Mekelle፡Telaviv, Nairobi, Pretoria, London, (Tigray Herald)
The Illusion of Change: Orwell’s Animal Farm and Power in Somali Region
By Muktar Ismail
Seven years ago, the Somali community in Ethiopia appeared to be on the cusp of change as Mustafa Omer, a former activist assumed leadership of the Somali Region following Abdi Iley’s repressive rule from 2010 to 2018. Celebrated as a beacon of hope and reform, Mustafa’s credentials and professed commitment to justice led many to believe his leadership would herald a new era of accountability and development for over 10 million Somalis in eastern Ethiopia. However, those hopes have faded amid failed reforms, corruption scandals, and political elite increasingly resembling the tyranny it once opposed.
Today, the region’s trajectory echoes George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”: revolutions that begin with cries for justice but ultimately devolve into hollow performances, where slogans like “We are better than the brutal former regime” and “Heego” replace genuine change, and new leaders repeat the very abuses they once denounced.
Orwell’s pigs distilled their rebellion into the simple mantra: “Four legs good, two legs bad.” This easily repeatable slogan was weaponized to reduce complex political issues into a memorable phrase, thereby embedding ideas deeply into the collective consciousness. Repetition of such slogans nutured an emotional bond and a shared sense of identity.
Similarly, the Cagjar administration employs a comparable approach – constantly contrasting their rule with Iley’s brutality, positioning themselves as saviors while dismissing critics as ungrateful. “We saved you from Iley,” their rhetoric proclaims. However, as in “Animal Farm,” this binary narrative obscures stagnation and ongoing injustice, hindering genuine progress and critical reflection.
Revolutions often descend into political spectacle. Leaders exchange titles, yet the machinery of power continues unabated. Symbols of tyranny are repurposed as signs of progress – thrones change hands, but the oppressed remain in shackles. Iron chains are transformed into polished rhetoric; repression shifts from brutality to euphemism. Under Abdi Iley, terror was overt – torture chambers and mass graves. His successors, however, cloak violence in bureaucratic guise. “Law and Order” operations displace villages; hunger is rebranded as “production adjustment”; dissent is labeled “disturbing public order.”
Orwell’s Squealer would nod in recognition. Regime propagandists perform linguistic alchemy: protests become “foreign plots,” critics “spoilers of peace.” Violence is cloaked in virtue – state brutality repackaged as “discipline,” crackdowns as “stability.” Language, once a mirror of truth, becomes a distorted funhouse.
This lexicon of lies numbs like anesthesia. Suffering persists, stripped of its reality. Corruption? Portrayed as “development” Starvation? Described as “temporary adjustments.” Repression? Framed as “public harmony” Critics are gaslit – their outrage dismissed as hysteria, their truths reframed as erratic. The cycle endures: oppression wears new masks, but the script remains unchanged.
In Animal Farm, the pigs gradually adopt human vices – sleeping in beds, trading with enemies – while insisting they remain the champions of liberation. The leaders of the Somali Region follow a similar script. Despite condemning Iley’s cronyism, the Cagjar administration now faces accusations of embezzling funds intended for vital infrastructures like Jigjiga water project.
Security forces, once denounced as Iley’s thugs, continue to operate with impunity; “Heego,” under new titles, now serves within the Cagjar government. Even the region’s Liyu police – a paramilitary group linked to massacres under Iley – still patrol the streets, their brutality masked by polished PR.
Orwell’s warning rings true: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and already it was impossible to say which was which.” Privilege, whether in a pig’s bed or a bureaucrat’s office, remains fundamentally unchanged.
Revolutions die not with a bang but a whimper. In Animal Farm, the animals’ eyes grow “vacant” as propaganda replaces reason. Similarly, in the Somali Region, a sense of moral fatigue sets in. The people become “too tired to hope.” Decades of violence – initially under Iley, now under Cagjar’s administration – have conditioned many to accept survival over resistance.
This is oppression’s most insidious weapon: normalization. When cruelty becomes routine, the system sustains itself through collective resignation. Dissent is sidelined – dismissed as “dramatic” or “unpatriotic.” An anonymous journalist from the region confides, “We don’t even call it repression anymore. We call it ‘business as usual.’”
Yet, passivity is not surrender. Orwell’s animals exchange glances of doubt; the people in the region whisper in markets. In the region, a flicker of resistance remains alive. Recently, outrage arose after the killing of Shafici, a young boy, in a regime prison. Activists boldly condemn authorities on social media, bypassing state-controlled narratives. The regime responds with repression – mass arrests and crackdowns – aimed at silencing the rising discontent.
Meanwhile, elders speak openly about mismanagement and corruption. This quiet awakening echoes Orwell’s idea: awareness precedes revolution. When people name the rot, they weaken its hold. Recognizing the systemic flaws is the first step toward genuine change.
The tragedy in the Somali Region is not unique. History shows revolutions often falter when they focus on replacing one tyrant with another rather than transforming underlying institutions. Orwell’s Animal Farm illustrates this: replacing Napoleon with Snowball or Squealer does little if the structures of oppression – corrupt institutions, economic inequality, weaponized rhetoric – remain intact.
Yet, hope persists. Orwell reminds us that awareness is the seed of liberation. For the Somalis, this awareness means demanding systemic reform – not just new leaders, but new systems rooted in justice and equality. True change requires dismantling the logic of power that sustains repression.
In Animal Farm, the pigs never truly relinquish control. The story ends with a haunting sense of unease – a realization that the animals’ lingering doubt could someday spark rebellion. In the Somali Region, that flicker of doubt persists – in the silenced journalist’s pen, the civil servant’s raised fist, the elder’s unspoken grief. Revolutions often fail – until they don’t. The question remains: how long can the silence hold before it erupts into a counterrevolution?
