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Trinidad and Tobago or Animal Farm ?

Trinidad and Tobago or Animal Farm ?

The Editor,

Any student of Literature worth his salt could draw the following possible equivalents from a comparison of our assumed political situation and George Orwell's Animal Farm. If I did not know better, I would have assumed that the book was probably based on the present political occurrences in our beloved T and T.

Take a look at a few characters and situations.

Napoleon : A fearless, fearsome, strong-armed ruler who is at first amicable and then brutal. He commands an elite force of guard dogs ( special force). He alone is in charge, listens to no one, answers to no one and generally does what he wants. His ruling "cabinet" is filled with yes men, who fulfill his every fantasy or pay in blood. His treachery knows no bounds.

Snowball : The charismatic leader who in the beginning extends the hand of friendship to Napoleon ( does this seem familiar ? ) He is shamelessly ousted by Napoleon and his cohorts and left as a memory in the hearts of the people. However, the shameless Napoleon still blames every setback, every problem, every hurdle on the poor Snowball, who did great things for the people. He poor fellow, did not get to finish the windmill either, an energy INTERCHANGE. That became POORLY constructed by Napoleon later.

Mollie : A foolish citizen who did not care, once she had food and pretty ribbons (or a CEPEP job).

Clover : A simple citizen who knew that something was wrong but was unable to act without guidance.

Boxer : The easily fooled, honest, hard working citizen who believes in the leader blindly and still ends up as glue and dog food.

Squealer : The typical propaganda machinery which can convince anyone that all animals are equal but some are more equal than others. This machine can make black look white or retrenchment with extreme prejudice look like restructuring.

In his book, Orwell describes secret, clandestine meetings, disappearance of citizens who were probably murdered, secret defection of citizens with refugee status to other farms, sale of valuable assets, seizing of valuable assets and drinking these at the end of the book, suffering of the masses, dependency syndrome, attempted revolutions and protests, arrests and punishment of leaders, lies, half truths and innuendoes. Openly denouncing one type of government and then sitting at th table with the same governments eating and drinking ? Question : does any of this sound familiar????????

However the maxim remained through it all, BLAME IT ON SNOWBALL.
At the risk of angering Mr. Panday, he does seem to fit Snowball's character well and as such, I may well say BLAME IT ON PANDAY as the maxim here in T and T. Please Lord, let the wind blow gently, lest Panday be blamed for a Tornado.

In ending Mr. Orwell says that it was difficult to tell which was animal and which was man. I ask you, can you tell ? Congratulations to Mr. Orwell on his book T and T ......Oops, sorry, Animal Farm.

Trinidad and Tobago News

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