Photo/Illutration Yukio Edano, left, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, asks a question during a Lower House Budget Committee session in November. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga sits at right. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

“Animal Farm” by British author George Orwell (1903-1950) is one of the books I keep returning to occasionally.

Themed around the Russian Revolution, the allegorical tale satirizes Joseph Stalin’s dictatorial rule. But to assume the narrative pertains only to the former Soviet Union does not do justice to this work.

Equines, bovines and other farm animals revolt against and oust the human farmer. They are jubilant to have the farm to themselves, but a pig named Napoleon eventually becomes their absolute leader.

What is interesting is that the farm initially has two porcine leaders--Napoleon and Snowball--who together bring an element of healthy tension to politics.

All the animals participate in discussions of contentious policy issues, from the proposed construction of a windmill to whether they should grow cabbages or root vegetables.

But political deterioration sets in after Snowball is expelled and the customary Sunday general assembly is discontinued.

Now free to do anything he pleases, Napoleon wantonly bends the rules. The pigs begin to emulate humans by drinking alcohol and sleeping in human beds, not to mention lying left and right and falsifying documents.

Other animals, who at first voiced complaints from time to time, gradually become inured to the injustice.

It has been quite a while since a sense of tension was lost from our nation’s politics.

Lawmakers habitually lie in the Diet. A prime minister defiantly states that “not all matters can be explained.” A series of criminal charges have been brought against Diet members.

But they are all allowed to go about their merry ways, and I believe that’s because of the absence of someone like Snowball. Or, to be more accurate, would-be Snowballs do exist, but they are simply too powerless.

A haiku by poet Kyoshi Takahama (1874-1959) goes to this effect, “Something like a rod/ Penetrating through last year and this year.”

Many issues are carried over from one year to another. There is nothing I want more this year than to see a revival of tension in politics.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 1

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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