My dear boy,
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” My mother did not hesitate to throw that around at the slightest opportunity. It was a way to remind us that hierarchy existed in the world. Oh, boy, was our house very hierarchical! The boundaries were clear. Everyone knew where they belonged: who was above them, who was beneath them, and their equals. This distinction was well reflected in the rationing of food and allowance. Compensation appeared in the guise of bonuses, even though they came wrapped in a justifiable reason. In the end, you could guess who the favourite child was, but that guess changed with the day.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm remains one of the most powerful political allegories ever written. Thus, the gusto with which my mother told George Orwell’s Animal Farm could have led us to claim they wrote it together. Then again, Animal Farm holds something true about teachers, their influence, and their role in nation-building.
Old Major, who is described as “the prize Middle White boar,” dies. Nevertheless, he tells everyone on the farm about his dream. Even better, he traps his dream in the lyrics of a song titled, Beasts of England. “The singing of this song threw the animals into the wildest excitement.” Refer to Why Tragedy Sells to better understand the storytelling technique used. Also, in Sinners, we understand that music is a portal into the nether world; it speaks directly to the soul. We understand this when Annie says, “There are legends of people with the gift of making music so true it can conjure spirits from the past and the future. This gift can bring fame and fortune. But it also can pierce the veil between life and death.”
Anyway, Orwell, in Chapter Two, tells us that “the work of teaching and organizing the others fell naturally upon the pigs, who were generally recognized as being the cleverest of the animals.” Orwell carefully presents to us a wisdom for execution. First, you teach, then you organise. But many wish to organise before teaching. It proves futile, in that teaching nudges or makes malleable a stiff mind. Hence, it becomes somewhat undemanding to organise or categorise. Simply put, catch the fish and then wash it. Doing otherwise soon proves impractical.
Another salient point presented by Orwell is that teaching is a launch pad to power. Teaching is a knowledge-transference ability. Call it effective communication, if you may. But none succeeds at policy execution without it, my boy. We also find that the Holy Scripture is keen on one’s ability to transfer knowledge gained for the sake of continuity. Apostle Paul corroborates the same when he charges Timothy, thus, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.” Otherwise, society grinds to a halt. Old Major’s dream of rebellion would have died with him had he not had the pigs to see to its execution.
Furthermore, Orwell highlights that the song Old Major sings to us in Chapter One is in Chapter Two, conceptualised into a complete system of thought called “Animalism” by Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer. They elaborate this in their secret meetings in the barn, expounding the principles of Animalism. These principles are reduced to the Seven Commandments after three long months of learning to read and write. However, Snowball, in Chapter Three, realises that long words are a burden. He reduces the Seven Commandments into a single maxim, thus, “Four legs good, two legs bad.” As such, Orwell sheds light on how to create a movement from scratch: reduce complex thought systems into memorable lines.
My dear boy, a man poised for leadership must set his sights on the future. Orwell makes this reveal when he states, “Napoleon took no interest in Snowball’s committees. He said that the education of the young was more important than anything that could be done for those who were already grown up. It happened that Jessie and Bluebell had both whelped soon after the hay harvest, giving birth between them to nine sturdy puppies. As soon as they were weaned, Napoleon took them away from their mothers, saying that he would make himself responsible for their education. He took them up into a loft which could only be reached by a ladder from the harness-room, and there kept them in such seclusion that the rest of the farm soon forgot their existence.” It is therefore no surprise that such proactiveness installs him as a leader of the farm.
Although Orwell quips that, “The reading and writing classes, however, were a great success. By the Autumn almost every animal on the farm was literate in some degree. As for the pigs, they could already read and write perfectly.” He further explains that, ‘The dogs learned to read fairly well, but were not interested in reading anything except the Seven Commandments. Muriel, the goat, could read somewhat better than the dogs, and sometimes used to read to the others in the evenings from scraps of newspaper which she found on the rubbish heap.”
It is foreshadowing on Orwell’s part to mention the dogs, who could read fairly well, yet were only interested in the Commandments, in succession to the pigs, as an indication of their longing for political appointments. These dogs are metaphorical public university professors and academic staff engaged by electoral commissions as Returning Officers and Collation Officers for general elections. The irony is that these public university professors are responsible for the ASUU strikes. These were not a kind of thunderstrike, nor of any natural element. These were work strikes due to unpaid salaries and arrears, as well as little to no funding from the government. The same government run by those they fraudulently declared election winners.
In Chapter Five, these dogs raised by Napoleon charge and expel Snowball at the command of Napoleon. A reminder, my dear boy, that He who controls the process well enough controls the outcome.
As time progressed, little yet detrimental edits were made to the commandments, but none could do much as they could not read. Beasts of England was banned. It became,
“Animal Farm, Animal Farm.
Never, through me, shalt thou come to harm.”
The subtly edited Seven Commandments eventually becomes, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” And the hallowed maxim then becomes, “Four legs good, two legs better.”
Be cautious of those who seek to change the anthem. Theirs is the desire to change your thought system. A new thought system is a new worldview; It is a new culture. Mind you, that tradition is not altogether evil. Certain things must remain. See, tradition is proof of age, a testament to having become.
Orwell, through this literary classic, submits that we ought to understand the language in which our laws are written, for in them will our history be written also.
Love,
Dad.
