Animal Farm (Present Myanmar version in English)

Animal Farm

(Present Myanmar version in English)

One of my favourite “fairy stories” is ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell. This is one of the educating books with a hidden message .This ANIMAL FARM somehow had a special place in my heart as a classics/satire reflecting our country. I have attempted the merging of the Animal Farm story into the Burma/Myanmar scene. I hope some one will be able to write the full adaptation of this animal firm in Burmese Language later. 

George Orwell (Eric Blair) was an Englishman born in Bengal and after graduated at Eton, England, he worked in Burma for five years with the British Imperial Colonial Police. He disliked social injustices and opposed both Capatilism and Communism. He passed away in 1984. He also wrote “Burmese Days”.

Long long time ago there was a farm called Burma that had all types of animals living in it. Their animal instinct was so strong that even today when you stay in that farm called Myanmar you will find some of them still behave like bloody animals. As they say, you can take the animal out of the farm but you can never take the farm attitude out of the animal.

The farm owner, who was popularly known as ‘The Empire’ was cruel to the animals. ‘The Empire’ treated all the animals very unfairly.

‘The Empire’ knew that they are not the original owner of the farm but had taken it by force. So they used many tactics to hold on the power. To ensure that the animals do not unite, ‘The Empire’ practiced a concept called ‘divide and rule’.  

He told the animals called Bamas that they are the original animals on the farm and all other animals are interlopers (Kalas and Uncivilized Hill Tribes in local animal terminology). ‘The Empire’ then brought in other types of animals from India and China for cheap labour. And while he put all the Bamas in one enclosure, he put the new animals in separate enclosures to ensure the animals do not mix and start becoming too friendly.

‘The Empire’ was actually very successful in his divide and rule strategy. ‘The Empire’ thought it would be a good idea if they started to teach some human tricks such as the alphabet and arithmetic and set up a college in Rangoon. They intended to produce a new breed of educated animals to work as Senior Civil Servants for them. Even if not, at least it would keep the animals occupied. And it was quaint seeing those animals dressed up like ‘The Empire’ and sitting in rows repeating after ‘The Empire’, ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘I’, ‘2′, ‘3′.

But what ‘The Empire’ did not realise is, the Burmese started to become too smart for their own good. Some of the cleverer animals thought that it is not that difficult running a farm. Even we could do this, they said. So, one day, these cleverer animals gathered all the animals for a secret meeting and plotted how to drive ‘The Empire’ out so that the animals could take over the farm and run it themselves.  

‘The Empire’ treats us animals as second class beings, said the cleverer Burmese. Whenever any animal refuses to listen or protests, it is locked up and separated from the other animals, said the cleverer Burmese. ‘The Empire’ is enjoying all the profits while we animals do all the work on the farm, said the cleverer Burmese. We animals came here first and should be the owners of this farm while ‘The Empire’, who just came here recently, takes over as if he owns this farm, said the cleverer animals. ‘The Empire’ is corrupt, said the cleverer Burmese. ‘The Empire’ does not practice equality, said the cleverer Burmese. If we animals take over this farm all animals will be treated equal, said the cleverer animals. All the animals became very excited at hearing this and they gleefully agreed to the idea. So they started to plot as to how to get rid of ‘The Empire’.

In fact, later on, some of the Burmese with great vision got smarter than even ‘The Empire’ and some of the Burmese introduced a new idea to all the animals. The clever vision or concept of not accepting that the ‘The Empire’ were not the Masters and Burmese Animals are not the slaves. And they start calling themselves “The Master/Sir” in local Burmese dialect. These Master or Thakin group then started to revolt ‘The Empire’ with the help of Wild Pigmy animals, the desendents of the “Rising Sun” from the east. But those Easterners became too Cockey and showed all the cruel animal instints. So all the animals repelled  those cruel animal masters with the help of the old masters ‘The Empire’.  

At the end all the animals from Burma Farm were united and they all prepared to revolt again and ‘The Empire’ understood that they were weak after the 2nd. Animal World War and have no choise but to give back the Farm to the original owners. ‘The Empire’ abandoned the farm so quickly he did not even have time to pack his things and he left everything behind for the animals to take over.

Now the animals own the farm and the ‘The Empire’ no longer rules over them. But not all animals are clever. Some animals just follow the herd like normal animals do, while some animals are manipulative and use other animals for their own gain. So the cleverer animals got together and plotted on how they could now become just like ‘The Empire’ and get the other animals to work for them while they just rest and enjoy the fruits of these animals’ labour.  

The best leader all the animals loved, Good White Elephant King (called Saddan Sin Min) was assinated by a big Galon bird even before he was officially crowned. The plot was said to be incited by the deputy of the Sin Min, White Big Boar Master, Shoe Maung. Later while the different animals start quarrelling each group about their own territories. Some tigers start to urinate some of the tree trunks to mark their own territories. Foxes and wolves also follow the same restrictions to mark their own territories.  

So the Burma Farm’s Democratic Authority was forcefully taken over by  White Wild Boar Master Shoe Maung with his cohort pigs declaring that they are saving the Burma Farm from disintegration into many small pieces. He was very clever smart and declared a vision for all the animals. “Our Animal’s Belief” and “Burmese Animal’s Way of Socialism”

“Burmese Animal’s Way of Socialism”was actually a very clever idea. All the animal must work hard and they would get same profit. Rich animal’s shops, factories, properties were “animal-nationalized” and put into his Boar-pigs’ Army pocket. All the animal banks, animal training sc hools, animal movie cinamas etc are taken over the Wild Boar’s pig association of army. Because of the cruel Big Animal Socialist Association’s mismanagement the whole farm became power, no enough food, no leasures, no luxuries, and there were sporadic spread of animal diseases all the animals revolt and dethrown the Big Wild Boar.  

The daughter of the revered Saddan Sin Min, fighting Peacock princess was chosen to lead the animal kingdom. But the other Boars and Pigs Army who used to enjoy all the previliges took over the farm again. They renamed themselves SLORC/SPDC Boar Generals’ Animal mili tary government. And they put the famous princess peacock into animal jail and later confiment in her own cage.

Whenever any animal wanted to embark on an enterprise, it would have to offer a 30% interest to the animal association known as SLORC/SPDC Boar Generals’ wives and another 20% to one of the local Pig Association. If any animal was to protest this, it would be locked away under their Animal Laws that they announce or update every week.

Anyway, in the meantime, the SPDC Boar Pig group, who by now had learnt all British, Japanese, communist dirty tactics tried to learn further from a very famous Middle east desert country’s POISINOUS BEES’ Intelligent tricks by sending Burmese Animal agents disguised as going to learn to breed bees. Now after learning all the Inteligent Agencies  tricks around the animal world, SPDC BOARS had now become quite clever, know how to enjoy even the fruits of the animals rebels’ black market trades and knowledge of collecting protecting or gate fees and to squeeze profit from animal popy growers and drugtrafficers. The the animals were doing all the work while SPDC Generals were getting rich and fat. While the corrupted Military cronies wine and dine the nation’s wealth away all the animals of the farm are almost starving to death.

 Some of the animals who voised that they were not happy with this were locked  up under Panel Code Fish ( Fish in Burmese also means five) by the cleverer animals from Boars pigs army, just like the old master ‘The Empire’ did before. But all the animals now learnt that The old master ‘The Empire’ were gentlemen and humane and present SLORC goons are cruel animals and treated the animal prisoners very badly. Especially Political animal prisoners were well treated by ‘The Empire’ but the present SPDC goons treated the political animal prisoners worse than the criminal animals. Soon the protest died down as the animals were very terrified of being locked up. You see, animals like wide open spaces where they are free to roam. They don’t like being locked up. The very thought of being locked up cows the animals into submission and silence. And as you know, cows always follow the herd. This is called herd mentality.

Now the animals realised that the cleverer animals were now worse than ‘The Empire’. Some of the older animals that still remembered the days when ‘The Empire’ was running the farm actually longed for those good old days again. But it was too late. ‘The Empire’ or their cousin Americans were now gone and would never return. And anyone who plotted with ‘The Empire’ or USA would be regarded as a traitor and would be slaughtered and his meat sold to the market.

In the Burma/Myanmar version of Animal Farm, Ne Win and Than Shwe would be equivalent to one of the prize Berskhire Boars mentioned in George Orwell’s version. The Myanmar Military and Kyant Pyut as the pigs with the ruling clique in SPDC Junta being the Berkshire boars; the non-army people are all the other animals such as the horses, goats, chickens, geese, etc. NLD U Tin Oo corresponds to Snowball who was kicked out of Army just like Snowball was kicked out of Animal Farm. General Aung San may be honoured as Saddan Sin Min or His Royal Highness White Elephant. His daughter Daw Aung San Su Kyi would be a “Fearless Fighting Peacock Princess”.

Junta ass-licking journalists from mainstream newspapers represents Squealer, the pig in Animal Farm which always spin stories to convince the other animals that what the pigs do is always right….And of course the Military IntelligenceI, BSI, and the police are the dogs of Myanmar Junta let loose to terrorise all the o ther animals into submission..

Finally in Animal Farm ruled by successive Myanmar Animal Army leaders: ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS….

 Because of the history lessons learnt from the British-empire’s  successfull  implementation of the ‘Divide’ and ‘Rule’ concept, even after more than 58 years of independent Myanmar Military is still copying that GAME PLAN OF DIVIDE AND RULE. 

There are greedy animals which joined Myanmar Animal Socialist Party, Animal Kyant Phut, Animal Maternity Child Welfare Associations to get power, to get protection and to be rich. Look, if you were the friends and relatives of the Animal Military or the above Animal Associations, you could get land , given petrol permits, permits to buy various goods, contracts e.t.c.

All are equal, but some are more equal than others. Many animals are descriminated depend on their skin colour, the corner of the Animal Firm they are born, their race, religion. Some animal groups are descriminated because they are not the original species but their great great grandfathers had migrated to the Myanmar/Burma from neighbouring farms long time ago. They even could not get the basic animal rights as the residence of Myanmar Animal Firm.

All the Animals migrated out the Burma/Myanmar now know that once an animal is accepted as the adoptive member in any new firm, they were accorded all the same basic animal rights as the original animals, at least on paper.

Today, a handful of the cleverer animals are now running the farm while the others do all the work on the farm. The cleverer animals are given a special name so that you could recognise them from the normal animals. They are called Myanmar Animal Army and ex-Army animals. and many are Ministers, Directors, Managers supervisors e.t.c. above all the animals.. All the working animals are called Civilian MyanmarAnimals. And the Myanmar Animal Army own all the wealth and monopolized all the permits and contracts of the farm.

Today, we can see the very rich Army Generals that got fat on the toil and sweat of the ordinary working Myanmar animals. Animal Junta Generals  are used to have the overdose of power and wealth that intoxicates and corrupts their animal soul. The Chief Boars used to get Rabies or some times Mad Cow’s disease and became megalomaniac.  

First Chief Boar Chief Master Shoe Maungg tried to marry into old ex-Royal Burmese family but failed. Second Boar Chief got Mad Cow’s disease and claimed that he was Kyansittha. Present Chief Boar is claiming to be the desendent of the last Burmese King Thi Paw but as a desendent he could not get the full two syllables of the last King’s name  but the last one “PAW” only, which means in local Burmese Animal language to be crazy.  

The Chief Big Boar’s one crony pig became filthy rich that he imported two civilian version of the American Animal Army Jeeps, he used one and give one to his unofficial brother-in-law who happens to be Big Boar Chief’s son. That big crony even bought and give two helicopters to the Animal Army Government. Actually that was just a peanut for him when he got the monopoly to supply all the Animal Military supplies  for Burma Animal Farm Army from Russia Animal Farm Army.  

But the ordinary animals even have to giveup the balanced diet of Protein for a long time and some even could not even have regular rice to eat but have to buy the bottled rice water for their meal.

But all the other animals dare not do anything about this because those animals dare to question or demonstrate are repeatedly mass slaughtered and already sold out their meat. Some of the animals are now suffering long term confinements in animal jails. So the rest  are all struggling with their miserable lives earning just to survive. The wheels of the economy are slowing down, earning power is less and cost of living is sky high but continues to rise daily so much that a lot of animals legally and illegally moved out of the farm to other farms. Some working and many illegally in other farms around the world.

 In 1967 The Boars slaughtered a lot of Pandas who originated from the Nothern Sina Farm just with some minor excuse of showing support to the Nothern Dragon King.  

And that Boars repeatedly sacrifice many Camels and destroyed their Bedoin Tents just to divert the attention of the discontented animals who are angry with the Boars. And according to the divide and rule policy they learned from their old masters, they repeatedly created numerous problems among the different animal groups. Because most of the animals are reluctant to fight with their friend s or sa me species, the Boars smear charcoal on the face of the animals so that they could not recognize each other. 

So during the White Monkey Calander of 8888 the animals revolted and got some progress. Many animals inside and outside were wishing for the another revolt in the year of 9999 according to the same White Monkey Calander, but it was fizzled out.  

Now some animals including me are hoping for a final assault on 666 date which is comming soon. Most of the animals wish to avoid blood shed among the animals and are hoping for the Wild Boars and Pigs for repentance in time because the whole world’s animal political pressure. The pressure comes from neighbours Animal Soliditary group called Animal Slaughter Ending Animal Nations or asean, United States of Animals and Uninated Nations (of animals).

If the SPDC Boar Junta failed to give way for the coalation Government led by the Fighting Peacock Princess, Burma Farm’s animals anger combined with the whole world animals pressure would annihilate all the Boars Generals. And it may not be a happy ending for the Boars Generals but anyway all the different animals of Burma Farm would happily live ever after that revolution. 

Shwe Ba 

* I hereby apologize if any one feels offended by this version of Animal Story calling ourselves and some of the beloved leaders as animals. Please understand that it is a satire story only.