An Animal Farm- the world we live in

"It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody,

in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here.

And the people under the sky were also very much the same—everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this,
people ignorant of one another's existence,
held apart by walls of hatred and lies,
and yet almost exactly the same—people who had never learned to think
but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world."
-George Orwell, 1984

Question: Do you sense the change of the political tranquility in Malaysia for the past one year ?

I can smell the change in the air. It puzzled me that people suddenly become so patriotic and worked up about the political movement in the past one year, and surprisingly those people includes my close friends and love one, who cant even spell correctly the full name of our Prime Minister before this. All of a sudden, politics become the hottest topic at mamak stalls, bloggers become verbal and aggressive when it came to political issue, even Oprah was openly supporting Obama on the tele.

I am really ignorant when it comes to politics. It was never a subject of interest to me, and in my whole life i've never recognized my role as a rightful citizen of this homeland. Its a shame to say that i've never even voted in any national election in my whole life. In my mind, this world of politics is always seen as detached with my 'personal' life, come rain or shine, Barison Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat, my life is still going on, i still need to go to pump petrol every week regardless how is the fuel price, i still need to go to work even though the state government was changed, i still need to pay tax no matter which party become the ruling government.

That was my mindset, at least until last year March election. How it slowly changed from there i am not sure, but what i'm sure that it was in certain ways triggered was by two books which i've read quite some time ago, namely "Animal Farm" by George Orwell and "Night" by Elie Wiesel.

Sister Angie lend me this book by Elie Wiesel last year, which talks about the autobiography of a young Jewish boy (Wiesel) who was send to the Germen concentration camps at Auschwitz (the holocaust) during Second World War. I was literally crying inside when i finished reading the novel. How can one person (Hitler) started a war and the genocide of 10 millions of Jews, Romanians, homosexuals, physically and mentally disabled, and intellectuals.

That led me to the realization of a fact, people suffers when a leader abuse the political power which he/she possessed.

Another extreme example is Joseph Stalin, the famous dictator of Soviet Union Communist Party, who had initiated the cult of personality movement to manipulate his own people into believe he is almost a god like man, but at the same time repress and persecute nearly 2 millions of people accused of corruption and treachery (Great Purge). The story of how the political ideology Communism which started as the ultimate salvation plan for the people of Soviets went wrong after Stalin came into power is described in the book by George Orwell.

Animal Farm was introduced to me by Kim. When i first look at the book's cover, i wondered why did he wanted me to read a children book. But heck, i was deeply impressed after i've finished reading it. It describes a bunch of barnyard animals who overthrow the 'evil' farm owner and then run their own society, just to realized in the end that they have created another human equivalently bad (or even worse) leader- the pigs. The story represent the human characteristic in an analogy of animal instincts, of course Stalin is THE pig in the story, and the way Orwell described the propaganda and the manipulation of the Piggy Stalin are so real and alarming. It describes the doomsday of a precipitated change in such a vivid manner.

Anyway, i plan to read Orwell's sequel to animal farm-"1984" next, which talk about similar manipulation and distortion of political ideology to implement dictatorship, and the interesting thing is the term BIG BROTHER (remember the stupid UK reality show?), thought police, room 101 were all coined by him in this book.

Anyway, anyone want to join me for a cuppa and a book on a lazy Saturday morning?