings. Orwell used the
Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union as an allegory for why revolutions
almost always fail and why humanity can never be equal. Orwell was staunchly
anti-totalitarian and he used his ability to write as a platform for his
political beliefs. Orwell believed that humans were inherently unequal and
nothing could be done to change this fact. I beg to differ.
