Orwell's Animal Farm: Ideological State Apparatuses and the Crisis of the Modern State

The present paper explores the crisis of the modern democratic state based on Althusser’s concept of the Ideological State Apparatuses and Chomsky’s investigation into the suspicious role of the media. Orwell’s novel Animal Farm was examined by way of casting the light on the junctures of intersection between history and culture. Re-reading the novel through the perspective of Althusser's ISA and Chomsky’s experienced lens help understand the way of the modern world where the various media means drive the masses into the end determined by the ruling business groups. KeywordsISAs, Animal Farm, Democratic state, Media


I
Falling back upon Marx' definition of the state as a "force of repressive execution and intervention 'in the interests of the ruling class'" (137), Althusser differentiates between two types of State Apparatuses: the Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) and the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs). While the former includes the institutions of the Government, the Administration, the Army, the Police, the Court, etc., the latter comprises the institutions deliberately designed to ensure "subjection to the ruling ideology or the mastery of its 'practices'" (133). The systems of education, religion, family, law, politics, trade unions, media, and culture (literature, arts, sports, etc.) consciously or unconsciously take part in the job of the ISAs. Unlike the RSAs which act clumsily by physical repression, the ISAs "function massively and predominately by ideology" (145) and prove to be more efficient in keeping up the relations of hegemony. Althusser's main concern was to show how the ISA superstructure represents the ruling class smooth power that enables them to reproduce the relations of exploitation with the exploited unwittingly taking part in their subjection. Accordingly, the educational system mainly produces future workers out of the school children, while the religious system teaches us how the absolute submission and obedience are the prerequisites of good citizenship. Where the two fall short, the elusive media means are there "with daily doses of nationalism, chauvinism, liberalism, moralism, etc." (155). As a result, man walks through a jungle of ideological manipulation that shapes his consciousness, reproduces the hegemonic relations with many possible forms, and maintains that relationship. Althusser's exploration of such an aspect of human experience gets represented by Orwell's fiction in spite of the ideological gap separating them. Ironically, the former's theory was meant to polish the same ideological tenets the latter badly wanted to deconstruct. The result was that both draw the same conclusion about power relations. For, Orwell's Animal Farm retells such an entangled exploiter-exploited relationship in a symbolic manner. The modernist fable is suffused with the irony of the modern state where the glittering terms of democracy, revolution, freedom, equality, etc. hide beneath the most hazardous political exploitation of which the masses are always ignorant. To attribute the events and characters of the novel to Russia, communism, or any particular regime is indeed to fall victim to that exploitation at its ideological level. Each modern regime (Eastern or Western, democratic or totalitarian, sophisticated or primitive) reproduces, to a larger or lesser degree, a particular version of the plot in Animal Farm. This assumption agrees with the view of the 20th c. American thinker Noam Chomsky prefiguring the critical relationship between the so-called democratic regimes and the media manipulation. In his book Media Control, Chomsky gives an alternative definition to the modern democratic state where "the public must be barred from managing of their own affairs and the means of information must be kept narrowly and rigidly controlled" (2). Chomsky refers to the Leninist conception of the state propaganda leading to the monopoly of power by a minority, a situation that a reader might find enacted in Animal Farm: A vanguard of revolutionary intellectuals take state power, using popular revolutions as the force that brings them to state power, and then drive the stupid masses toward a future that they are too dumb and incompetent to envision for themselves. (Media 9) Thus, the sovereignty to which the masses always aspire is in fact a question of who the master is while their condition remains intact as they have only to select a ruler out of the limited options offered by power elites. Propping the defects of the modern democratic systems, Chomsky delineates that even in the most 'progressive' democracies, decision-making is exclusive to a 'small group' whose job is to serve the 'narrow group' by understanding the common interests of the 'bewildered herd' and handling them. This is to make the public 'spectators' rather than active participants in action. The business groups often 'lend their weight' to a member of 'the specialized group' as a leader and the masses have to consent. This is what makes democracy different from a 'totalitarian state.' The logic of it is that "the masses of the public are just too stupid to be able to understand things". They cannot participate in managing their own affairs because they do not know "how to handle that freedom". (Media 10-11) To tame the 'bewildered herd' and make them accept the status qua it is necessary to apply the 'manufacture of consent' which is the duty of "the media, the schools, and the popular culture". Chomsky uses the above-mentioned concept to designate the role of propaganda and public relations as a 'huge industry' to control the public mind and keep the masses 'atomized,' 'segregated,' and 'spectators'. He cites, for illustration, the Steel Strike of 1937 when the means of propaganda turn the public against strikers as "harmful to the public and against the common interests." This is brought about by the business communities who "control the media and have massive resources." They coin such terms that none dare stand against as 'Americanism' or 'support our troops' during Gulf War where the most unwanted policies can be easily passed over. Public relations is, thus, an industry where the specialized group serves the interest of the master very well by keeping the masses unorganized and passive recipients of the propaganda commodities. (Media 12-18) Taking into account the perspective zoomed in by Althusser's and Chomsky's experienced lens, examining the novel becomes prerequisite for understanding the way of the modern world where the various media means drive the masses into the end determined by the ruling minorities. True, communications link us but link like a group of helpless flies on a vast cobweb that enjoy the privilege of gathering with their people easily but lack the freedom to act apart from the designed domain. We sometimes feel proud to actively initiate an action only to discover later on that we are no more than passive puppets involved in the scheme obscurely run by secret players; animals governed by clever pigs, in other words.

II
Animal Farm stands for a state where the ideological apparatuses play the major role in the hegemony of the ruling minority (pigs) over the exploited majority (farm animals). This equation can correctly apply to every state with such a relationship reproduced. Written after the World War II (1945), the story explores the terror tactics of totalitarian regimes which depend heavily on the ideological orientation of the people's consciousness. Most obviously, Orwell caricatured the political exploits of the regimes that can easily use the totalitarian propaganda to control the opinion of the enlightened people in democratic countries. Animal Farm draws the most vivid parallels between fact and fiction in which multitude of gullible animals are exploited by a group of power mongering pigs. The pigs use influential rhetoric to manipulate and enslave the animals. The versions of the media they utilized serve as a tool of communication for establishing not only relations but also regimes and governments. They also play a crucial role in manipulating and controlling people in order to bring change either positively or negatively. Maybe Orwell's professional background has something to do with his fictional worldview. Working in BBC in 1941 and later as a war correspondent for The Observer in France and Germany exposed Orwell to the suspicious role the press plays in mobilizing the public consciousness in accordance with the dominant political tendencies. This gives him a deep insight into the hypocrisies of the democratic states along with the intellectuals, business groups, and ideological institutions that serve them. The two novels he wrote after war Animal Farm and Nineteen-Eighty-Four sincerely record the ambiguous intricacies wrapping the entire scenery through which a state is politically run. And with the cosmetic propaganda at hand, the totalitarian regimes always find many ideological apparatuses to beautify their ugly faces and convince the gullible public that all procedures of exploitation are in their own favor. The Ministry of Truth that rewrites history according to the Big Brother's will in Nineteen-Eighty-Four is but an example of the various educational, religious, and cultural instruments enhancing the ruler's grasp over the helpless people. It is Animal Farm, however, that encompasses obvious examples of Althusser's ISAs which serve the same hegemonic goal of the ruling class regardless of the sort of the regime. They can be examined under the following categories.

Culture
The different types of culture are brought to the light spot whenever and wherever the authority wants to market for state actions or procedures. At the outset of the novel, two cultural practices set the revolution off: Old Major standing for cultural heritage and the song assuming the status of the national anthem. Such cultural practices are necessary to cherish the sense of mutual identity as the prerequisite of solidarity, strong faith and mobilizing an action in the targeted crowds. This is done only if they are made to feel that they belong to the same race and share the same fate. It can be activated through reviving culture and cultural heritage which Old Major sets to work by calling for an animal meeting to which the animals gather with a complete and full consciousness. The dying pig, sharing his long experience, declares man as the prime enemy of animals and the source of all their troubles and suffering. Determined to rebel against Mr. Jones's injustice, the animals feel very enthusiastic and start to sing the song prompted by Old Major "Beasts of England" five times successfully (9). The revolution enthusiastically takes place, Mr. Jones is deposed and Snowball changes the name of the farm from "Manor Farm" to "Animal Farm" and creates seven commandments which make up the 'Animalism'. In fact, Old Major performs his part perfectly paving the way for the new rulers who exploit the emotional atmosphere created by his death to mobilize the animals into a revolution.The old pig is made to represent the animals' collective memory and consciousness. Therefore, whatever he shares with animals is to be taken as truth. His death soon after raises his declaration a rank above to the sacredness of a cultural heritage. It becomes the great ancestor's last will that must be cherished and passed on across generations. The song enhances that cultural bonds standing hereafter for the national anthem. Linked in the memory of the chanting animals around to the will of the late, the song becomes sentimentally moving enough to ignite the revolution. It was, however, replaced by another anthem that glorifies the leader soon after the pigs' overtake of power harbors at the safe side.

Legal System
Animalism along with the seven commandments represents the ideological and legal pillars any newestablished regime needs to prevent things from falling apart. It is the constitution that is meant to protect the state's system against any violation, though humorously it can be freely abused by the rulers to meet their present needs. In fact, the cunning pigs exploit the myopic memory of animals to change the commandments so that toward the end of the novel they are completely betrayed. With the help of Squealer's propaganda and rhetoric, Napoleon could gradually alter the commandments of Animalism to fit what he does such as drinking alcohol, sleeping in a bed, and dealing with human beings. In the early beginning of the novel, the pigs are still not sure about the loyalty of the animals. Squealer starts changing the tenets of Animalism so as to be consistent with their political scheme and new circumstances using the most witting abuse of language. As a result, he succeeds to reformulate the commandments and convince the animals. The first alteration occurs when the pigs moved into the farmhouse and start adopting human behaviors like sleeping in beds. The ban on sleeping in beds was changed in favor of Napoleon by adding the two words 'with sheets', so the commandment after alteration reads, 'No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets' (77). When animals protest against the pigs' new norm, Squealer convinces them saying that the bed is merely place to sleep on but the real rule was against sheets. The second abuse takes place when some animals were accused of committing crimes and they were executed by Napoleon using his trained dogs. The animals discover that one of the commandment changed from 'No animal shall kill other animal' (27) to 'No animal shall kill other animal without cause' (106). Again, the pigs need redraft a law that allows them to drink alcohol and thus the phrase "No animal shall drink alcohol" (27) becomes "No animal shall drink alcohol to excess" (123). Squealers, by the end of the novel, replaced the seven commandments constituting animalism in order to decriminalize the pigs' violation of law and the main legislative principle of the farm becomes, "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others" (149). This horrible abuse of the word 'equal' and the ideal of equality, depicts the way rules are often dramatically bent to serve power. Such a slogan declares the pigs' superiority over the rest of animals in the name of equality and by virtue of the legal language that turns out to be too elusive to be understood by the crowds. To sum up, the power of the law lies in being the law of power where a rule is stretched out and in to fit the waist of their interest.

Education
Education comes next in terms of importance to the legal system because it ensures the continuity of the relation of exploitation. From the totalitarian perspective, it helps reproduce workers on the one hand and teaches generations how to be good citizens on the other. Actually, there are tenets that the state wants the public to remember all the time; education helps so much in such a case. The question of why the pigs overpower animals is a question of education and lack of it. The animals' ignorance makes them too gullible to resist. In addition, the pigs wrote the history so that even the educated new generation should take to the present relation as part of the legacy. When Squealer rewrites the history, he ensures that it reflects how charitable the pigs to the animals on the farm. History is meant to shape the people's consciousness with a version of the truth that the writer designates. This is why when Squealer rewrites the history the other animals' vision of the truth is cornered and blurred. As a result, education is power especially when the place and its inhabitants are controlled and where there is no other source of information. Because of Squealer's rewritten history, Snowball receives no honor as a hero of the farm. There is no other conception of truth because there is no other alternate history to be articulated or other rhetorical conception of truth allowed. Furthermore, the nine puppies' education is consciously meant to build up the core of the Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) as the counterpart of ISAs. The latter represents that type of education which directly serves the ruler, reproduces elites, or suppress the undesired results of the regular education.

Windmill: Scapegoating Project
The windmill is a symbol of the projects that are magnified to become national goals though they covertly serve the ruling class' agenda and to cover the failure and corruption of their administration. It is a huge project that exhumes the budget, the efforts, and the health of animals, but never yields anything. Positively, however, the windmill sifts the good pigs from the evil ones. Napoleon surfaces as a dictator, whereas Snowball is pushed to the background as a scapegoat. Snowball is a young, intelligent, persuasive and important pig who dreams of spreading Animalism around the world and improving the life of all animals. Devoting himself to better off the animal's intellectual and moral ways, he brings literacy to the farm so that the animals can grasp the principles of Animalism by reading the commandment. He also simplifies the commandments into single one "four legs good, two legs bad", so that the animals can understand it very well. Besides, he is the hero of the battle of cowshed whose bravery and good planning lead to a great victory against Mr. Jones and the farmers. His downfall is a result of his idealism because he trusts the force of his influence on the animals and build windmill which would provide Animal Farm with electricity and make life easier. But, due to Napoleon's jealousy, he was chased by dogs exiled least his charisma overshadows the autocrat.
In order to monopolize power, Napoleon uses different types of propaganda techniques to defame Snowball calling him traitor and criminal so as to destroy his good name among the animals. He even uses scapegoating by blaming the destruction of the windmill and failure of the farm on him. Since Snowball is exiled, he has no voice to defend himself against Squealer's defamation intrigue. When Boxer innocently defends the loyalty of Snowball, "Snowball fought bravely at the battle of cowshed. I saw him myself" (92), Squealer announces that Snowball is Mr. Jones' secret agent. "Bravery is not enough," said Squealer, "Loyalty and obedience are more important" (65). Squealer declares that they found secret documents that condemn Snowball as a traitor running schemes to trick the animals and take over the farm. Hence, it can be concluded that, like pigs, most political regimes have made up their own scapegoats which help them justify their faulty administration, cover their failures, suppress opposition, and keep things under control.

The Media and Propaganda
Broadly Speaking, Animal Farm arises from the desire to expose the truth about the media manipulation by totalitarian regimes. The media as known, seeks to establish effective communication that always goes one way. In Animal Farm, the pigs actively do almost all of speaking and writing while the gullible workers like Boxer and Clover are passive consumers of the pigs' ideological commodity.
A stable regime always falls back on a huge machine of propaganda that disseminates rumor, spread news, convince people, coin concepts, interprets, etc. In Animal Farm, a single character, Squealer, carries out the chief part. Squealer is an epitome of the modern media means that shape the public opinion in accordance with the ideological framework they serve. He is the pig who speaks Napoleon's propaganda among the animals. Squealer is a name which suggests his character very well.
Squealing refers to the pigs' typical form of vocalization, at the same time, to squeal means to betray. Every tyrant has his own sycophant and Napoleon actually has one in Squealer, a clever pig who serves as Napoleon's mouthpiece and ministry of propaganda. Whenever a doubt is raised by animals, Squealer replies and convinces them that Napoleon sacrifices for the sake of animals. Squealer abuses language to justify Napoleon's actions and policies also to justify the pigs' monopolization of sources. He publishes false statistics talking about the farm's success. It is through language and rhetoric that he helps Napoleon keep up power and bends the truth so that the animals have no other choice but to believe his version of history.
Taking advantage of the other animals' ignorance, Squealer makes use of his rhetorical skill to engineer the consent of the animals. Once, he tells the animals that the pigs have to eat apples and drink milk. Rejecting and protesting at the beginning, Squealer convinces them saying that it has been scientifically proven that milk and apples are essential for the pigs' well-being. He also reasons that since the pigs are the brain worker behind the management of Animal Farm, they have to stay healthy. He further says that the pigs do not even like milk and apples, but they eat them for the good of the Animals. As part of the pigs' propaganda, euphemism is used to conceal all negative things happening in the farm. For instance, they say that life of animals is much better than it was used to be in Mr. Jones' time. The term "readjustment" is used to refer to reducing the ration of the animals, and when the animals do not agree with what Squealer says, he uses the rhetorical question "you do not want Mr. Jones to come back, do you?" (125). The return of Mr. Jones becomes a pulley to subjugate animals. Squealer gets the sheep involved in his propaganda through bleating mindlessly, "Four legs good, two legs better" (147), as a prologue to the pigs walking upright like human beings. Furthermore, the pigeons play an important part auxiliary to the ruling class' propaganda. They serve at the beginning as messengers of the revolution that took place in Animal Farm which was named Manor Farm. Gradually, their role becomes increasingly less idealistic and more political under the leadership of Napoleon, the dictator. Their duty was to spread the news of Animal Farm's revolution against the farmer, Jones, but then they engaged in propaganda and deformation. When they discovered Mollie's place after her disappearance, they served a domestic function on the farm as Napoleon's eyes and ears among the animals.
exploitation of religion. The animals do not like him because he does not work. He is parasitical and misdirecting with the job of spouting and spreading religious propaganda of the utopian and idealized Afterlife. The Sugar Candy's mountains which he tries to convey to the animals of the farm testify to the suspicious role he plays. Throughout history, religious institutions are carefully chosen by regimes to implicitly support the government and its policies. Orwell's intention was to show how the political ideology makes use of religion as a way of giving the necessary anesthetic dose to pacify the oppressed people.

The Bewildered Herd
Apart from the exploiter, the masses always stand for the target exploited by the ISAs' manipulation. They might belong to various backgrounds, have various tendencies, and react in multiple manners, but they are all gullible victims of the elites' schemes. In the novel, there are many examples of such stock characters.

Boxer: Loyal Working Class
Boxer, a powerful, honest and devoted carthorse, is a symbol of the unthinking energy that is always summoned whenever there is a need of hard work. Standing out as the most sympathetic character in the novel, Boxer summarizes the qualities of working-class, including: huge energy, loyalty, devotion and dedication. With the two maxims of "I will work hard," and "Napoleon is always right" (65), he unintentionally serves Napoleon's regime. He embodies the major weakness of the working class' naivety, blind trust and lack of mental faculty to identify the implicit scheme and political corruption. Laboring in an idealistic hope for better life, he believes deeply in the revolution and thinks that the leaders of it must be virtuous and righteous. Consequently, he easily falls victim to the materialist rulers who decide to get rid of the sick and useless stallion by sending him to slaughterhouse, and by the money of his body they purchased whisky.

The Sheep: Unwitting Crowds
The sheep of the farm have no individual identities. They always appear as a group who blindly believe whatever propaganda tells them and follow the orders mindlessly. Their meaningless chatter hinders any attempt of reasoning by Snowball whose arguments are always interrupted by their singing, "Four legs good, Two legs bad" (39). Orwell employs them to represent the blind submission to authority and power as well as the mass' meaningless repetition of the political dictates. They are, therefore, the helpmates to the rise of Napoleon's dictatorship, though they always appear unaware of their unwitting action.

Muriel: Passive Knowledge
Muriel is a white goat whom Clover often calls to read the commandments whenever she suspects any violation of the principles by the pigs. She is one of the few animals who are fully literate. Her learning, however, is passive since it does not exceed the machine-like reading. Like many selfinterested educated people, Muriel never bothers to interpret what she reads or even take the effort of letting others know.

Clover: Myopic Consciousness
Clover is a female carthorse and friend of Boxer who kindly cares for other animals. She is experienced enough to notice the difference between what the farm once was and what it has become. Clover was loyal to the principles of Animal Farm but she becomes disillusioned when she witnesses the cruelty and injustice of the pigs whose conduct is not different from the human oppression. She always blames herself for misremembering the commandments. Being able to observe, she is sure that something goes wrong but she lacks the ability to interpret and conclude. Clover represents the category of people who are politically conscious but not conscious enough to react properly to the situation and see through the transformation taking place.

Benjamin: Skeptical Intellectuals
Benjamin is the only donkey and the oldest animal on the farm. He is wise and, to some extent, cynical of the revolutionary events because he believes that any possible change will not lessen suffering. Unwilling to believe that windmill will save work or that food will be plentiful, Benjamin sees the failure and success of the farm with equal skepticism. He seems to understand and comprehend what is going on the farm, but he does nothing to stop the wrongs he sees. It is at the end of the novel that he pries open the shell of numbness and takes action warning the animals and Boxer about the trick, but it is too late.

III Human Farm
Taking the above points into account, Animal Farm is a political allegory that depicts how political relations are reproduced by virtue of the ISAs. It draws a precise realistic picture of power relations and establishments that almost shape the structure of every modern state with certain degrees of intensity and variability in accordance with the particularity of each regime. Arguably, each regime in the modern world gets its modified version of the Animal Farm where the democratic interface hides beneath a complex system of economic and political exploitation. In a recent article entitled "The Collapse of Western Democracy," Paul Craig Roberts argues that democracy no longer exists in the West due to the powerful groups who control everything and never allow people to actively participate in governability because they are not qualified to rule. Roberts weaves his argument over the controversial statement attributed to Martin Schulz, President of the EU Parliament, in the aftermath of Brexit: "The British have broken the rule. It is not in the philosophy of the EU that the crowd can determine its fate" (n. p.). The article cites many examples to support such western tendency. In the US, the powerful private interest groups such as "the military-security complex, Wall Street, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness and the extractive industries of energy, timber and mining" (n. p.) have the actual control over government. The people might be allowed to choose, but it is the choice of the 'political establishment' that would be of validity. In Europe the situation is not much better. The British vote over Brexit is depicted by the media as 'racist' and 'illegitimate' since it expresses the will of the crowd. In France, the incident in which Dominic Strauss Kahn was accused of a fabricated rape by a hotel maid is a case in point. He was likely to be the next president of France according to polls but he never earned the consent of the elites that control the French government. Besides, the Greeks and the Portuguese are forced by their governments to bitterly accept the financial stress "in order to boost the profits of foreign banks"(n. p.). The writer concludes that the western people are in need of a new French revolution to set them free. Historically speaking, Schulz' statement, however, has its roots in a long western tradition. In 1975, the Trilateral Commission prepared a report with the title "The Crisis of Democracy: On the Governability of Democracies." The report referred the problems of governance in Europe, Japan, and the US to the 'excess of democracy' and the absence of the authority of central government institutions.
Revising the entire political system bringing about such a report, Noam Chomsky wrote the book Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies (1989). He considered the report as an intentional retreat from the democratic commitments because it reflects the elites' view that "the general public must be reduced to its traditional apathy and obedience, and driven from the arena of political debate and action, if democracy is to survive" (2). Ironically, the report hides beneath an attempt to thwart the rights of the vast strata of the public named "special interests" as they undermine the broad "national interest" the term "tacitly assumed to be represented by . . . corporations, financial institutions, and business elites" (2). In the US, for example, the foreign policy of extending the US power through the wars against terror, subversion, etc. is always made by the media since the Reagan Doctrine as the "national interests" while it serves the narrow groups' agenda.
To subjugate the public, the government relies on the public relations apparatuses whose job is to create an enemy or to magnify the danger of an existing one. The wars waged against communism and terrorism are two cases in point where the chief part is played by what Chomsky calls "the causists" who have to give interpretations that should agree with the government's procedures. He, furthermore, reveals the US' obscure involvement in the terror's intricacies and the role of the media: To conduct this campaign of ideological warfare successfully, it was necessary to obscure the central role of the United States in organizing and directing sate terror, and to conceal its extensive involvement in international terrorism in earlier years, as in the attack against Cuba, the prime example of "the evil scourge of terrorism" from the early 1960s. Some "historical engineering" was also required with regard to terrorism in the Middle East/Mediterranean region, the primary focus of concern within the propaganda operations. Here, it was necessary to suppress the role of the United States and its Israel client. (Media 113) Hence, only part of the truth is revealed to the public insofar as their agreement is required. Moreover, to hinder any possibility of organization on the part of the young people, they are engaged in a "culture of narcissism" in which they are convinced to take care of their own affairs. In the name of protecting democracy worldwide, the US subverts elected governments because the wrong people won and support the overthrown in North America because they are allies. Their foreign intrusions violate the democratic forms since they do not fit into the American model; i.e., the elites' private interests that cross the borders. "The United States," confirmed Chomsky, "has no principle opposition to democratic forms, as long as the climate for business operations is preserved" (Media 111). At this juncture, Hollywood cinematic industries instill into the American consumers the devils that jeopardize their existence directing their emotions and shaping sentiments. Besides, the role CNN played during the Gulf War testifies to the process of engineering the public consent to the riskiest decision lobbied by the war mongers. The same applies to Britain's participation in the war against Iraq that was marketed at the time as championing the national cause to be discovered later on that the reports presented to the House of Commons were based on false information. Obviously, in such so-called democratic regimes, the public-presumable owners of authority-have nothing to do with the most crucial national issues. They are but the media's dupes whose democratic participation never exceeds predetermined choice. There is always a Squealer to convince the herd about the righteousness of whatever the pigs decide. Hence, the media, regardless of the public disguise they appear with, belong not to the public but to the corporate nexus. Seemingly, the media enhances the democratic process by letting people know and giving them voice. That is the means not the end however. They rather sell the audiences to the corporate bodies. The media administrative structure reinforces the state power relations at the microcosmic level. While the little journalists and technicians think they participate in the freedom of information, the owners and managers who actually control the policies belong to the business elites and are in league with them. The sugar-coated public interests they, therefore, affectionate are in fact the elusive interests of those who control the state. In Chomsky's words, "the media serve the interest of the state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked" (Media 10). The freedom that is proclaimed in liberal societies is nothing but a margin of letting the self be convinced by the elites' media mechanism. Chomsky quoted a remark by an official of the Truman administration, "it does not make too much difference to the general public what the details of a program are. What counts is how the plan is viewed by the leader of the community" (Necessary Illusions 47). This is the essence of the Western democracies where broadly speaking the ideological state apparatuses might exchange roles with the repressive ones insofar as the desired end is the same. The western democratic hypocrisy reproduces itself in their relationship with the developed and less developed countries. Showily, the West poses as the guardian of democracy, human rights, and minorities. This is maintained as long as their political and economic interests are intact. They, however, do not care to "reward selfproclaimed and flawed 'democracies' that clearly abuse the political and civil rights of their citizens" (Lobe) in order to keep up the same interests. Lobe cites Mubarak's Egypt, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Pakistan, etc. as examples of the regimes whose flawed elections, violation of human rights, political violence, and curbs on media are often ignored by their allied western governments. Nowadays, the Western demagogues come over with the cultural anxiety and security measures as the modern version of Salem's witch trials. Donald trump's absurd security measures are a recent case in point which retrieve the Fascist and Nazist racism. They act along with their allied despots by-the-law (murdering, kidnapping, convicting) because they need to 'fight against terror.' They 'trouble the trouble' only to double it re-enacting what is referred to by Bruce W. Jentleson as "woe-is-me-ism." There always must be a Mr. Jones whose possible return is magnified by the pigs to suppress any potential uprising and keep the animals under control. Apart from the western established democracies, the Arab Spring countries give a prime example of how the autocrat is but the iceberg hiding beneath the real base of the authoritarian regime. With the downfall of the dictators, the intended democratic transition never took place as that same authoritarian base survived the process. Toby Dodge comments on the Arab Spring that "the ruling elites they created, the state structures they built, the powerful secret services and crony capitalists they nurtured did not disappear when the despots were deposed" (64). The fittest term to describe the demonstrators in a so-called elected regime is that they take democracy for granted. Dictators step down leaving behind the real ruling class that actually run the state surviving any apparent change. With the help of the huge propaganda machine they tightly control, they could turn over the tide, pushing back the herd to its presumable position that the sheep typify in Animal Farm. On the one hand, the revolting populace lacks any experience or vision of how to deal with the regime as a whole or else they tend to ignore the fact for the time being. On the other hand, the ruling elites are politically sophisticated enough to grasp what Sean Aday et al calls "the authoritarian learning curve" in which the regime learns how to best respond to "demonstrators and other pressures and thereby increase their chance of survival" (8). Another important outcome of the Arab Spring is that it gives the ruling elites the necessary immunization dose to fend off the challenges. In Egypt and Tunisia, the army chiefs gained the public trust by refusing to open fire on the demonstrators. This enabled them to successfully carry forth the old regimes with a camouflage till it becomes safer to reinstall them. Again the media has a chief role to play in the Arab Spring uprisings. To undo a proposed solidarity, they present a particular group-mostly Muslim Brotherhood-as the opportunist benefactors of the change with all the attributed stereotypes to support this argument. And in a situation similar to the aforementioned Steel Strike and Snowball's case, they are represented as national threat and against the common interest. Such a demonization process allows the setback and chaos necessary for the old regimes to reorganize itself and assume a new shape rendering themselves ironically as the best alternative of themselves. According to a 2013 news report published by The Guardian, "Egyptian state media have closed ranks in support of the military and its version of the removal of President Mohamed Morsi as well as Monday's killing of 55 supporters of the deposed Islamist leader in a shooting at a protest in Cairo" (Black et al). This would have never happened had the ISAs never survived the process of change and the media never carried out the propaganda of the master. A contemplative review of the series of events taking place in the Arab Spring countries since 2011 up to the present would reaffirm Chomsky's observation. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, the people revolted against totalitarian dictatorships seeking to establish democratic regimes in the real sense, or so they thought. But their movement was paradoxically against the democratic epitomes in Chomsky's sense of the word. In other words, they wanted the democracy they fathom by reading books or learnt from Old Major unaware that such a type exists nowhere except in books. They angered in the process, the neighboring totalitarian regimes fearing political infection, the established Western democracies concerned about their interests, and above all the clique (business groups) who never allow power to go out of their hands. In accordance, where the stick fails, the media has to take shift for both represent the tools of power to subjugate people. In Chomsky's terms, "Propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to the totalitarian state" (Media 14). As those Arab communities dwindle on the verge between democratic and totalitarian regimes, both instruments become effective. It is as if Mr. Jones in their case plays the part of the pigs, for the time being, and gradually resumes his presidential norms of sleeping in bed and drinking. It is at the end that the pigs walk on two to suggest that the make-shift disguise is broken, the drama is over, and the old regime restores power with a slight change in shape.

IV
Conclusively, Animal Farm is actually the 20th century's iconic story that sums up the tragicomic crisis of the modern state. Whether Mr. Jones rule or gets deposed, the pigs must be symbolically there ready with multiple plans to cope with the animal's threatening organization. The actual ruler is not the one who appears occasionally to deliver a speech or attend a ceremony but the clique that tell the herd what every utterance means. Finally, to the bewildered herd it is the interpretation of what they hear and read that matters rather than the discourse itself. The contemporary media occur with thousand possible Squealer's faces to interpret and make us understand the world around the way the pigs want. This is how the media manipulation could reshape our sense of judgment so that the most obvious wrong becomes right and the other way round. Out of the narrow decision-making circles, the entire public turns into a herd of sheep repeating unconsciously the song taught to them by the versions of the ISAs which vary according to the particularity of each society. The chorus always has no will of their own. They rather sing to the tune of the composer who gives his back to the audience but authors every bit of their enjoyment. The musician's rhythm, however, can never be compared to the politician's rhetoric, nor the audience's enjoyment to the opium of the political speech that makes them walk upon their woes. To conclude, Animal Farm is a fable and the fable is a symbolic story that teaches a universal truth. The real farm is not that of animals but the universal human farm.