Hello, Steem friends. These days, as I was reading one of the last @dedicatedguy posts for Hive account@adsactly, I was remembering how the whole problem we live in today in my country, Venezuela, had begun. Inevitably, as it happens when we watch many movies, the one who has read some books cannot help but associate some realities with some stories they have read. I remembered Animal Farm by George Orwell.

This novel published in 1945 is about a group of farm animals who, dissatisfied by the treatment they had and by the manipulation of some, decide to expel human tyrants and create a system of self-government, which ends up becoming another brutal tyranny. In my country, Venezuela, it more or less happened in the same way: one day a group of people came and talked about what they did to us or had done to us, how we had been enslaved, and that we had to get out of the yoke to which they were subjecting us. The problem was never that they sowed the seed, the detail was that they got fertile land. The problem was never that they told us that we had been discriminated against or marginalized, but that we had really felt that way. The problem was not what they eliminated, but what they started with that revolution.

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In the case of Animal Farm we see how at the beginning El Viejo Mayor, an old pig that had been rewarded, from a dream that he had had, calls for the rebelión of the animals. He tells him that man has been the sole cause of his ills and that they must get rid of him:

Everything is explained in one word: man. Man is the only real enemy we have. Make Man disappear from the scene and the motivating cause of our habre and overwork will be abolished forever.

In Venezuela more or less the same thing happened. One day Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías appeared, talking about a dream of freedom, where supposedly Simón Bolívar, hero of Venezuela, helped him to take the people out of the supposed slavery where they were. This gentleman, until that unknown moment and leader of one of the best-known attacks in democratic history against an incumbent president, raised his flag of rebellion against all those who had governed the country up to that moment. After that, he launches himself as president, the people elect him and he begins to govern the country.

One of the things Hugo Rafael Chávez says when he comes to power is that having money is bad, enjoying some comforts is bad, that we should all be equal. The chavista revolution was a revolution of the poor, shirtless, and therefore they had to sacrifice themselves for the revolution. In Animal Farm we see how one of the first premises they hold when they come to power is equality and the rejection of human customs:

No animal should live in a house, sleep in a bed, wear clothes, drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, handle money or engage in commerce. All the customs of Man are bad. And, above all, no animal should tyrannize such. Weak or strong, clever or naive, we are all brothers. No animal should kill another animal. All animals are equal.

As we can see, some luxuries were considered harmful and not only respect for each other, but also equality was called for.

When in Orwell's novel the animals assume power, they start the changes on the farm, from the name of the farm, the construction of a new flag, to making a sign with the new commandments that will be the laws that the animals will have to follow. The same thing happened in Venezuela when Chávez took power: the name of the country was changed, the flag, the shield and even a new constitution was made that would govern the laws of the country. In fact, ministries were built without any sense just for the simple pleasure of changing the old ones for new ones and that in the end failed because they had no sense of being. In Rebellion on the Farm this also happens:

Snowball was also busy organizing others, in what he called Animal Committees. For this, he was tireless. He formed the Committee for the Production of Eggs for Chickens, the League of Clean Tails for Cows, the Committee for the Re-education of Wild Comrades (whose purpose was to domesticate rats and rabbits), the Whiter Wool Movement for Sheep, and many others, as well as organizing reading and writing classes. In general, these projects proved to be a failure.

Well, another of the slogans of the Venezuelan government is loyalty to the revolution: the people owe obedience to the Venezuelan government; something contrary to this can be considered treason to the homeland. In Orwell's history they also employ this mandate of fidelity to the animal revolution:

Courage is not enough," said Squealer. Loyalty and obedience are more important... Discipline, comrades, iron discipline! That is the slogan for today. One false step, and our enemies would fall upon us.

In terms of enemies, that is another of the similarities between the history of Venezuelans and the history of Orwell. When Hugo Chávez came to power, he not only saw the opportunity to create imaginary battles with other countries, such as the United States and Colombia, but also created distrust and enmity among Venezuelans themselves. In Animal Farm we read how Snowball, after being an ally of the revolution, becomes a politically persecuted person:

Comrades," he said in a quiet voice, "do you know who is responsible for all this? Do you know who is the enemy who came during the night and knocked down our mill? Snowball! -Snowball has done this! Out of pure evil, believing he was going to ruin our plans and avenge himself for his ignominious expulsion.

From that moment on, as in Venezuela, every problem on the farm was the fault of the enemy, of the traitor, never of the government's mismanagement:

When something went wrong, it was customary to attribute it to Snowball. If a window was broken or a drain was blocked, it was a sure thing that someone would say that Snowball had done it during the night.

And the chase between them began. Knowing who the enemy's ally was, who supported him became the next step. In Venezuela, government opponents have been persecuted, humiliated and massacred. The same is true of Orwell's novel:

And so the series of confessions and executions continued until a pile of corpses lay at Napoleon's feet and the air was permeated with the smell of blood... They were shaken and dismayed. They did not know what was more frightening; whether the betrayal of the animals that were combined with Snowball or the cruel repression they had just witnessed. In the past there were many times scenes of equally terrible killings, but to all of them it seemed much worse than now, because it had happened among themselves.

What until then had been a united and prosperous farm began to suffer the consequences of an improvised revolution under the command of inefficient people, much like what has happened in our country where the economy is frankly deteriorating, inflation is unstoppable and despite being an oil country, we are a country with hunger. Let's take as an example a passage from the novel:

In January, food was scarce. The corn ration was drastically reduced and it was announced that, in compensation, an additional ration of potatoes would be granted. But then it was discovered that most of the potato crop had been frozen because it had not been sufficiently protected. The tubers had softened and discolored, and very few were edible. For days the animals had nothing to feed on except straw and beets. The spectre of hunger seemed to look at them face to face.

In the previous paragraph, we noted the inefficient governance of the farm and the bad food policies assumed by those in power. If before they had a flourishing farm, now they were faced with neglect for not having worked the land properly. But immediately Napoleon, who was the leader, asked for the hunger and unproductiveness of the land to be hidden: the rest of the world had no reason to know that they had failed in their revolution. This led to all animals being required to speak well of the farm government and whoever spoke ill was imprisoned and annihilated. Then it was not uncommon to hear the praises that other animals did to the great leader:

It had become customary to attribute to Napoleon every fortunate feat and every stroke of luck. It was often heard that one hen would say to another: "Under the leadership of our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days," or two cows, as they tasted the water from the drinking fountain, used to exclaim: "Thanks to our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, what a rich taste this water has!

And so the years passed, and no animal, because of its ignorance and fear of being punished, turned against Napoleon and his government. Eventually oblivion came and no one did anything to remember how the tragedy they were living had begun. In fact, as the years had passed and many of the old men had died, no one knew what the farm had been like before the rebellion. They only accepted their fate:

Generally they were hungry, they slept on straw, drank from the pond, worked in the fields; in winter they suffered the effects of the cold and in summer from the flies. Sometimes the oldest among them searched their murky memories and tried to determine whether in the early days of the rebellion, when Jones' expulsion was still recent, things had been better or worse than they are now. They couldn't remember.

It is known that many of the cultural impositions that countries have suffered in recent years are a sign of the weak respect that citizens may have for their history and the lack of memory of their inhabitants. The same can be said of the political errors that have led, in recent years, countries to live through evils that they had supposedly overcome and left in the past. For example, Venezuela was a prosperous country with a growing economy. However, we forgot the evils of military governments and their tragic consequences, and we fell into a trap called the Bolivarian Revolution. We are still paying for our mistakes.

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I hope you enjoyed reading. Remember to vote for Hive account@adsactly as a witness and visit us on our discord channel. See you next time with a smile.