Sunday, September 25, 2016

NIPPING DISLOYALTY IN THE BUD

“Imagine a world where everyone is free to say what they want. Where animals can just wake up and tell other animals in their social circles what they want. Where animals can spread rumours about holy farm hands or god forbid, about our righteous and beloved White. Would that be complete chaos?”

A turkey called Tolo-Tolo who once fought for the right of animals to speak under the cow Goodhead was speaking at a convention of Whitist worshippers. As Tolo-Tolo spoke, the Whitist worshippers cheered and rained insults on all the animals who felt it was their right to speak out against White. Animals had a way of being ungrateful. They wanted change on the farm. They wanted Goodhead out. And now they were daring to complain about the farm. 

The farm hands in the various animal quarters were busy. The leaders of the animals quarters were tightening their grip on the public space. They were tying up animals that insulted them. In the canine quarters where White was born, the leader, Mai Tsami, an old wolf whose face looked like a lemon that was going bad was busy typing up a bunch of young bull dogs for asking why he distributed coffins to animals on the canine farm. Mai Tsami got his dogs to chase down the bull dogs and drag them to him where they were accused with causing disaffection among canines and inciting the animal public against Mai Tsami. And Mai Tsami was right. Once you let animals speak freely, then the whole farm will turn into one chaotic convention of free speech. 

Elsewhere, White had detained and harassed a parrot who had been telling stories about the wild dogs in the north of the farm. The parrot Sal Qaeda, had flown out of the farm for fear of his life and was lured back by farm hands of White, particularly the genocidal farm hand Dick-Tai. As Sal Qaeda flew back, they told him to tell everyone he was being treated like a king when in fact they were sticking broom sticks in his anus. He thought that when he helped them, they would let him go the way the farm management had always let him go even during the days of Goodhead. But then the problem with parrots is that once you let them go, they start to tell stories. And so Sal Qaeda began to cry out and say that his life was in danger. Dick-Tai laughed a deep genocidal laugh when Sal Qaeda began screaming. “Look at what I did to the bats,” he said to his friends, “You think if I wanted to make Sal Qaeda disappear I would not have already done it? Does he know how many bats I made disappear?” 

Meanwhile, hunger spread throughout the farm and the farm management was considering selling off some of the yam barns and plots of land so that it could raise money to buy food for the many starving animals. The animal in charge of the farms resources was a goat called Felefele who used to live large under Goodhead but who secretly supported White as he became farm manager. Many animals could not understand why White would not let Felefele go especially with the way he was managing the farms resources. But White was wise and patient and loving and kind. And White could do no wrong. 

White was preparing to bring back an old rule he used when he was a young violent wolf and he made his farm hands prepare to make animals join queues and stand in straight lines. “I hate crooked lines,” White said, “it makes me dizzy.”

“Look at all the great farms. They all stand in orderly queues. This surely is the secret to a successful farm: standing in straight lines. Straight lines make us see clearly, which in turn makes us think clearly.”

Animals were going to be flogged with canes if they did not follow the orders of White’s farm hands who were going to be recruited to preserve order. 

“And you know when you stand still in a straight line, you don’t feel as hungry as you do when you just do whatever you,” White said, assuring hungry animals that this was going to solve the food crisis. 

The farm was blessed to have White as a visionary leader who could reach into his past and bring back something that worked without even charging the animals anything. All free. It would take an animal who was wise to see how much foresight White had.

And Goodhead’s wife was angry that White had confiscated her yams, saying that as a female cow, males always gave gifts to her. 

And the leader of the crocodiles continued positioning himself to replace White. 

And the animals got more and more hungry.

And farm hands prepared to bring back the queues and straight lines. 

And animals kept getting tied up by farm leaders for talking about them in their social circles. 

And worshippers of White became more and more excited, singing: Rejuvenation begins with me.

And the Whitist priests chanted and prayed:

In the name of the White father
And of the farm hands
And of the holy Whitists…

Bless us White for we have sinned
Bless our thoughts
Bless our desires
Bless our intentions

Blessed be thy name
Thy will be done in every quarter among every animal species
Teach us to love your will
Teach us to be teachable
Teach us to trust your will even when your will may not be clear
Teach us to defend your will before it becomes your will
For thine are the decisions, the thoughts and the glory
For as long as you choose to be farm leader

Amen




Sunday, September 18, 2016

REJUVENATION BEGINS WITH ME


White, the immaculate, furry wolf who had been running the now deteriorating animal farm for over a year, was growing weary. Apart from managing a pain in his anus for which he was receiving treatment, the whole governance business exhausted him. He was tired of the complaints of ungrateful disloyal animals, especially non-wolves. He was tired of the animals with good memories, especially the elephants who remembered every single thing he promised when he was trying to take over from the cow that ran the farm before, Goodhead. The elephants recited his promises to him. They reminded him that he promised rejuvenation. That he promised 5 bags of grain to each animal family that couldn't afford food. That he promised to stabilise the exchange rate of grains. That he promised not to be like he was as a young, violent, aggressive wolf. He promised he had changed. He was born again. 

White was tired. And so his farm hands, seeing the wrinkles on his face, devised a plan. It was an amazing plan. They told him to flip the tables. “Change things,” they said, “make them work for it. You are wise and benevolent. You are kind and holy. No one should make you tired. Yes, you promised rejuvenation, but so what? What work are the lazy animals doing? Do they not have a duty also to rejuvenate themselves? When they are hungry do they not look for food? When they are thirsty do they not look for water? Do they wait for their bodies to magically rejuvenate? Why do they place this great burden on you?”

White heard this great argument and was convinced. He thus commissioned a new slogan titled: “Rejuvenation Begins With You” with posters of camels drinking water at a stream. He spent a lot of money launching this project and said it was directed at making animals take responsibility for their own lives. “If a camel is thirsty, it drinks. And it stores water inside its body for times of drought. All animals must make rejuvenation of the farm start with them.”

White spoke passionately (even though he still felt a pain in his anus when he squatted to defecate) and told animals to take their destinies into their own hands and not wait for him to fix the farm. And the worshippers of White fell on their faces and cried out in praises, calling White wise and great. And they painted it on their bodies: Rejuvenation Begins With Me. And they preached it. And they sang it. 

White was still tired. Tired of having to say a new thing each time he visited a different set of animals. “They expect me to have a new speech every time, like I had words waiting in my paws.” And the farm hands of White too were tired of writing new speeches. And they made a list of great speeches made by great farm managers across the animal world. They read through those speeches and picked out the ones they really liked and circled the paragraphs that would resonate with animals on the farm. And each time White would go out they would sneak in a paragraph from those speeches so that White would not have to make up all the words himself. Because White was tired. And they were tired. And White did not read enough to detect when his speech was stolen. And in the end, it was just words; no one owns words. 

While all this was going on, the wife of the former farm manager Goodhead, who almost wrecked the farm with his theft, was living her life peacefully. The farm hands of White who were looking into the theft by Goodhead’s farm hands found lots of grains stashed in a field owned by Goodhead’s wife, a female cow who had eaten so much of the farms grains she looked like she was about to burst. And she swore that all those grains were to maintain her weight because she was told by the veterinarian she met outside the farm (and he took a lot of grain for his treatment), that she needed quite a lot of grain to maintain her body weight and that if her body weight dropped, she could have a heart attack. 

And although White swore and promised that he was going to imprison all the animals that had stolen grain together with Goodhead, White was too tired to see it through. And he settled for embarrassing them in public. He released information about their theft so that the whole farm would know. But he didn’t have the energy to actually imprison the senior animals who had stolen with Goodhead. 

And the leader of the crocodile farm kept quietly plotting to replace White. 

And there was famine creeping up on the animals in the farm.

And the worshippers of White chanted: Rejuvenation Begins With Me.

And the farm hands castigated the elephants who had long memories. 

And the entire farm went into a recession.

And the farm hands said that recession was just a word. (And they were right)

And grains became more expensive.

And the farm hand in charge of grains blamed the rising cost of grains on the disloyal animals who ate too much grains. 

And Whitist priests prayed:

In the name of the White father
And of the farm hands
And of the holy Whitists…

Bless us White for we have sinned
Bless our thoughts
Bless our desires
Bless our intentions

Blessed be thy name
Thy will be done in every quarter among every animal species
Teach us to love your will
Teach us to be teachable
Teach us to trust your will even when your will may not be clear
Teach us to defend your will before it becomes your will
For thine are the decisions, the thoughts and the glory
For as long as you choose to be farm leader


Amen

Sunday, September 4, 2016

THE RESURRECTION OF WHITE


And it came about that on the farm agitation grew especially among the animals who had organised and campaigned for White to become farm manager. As hunger grew among the animals and other non-wolf species began to feel afraid and threatened, animals started accusing each other of deceiving farm animals about the abilities of White to transform the farm into a better place after the destruction by Goodhead and his friends. 

Most animals had very little recollection of when White was once farm manager. When Goodhead was still a little animal jumping about and having fun, White was a young, strong, vicious black wolf. In his first period as farm manager, no one chose him to become farm manager. He bullied his way in. He attacked the farm manager at the time, a docile duck called Drinkgarri who only knew how to eat, shit and float on water. White and his other canine and big cat friends were so irritated with Drinkgarri and his terrible handling of the farm and his shitting everywhere and his coiled penis that dangled right after he had mounted a female duck that they jumped into the water where he was, plucked his feathers, bound his wings and kicked him aside. Drinkgarri was fortunate not to have been killed even. White was asked to take over power and he began the process of changing the rules and making life tough for the animals. He asked his newly appointed farm hands to use whips to keep the animals in line. For animals whom White thought were too problematic, rules were created to execute them. White introduced food rations and cut the farm off from farms around. He tied up any animals that tried to embarrass him or his farm hands. However, while he was forceful and stern, he knew little about running a farm or feeding the animals. And so, not so many months after he had introduced hunger and terror on the farm, his own friends decided he was too harsh in running the farm and more so, had no clue how to bring prosperity back to the farm. 

A couple of decades later, White had now shed off his black fur, acquired white fur and was looked upon as an animal that was clean, immaculate. All he was, was old.  Age had turned black to white. And desperation had turned evil to good. And as the animals who were desperate to remove Goodhead needed options, they looked to the old born again White. He looked bright and beautiful and holy and loving. The animals seeing White as a replacement told animals to forget about White’s history of brutality, rigidity, favouring his own species and a lack of understanding of how to run the farm. They showed animals his white fur and said that this meant he was clean and hadn't killed any prey or rolled in the mud. And that what the farm needed was a clean farm manager. They told everyone that he was only brutal in the past because he was young and the animals he was dealing with were quite stubborn. They said that once a clean farm manager came into power, every other thing would fall into place. The farm’s economy. The farm’s darkness. The farm’s violence. And White smiled and nodded along, silently.

The animals believed all of this. And they erased the history that showed White in his youthful, destructive prime. And they presented him in all his white glory as the messiah of all animals. 

In the beginning of White’s second coming, his friends defended him. They begged animals on the farm to give him time. They told animals, Goodhead was so bad, it was impossible to fail without him being the direct cause. Slowly, as White became more and more deaf and as the violence around him increased, even his friends - animals who had contributed resources to his campaign - began to complain. White was not listening to anyone. He was doing what pleased him, when it pleased him. And it became harder and harder for the slaves who worked for White to craft new lies to defend his actions or the actions of rogue or murderous or clueless farm hands who paraded themselves as agents of White. Then they stopped lying altogether and began asking animals to endure all the pain because it was not the fault of White that there was darkness or hunger or scarcity of water. It was the fault of Goodhead. 

“Suffering is just a word,” a frog farm hand of White called Kermit swore. “Darkness is just a word. Thirst is just a word. Hunger is just a word. Genocide of bats is just a phrase. And whether it is a word or a phrase, it is fine as long as you can take your mind off it. We, as faithful and loyal believer in White, shall overcome.”

The animals who groped around in darkness were shocked at this. The animals whose throats were parched were shocked at this. The surviving relatives of bats, who were massacred by White’s farm hand Dick-Tai were too busy mourning to be shocked by this - they were too busy looking for their dead and asking how hundreds of animals could just be massacred without consequence. 
But the farm hands had an idea. They had a solution. The reason why nothing was working on the farm was because animals were sinful, not prayerful enough and not hateful enough of Goodhead. They did not trust White enough. If only they were patient. Endure the darkness. Endure the pain. Endure the hunger. Endure the stench of massacred bats. 

And bigger altars were built for the worship of White. And louder speakers were acquired to drown out the animals who were saying that White was still White from two decades before. And they prayed:

In the name of the White father
And of the farm hands
And of the holy Whitists…

Bless us White for we have sinned
Bless our thoughts
Bless our desires
Bless our intentions

Blessed be thy name
Thy will be done in every quarter among every animal species
Teach us to love your will
Teach us to be teachable
Teach us to trust your will even when your will may not be clear
Teach us to defend your will before it becomes your will
For thine are the decisions, the thoughts and the glory
For as long as you choose to be farm leader

Amen