Cry Wolf: A Political Fable
By Paul Lake
(Benbella Books, 224 pages, $12.95)
It has been rare in recent years for me to get more than a few
pages into a modern novel before abandoning it; rarer still for me
to bother finishing it; rarest of all for me to read it in a single
sitting. This book, by an American poet and professor of literature
(poetry editor of First Things) is in that final and rarest
category.
Actually, Cry Wolf is more than a novel, though it has
many of the strengths of one. It is a political fable, in the great
tradition of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I can only hope
that it will be as widely read and will be as powerful an influence
as was Orwell’s masterpiece in awakening civilization to its
present deadly peril.
I have been watching developments in Britain for some years and
it seemed to me much of the book could have been taken from British
newspaper-clippings with only the names changed, but obviously this
is an American work. It leads one to wonder if the title of Mark
Steyn’s brilliant and terrifying America Alone may not
actually be over-optimistic.
Like Animal Farm, this is the tale of a farm run by
animals. But the story of Cry Wolf begins with a very
different situation to that of Orwell’s spiritually corrupt and
terror-ruled post-Revolutionary Communist order. This is an
American, or at any rate Western, animal farm, Green Pastures,
which the animals inherited peacefully when the old human owner
died (see Nietzsche). With considerable effort they have
established a stable Commonwealth. They are proud that in the early
days of running the farm they beat off an attack by a bear, and “No
Trespassing” is their watchword (A lost dog has been admitted and
has become a useful member of the farm because of his civilized or
“tame” heritage).
To keep the farm running has been a difficult achievement and
there is some hardship and economic inefficiency, but they have
managed. They know that they live far longer and better lives than
the wild creatures outside. Although The Wild lurks beyond the
farm’s borders, with cougars, foxes, wolves and, worst of all,
bears, the farm animals, even defenseless sheep and small birds
like ducks and hens, can live in security. The dogs and the large,
powerful animals like bulls and stallions guard the borders.
Slowly, and for very good reasons, the rule of keeping out wild
animals in modified. As in Animal Farm there is an
inevitability about the process and at no single point does it seem
reasonable (or, at length, possible) to make a stand against it. A
harmless doe is admitted, wounded and desperate after escaping from
predators. Then a small raccoon whose hands make him invaluable for
picking fruit which would otherwise be lost is allowed to remain
after he begs and pleads for a job which will allow him to survive
and feed his family.
FROM THERE THINGS become inevitable: more small non-predatory
animals from the wild are admitted for very good reasons and form
voting blocs in order to, democratically, express their point of
view. The traditions, rituals, educational systems, ordinances and
spiritual heritage of the farm are progressively modified.
The goose in charge of educating the young is by no means a
complete fool. She is subject to uneasiness but cannot think
outside the square of established ideas (It is part of the books
strength that the characters are rounded, real and credible).
Education, she assumes, is a good thing, the question of what is
taught not entering into it.
The meek wild creatures who have been admitted on sufferance
become less meek. Changes in the education system ensure that there
is no melting-pot in which the newcomers might be assimilated and
adopt the farm’s values. Laws are interpreted with increasing
creativity by far-seeing and progressively-inclined judges. The
farm’s mottos and maxims are re-interpreted or abolished. The
security and high living standards which the farm animals have
achieved are held to be matters of shame and collective guilt and
evidence of their tyranny over and exploitation of wild creatures.
And the newcomers breed much faster.
The rule of Law which had given the farm security is turned
against it. “Rights” are interpreted in a strictly one-way
direction, always in favor of the newcomers. Attempts by some of
the farm animals to warn against what is happening are first
stigmatized as hate-speech and then subjected to criminal
punishments as Xenophobia and then Feralphobia.
Foxes and snakes join the smaller and more harmless wild
creatures which had been admitted previously and take over
buildings for their own where some of the young of the
farm-creatures join them. “No-Go” areas spread, where the smaller
and the female newcomers themselves live in increasing dread.
THE FIRST MURDER horrifies the farm animals. Then murders multiply
as the force of the law is turned against political incorrectness
and the use of incorrect words. Words like “prey” come to be used
again. The old Green Pastures Farm’s idea of equality for females
and an equal voice for large and small animals is repudiated.
Finally the wolves and bears come storming back. Prey is prey
again. The old bull, who had been complacent in the knowledge of
his own strength for so long, girds himself for a last stand…
Immediately after finishing this book I read a quote found by
Mark Steyn in the British Church of England
Newspaper:
At all levels of national life Islam has gained state
funding, protection from any criticism, and the insertion of
advisors and experts in government departs national and local. A
Muslim Home Office adviser, for example, was responsible for
Baroness Scotland’s aborting of the legislation against honour
killings, arguing that informal methods would be better. In the
police we hear of girls under police protection having the
addresses of their safe houses disclosed to their parents by Muslim
officers who think they are doing their religious duty.
While men-only gentlemen’s clubs are now being dubbed unlawful,
we hear of municipal swimming baths encouraging “Muslim women only”
sessions and in Dewsbury Hospitals staff waste time by turning beds
to face Mecca five times a day…Islam is being institutionalised,
incarnated, into national structures amazingly fast…”
The
same day I read that a French judge,
in
France, had annulled a Muslim marriage on the grounds that the
bride had not been a virgin and blood-stained sheets could not be
shown to the wedding-guests.
Buy the book.
