From the news desk

Animal Farm and Xenophobia

Share this article

Animal Farm, the feted novel by George Orwell (the nom-de-plume of Eric Arthur Blair) has been studied by generations of learners. Written by a struggling left-wing journalist, it employs the allegory of a farm to tell a tightly-woven tale of how social revolution can turn on itself.

First published in the late 1940’s, I rate Animal Farm – seen by critics as a commentary on the Russian revolution – as one of the finest political satires of the 20th century.

Briefly, it deals with a farm owned by a human, Mr Jones He is a man whose neglectful and drunken ways have caused the animals to mount an uprising. They take over the running of the farm in a frenzy of social idealism imbued with the noble notions of liberty, equality and comradeship.

But it’s not too long before the personalities of the animals begin to emerge. Molly, the conceited white mare, begins to feel that life was better under the previous regime, the humans, as she gets no more titbits.

Meanwhile, the pigs – particularly the two male boars – begin to assert control. They police their growing fiefdom with the dogs (their security forces) and bit-by-bit, the idealism of the revolution is eroded as the sheep unquestioningly follow their master of the day.

The pigs, secular beings with no higher ideals to guide them, become more equal than other animals. Different values begin to apply to them, and their dictatorial and unaccountable ways, seen in their appropriation of privilege for pigs only, is soon painfully noted by the farmyard.

The book ends with a poignant scene: the animals press their noses to the window of the farmhouse as the pigs, slowly taking on human shape, noisily carouse in Mr Jones’ living-room. They are totally oblivious of their fellow farmyard dwellers, and the wheel has turned full circle.

Apart from being an obvious allusion to those gluttonous sycophants currently populating our South African political spaces today, Animal Farm has, I believe, another message.

This is something that I thought about deeply, especially after interviewing Rebecca Shaeffer of Human Rights Watch yesterday on DRIVETIME about a shocking study that revealed immigrants to South Africa were being denied basic medical services.

What was so appalling about the HRW report “No healing here: Violence, Discrimination and Barriers to Health for Migrants in South Africa” was that xenophobia was being not only being practised against migrants by ordinary South Africans, but by health workers in our clinics and hospitals.

“Migrants to South Africa are abused in transit, attacked upon arrival, and then denied care when they are injured or ill,” said Shaeffer, fellow in the health and human rights division of HRW.

“The South African government should be ensuring that these people get the care they need, and are entitled to, under the country’s constitution.”

According to Shaeffer, the Department of Health affirmed these rights; but they weren’t being applied at grassroots where health workers would discriminate against patients on the basis of their nationality or lack of documentation.

Given that migrants, the most vulnerable in our society – and the most prone to illness and injury because of it – were being affected was scandalous she admitted to me, adding that discrimination against foreigners was “institutionalised” in our health care system.

She agreed that our health care system was under severe strain, but that discriminating against foreigners was not the best way to balance budgets.

Apart from that, she said, nobody really knew how many foreigners there were in South Africa. In addition to some kind of census, there needed to be responsible research to establish what their pressing needs were.

But where would attitudes of such despicable racism derive from? Have we South Africans, blighted by three centuries of colonialism and four decades of apartheid, taken on the mantle of the monster we grew to despise?

That was my first question, too easily I must admit, answered by the allegory of the pigs in the living room. For when the big boars begin to play, the rank and file in the farmyard will begin to believe that they can follow suit.

And this is what I think has happened.

Ordinary South Africans, their noses pressed to the living room window of the black elite and the white bourgeois, have taken note. The osmosis of uncaring has filtered down to the ground. We have become Animal Farm’s living room, the locus of Mr Jones’ anaesthetising himself against reality.

Copyright Shafiq Morton


Share this article

20 comments

  1. Animal Farm was my favorite setwork book at school. What’s very sad is that in most instances the same scenario is played out over and over again in so many ‘revolutions’ esp now in South Africa
    The people have voted the ANC in to protect and govern them without prejudice. The ‘pigs’ have forgotten their promises to the masses and are only busy enriching themselves while most people find themselves in a worse situation than before.

  2. all animals are equal,but some animals are more equal than others.

    the other side of the story must also be taken into account,that these new animals in these parts are a bit too much for the indigenous animals.it is as if the new animals operate from a different,far superior paradigm the the local animals.this is where the animosity stems.

  3. All individuals and groups have this potential for corruption and oppression, but not necessarily the specific inclination, as some may hold. The focus on self-importance and improving one’s own material situation, often at the expense of others, permeates all levels of society.

    Religious and cultural traditions generally oppose ruthless pursuits of wealth and status, and are associated with various constructs such as brotherly love, social service and ubuntu.

    Corruption is particularly destructive when those who are corrupt are in positions of power and influence. It is said that power corrupts, but in reality power merely provides that opportunity, that test, to determine one’s level of humanity. Some pass the test with flying colours, others invariably fail.

    The cycle illustrated in Animal Farm is not a universal certainty. Some refer to the dunya as a “messed up world”, yet there also exists within the range of human constitutions the average honest man in the street all the way through to selfless philanthropists – even altruists, and of course the actualised luminaries of the past and present.

    -Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: “I will create a vicegerent on earth.” They said: “Wilt Thou place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed blood?- whilst we do celebrate Thy praises and glorify Thy name?” He said: “I know what ye know not.”- (Al-Baqarah 2:30)

  4. Hullo, how are you doing? I truly like your blog! I am wondering if you can help me (I am sure some other subscribers may also be interested). I want to get into creating a blog as well and I currently have a blog with 1 of the local social web sites, but i would very much like to also be able to make my own blog on my own web site name using wordpress. As a Word press web master yourself, do u maybe know where i could find online tutorials to be able to do this myself??

  5. I know this might not be the most appropriate place to post this but for other readers living in the USA are you concerned about the debt? It just seems like it is getting to the point where the country is going to go bankrupt and my husband and I are just a little concerned that our kids and grandkids are going to have some big problems in a few years. Thanks for letting me vent, Sara

    1. Interesting. The current economic model, based on speculation and interest, is untenable. Credit is the the new slave-master. In Africa we are imprisoned by debt to the IMF and the World Bank. There is no collateral for modern money. None. Governments just print their way out of trouble. Print, print. Money, money. Zimbabwe tried it and look where they are now. Globalisation is a nice way of saying that we’ve all been corporatised. Our leaders work for the company now.

  6. I have been a passionate supporter of this site for a while and not actually given nearly anything back, I hope to improve that in the future with more debate.Thanks for another great addition to your web site.

  7. I was doing a search about this subject, and happened to come across your website. I am thankful for the blog. I will spend some time exploring, and will certainly be bookmarking this place. You’ve got a very good way of writing, and you also chose a excellent structure to match the website. Carry on the great job because you have turned me into a regular reader.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

WhatsApp WhatsApp us
Wait a sec, saving restore vars.