Orwellian revolutions

In 1945, George Orwell wrote Animal Farm, a satire on a presumably revolutionary leadership that reveals itself to be substantially no better – and possibly considerably worse – than the reactionary regime it topples. The brutally oppressed farm animals led by their smartest colleagues – the pigs – rebelled against their human overlords and took over control of Animal Farm. Installed as authorities, the pigs’ revolutionary rhetoric proved illusory as they increasingly endowed themselves prerogatives and perks which were systematically denied their trusting constituency. In the end, the trusted pigs and the erstwhile human masters of Animal Farm met in a shed and conspired jointly against the other farm animals.

The last scene in Orwell’s satire is unforgettable. Unknown to the conspirators, the animals were looking through the shed’s windows and as they looked first at the pigs and then to the toppled humans and then back to the pigs again, there was hardly any difference they could discern. Those aliens who cruelly exploited them in the past and those of their kind who now exploit them at least as severely as the aliens had a common face, that of unmitigated greed.

Literate Filipinos often see Orwell’s satire as directed at those who preached or radically transforming feudal and capitalistic orders into model communist societies. On the other hand, those who have a sharper sense of Philippine history might wonder whether Animal Farm is also not properly located in this country. The critique need not be of any specific ideology whether communist, socialist, fascist or otherwise. It only has to be a generalized discourse on the theme of greed and revolutionary betrayal.

While there are noble and patriotic exceptions, Filipino political leaders who trumpet their nationalistic and revolutionary commitments have generally found it easy to collaborate with any dominant power – alien or otherwise – in the Philippines. To them, the basic issue deciding the question of collaboration has never been the national interest – the interest of the masses who entrust their material welfare, their political edification and spiritual development to the nation’s elite, their considered superiors in social position, education and –erroneously – even patriotism.

Most leaders of this country have reflected one irrevocable proposition in their political calculus. A compelling trinity – I, Myself and Me – spell the totality of their proposition and monopolize their uncompromising loyalty. Thus, it made little difference whether one had a context of Spanish, American or Japanese imperialism in the Philippines. For that matter, it also made no significant difference whether these conquistadores for one reason or another decided to formally vacate the country and leave its administration to much-focused Filipino leaders. Local talent can be as ruthlessly efficient as foreign genius in this nation’s oligarchic administration. The irrefutable proof of this statement is the consistency with which more and more people join the ranks of the impoverished in this country. This obverse and cruel fact is directly linked to its reverse and nauseating reality – the presence of a few, fabulously wealthy Filipinos who consort with the world’s richest and most sybaritic personalities.

After a procession of EDSA’s, each one claiming revolutionary status, Filipinos would do well to monitor the gains the entire nation had made on account of each people power revolution. Good leaders are effective leaders and no credible claim for national improvement can issue from those who mouth revolutionary causes even as they facilitate reactionary consequences.

It would be instructive to put together a historian’s list of national leaders who have been linked to any revolutionary inspiration, cause or movement. Then during the lifetime of any one of those on this list, let there be a study of how the person and/or his family had done materially and parallel this information with data on the material condition of most Filipinos for the same period. (Or allowing for some lag time, for the same period and say a decade or two beyond.)

It would be interesting to find out how many of our national leaders identified with revolutionary causes moved in consonance with the material condition of their national constituency. Or, while the latter suffered material degradation, how many of their leaders experienced phenomenal improvement in their material well-being.

The project could be titled A Squalid Search for Swines, or, alternatively, A Patriotic Search for Heroes. Even in this badly confused nation, there must be enough people who can distinguish between swines and heroes. Presence or absence in EDSA – then, now or in the future – is a poor delineator given this concern and can only confound the nation even more. After all, none of the EDSAs to date has firmly settled the questions of who among Filipinos – present or absent in any EDSA – are veritable patriots and who, on the other hand, are indubitable swines.