MONROVIA – Musa Hassan Bility, Political Leader of the Citizens Movement for Change (CMC) and Representative for Nimba County, has published a searing political essay titled “Letter from Saclepea: Liberia’s Animal Farm,” in which he maps the characters and warnings of George Orwell’s seminal novel onto the current state of Liberian governance and political culture. The piece, which Bility wrote from Saclepea in Nimba County, identifies Liberian equivalents of Napoleon, Boxer, Benjamin, Squealer, and the sheep, arguing that the country’s greatest danger is not bad leadership alone but the silence of those who know better. The essay has circulated widely on social media, as THE ANALYST reports.
Musa Hassan Bility, Political Leader of the Citizens Movement for Change (CMC) and Representative for Nimba County, has issued a political essay from Saclepea, Nimba County, in which he draws extensively on George Orwell’s Animal Farm to diagnose what he describes as a deepening crisis of leadership, silence, and civic abdication in Liberia.
Bility opened the essay by noting that reading Animal Farm today feels less like reading fiction and more like reading a warning. “Sometimes it feels as though Orwell was writing about us,” he wrote. He recalled Liberia’s two great revolutions — independence in 1847 and the coup of 1980 — and argued that, like the animals on Orwell’s farm, both generations dreamed of a better society, promised justice, equality, and prosperity, and ultimately failed to deliver meaningful change. “Orwell reminds us that revolutions do not fail because of bad slogans. They fail because of bad human behavior,” he stated.
Mapping the Characters onto Liberia
Bility proceeded to map Orwell’s characters onto Liberian political archetypes with deliberate precision. He described Old Major as representing Liberia’s many dreamers — men and women who inspired movements and reforms with noble intentions but whose vision alone proved insufficient.
Napoleon, he wrote, represents “the politician who discovers that power is easier to keep than promises” — every leader who campaigns on change but governs through control, promises accountability but fears scrutiny, and speaks in the language of the people while concentrating power for himself.
Snowball, Bility argued, represents ideas, competence, innovation, and the belief that government can improve people’s lives. But Snowball also represents what happens when ideas threaten power.
“In Animal Farm, Snowball is not defeated because he is wrong. He is defeated because he is inconvenient,” Bility noted.
He described Liberia’s Snowballs as reformers, technocrats, and independent thinkers who are pushed aside because their presence threatens those who benefit from the status quo.
Squealer, he wrote, represents propaganda and the professional defenders of failure — the people who spend more time defending problems than solving them.
“Every government, every political movement, and every institution has its Squealers,” Bility stated. The dogs, he said, represent the machinery of fear — not guided by principle, but by loyalty to power, whose purpose is not to persuade but to intimidate.
Boxer and the Ordinary Liberian
Bility reserved his most emotionally resonant passage for Boxer, the hardworking and loyal cart horse whom Orwell ultimately sends to the slaughterhouse when he is no longer useful to Napoleon.
Bility described Boxer as every ordinary Liberian — the farmer, the market woman, the teacher, the nurse, the miner — who wakes up every morning hoping that tomorrow will be better than today.
“Boxer is every Liberian who wakes up every morning hoping that tomorrow will be better than today,” he wrote.
He described what he called the greatest tragedy of Boxer’s story: that he gives everything to the farm yet receives nothing in return. “Orwell’s warning is clear: a nation that consumes the sacrifices of its people without improving their lives is a nation moving toward failure,” Bility declared.
Benjamin: Liberia’s Most Dangerous Character
The most pointed section of the essay was reserved for Benjamin, Orwell’s cynical donkey who sees and understands everything but remains silent. Bility described Benjamin as “the most dangerous character in the entire story because Benjamin knows.”
He sees the lies, recognizes the corruption, understands the manipulation, is never fooled — yet remains silent, convincing himself that speaking will change nothing.
“Liberia is full of Benjamins,” Bility declared. He wrote that Liberians know when natural resources are being exploited without adequate benefit to the people, when corruption steals opportunities from children, when public institutions fail to deliver services, when communities rich in resources remain poor, when pregnant women die from preventable causes, and when young people graduate into unemployment. “We know. Yet too often we remain silent,” he stated.
Sheep, Hens, and the Broader Population
Bility addressed the remaining characters with equal deliberateness. The sheep, he wrote, represent blind partisanship — citizens who repeat slogans without questioning outcomes and substitute loyalty for thinking. “Every democracy suffers when citizens become sheep rather than independent thinkers,” he stated.
The hens represent resistance, reminding readers that even the powerless can challenge injustice. Their willingness to resist matters, even when they do not always succeed. The horses, cows, goats, ducks, and other animals represent the broader population — neither leaders nor propagandists, simply trying to survive, whose greatest mistake is believing that someone else will protect their interests.
The Warning for Liberia
Bility concluded the essay by drawing Orwell’s central warning directly into the Liberian context. He noted that by the end of Animal Farm, the animals can no longer distinguish the pigs from the humans they replaced.
“The revolution has completed a tragic circle. The faces have changed, but the behavior remains the same,” he wrote. He argued that a revolution is successful only when power itself changes character — not merely when new people take power.
“The lesson for Liberia is simple,” Bility wrote. “Independence was not the destination. The events of 1980 were not the destination. Elections are not the destination. Governments are not the destination.
The destination is a society where power serves people, where resources benefit citizens, where institutions are stronger than individuals, and where patriotism is measured not by slogans but by results.” He closed by noting that Orwell saw this danger decades ago. “The question is whether we see it now. And more importantly, whether we will do anything about it,” he stated.