2021-07-27 20:02 Miyana Standard Time
The Imperial Globe
Sufet: "What Good Will Come?"
![[Image: 7NWzzLu.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/7NWzzLu.jpg)
Sufet Carondawana, looking uncharacteristically nervous following the conclusion of their speech before the SLU Assembly.
Sufet: "What Good Will Come?"
Sufet Carondawana, looking uncharacteristically nervous following the conclusion of their speech before the SLU Assembly.
The Imperial Globe has acquired the full transcript of the speech Sufet Carondawana gave before the gathered members of the Social Liberal Union's Assembly at their seat in Biscuitopolis less than a day after the announcement that Toonela's former partners and fellow victors in the Battle of Thor Passage had begun an invasion of the nation of Rossia. The feeling in the room before the speech was unusually tense for an appearance by Carondawana, who has become well-known among reporters for their carefree and relaxed attitude in the limelight. Time has yet to tell if the address, which was more emotional and direct than any previous public statements by this Sufet, will go over well either here or abroad, but we will let our readers, and the many viewers believed to have tuned in across Miyana as politics are brought ever closer to the forefront of people's minds, judge for themselves.
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"President of the Assembly, Fellow Delegates, Leaders,
My presence here, my speaking to you today, is unprecedented in the history of my peoples, who have long refrained from the delegation of any one person to speak on their behalf. Not just here, but also within the lands we have come to call home, where it is an impossibility. But as much as I am constantly humbled by the people of my home, I do not think that is the most important precedent being set here today. More important to me is the fact that I am not here as a professional civil servant, public administrator, politician, or movement leader. And I do not say this as a clever rhetorical device. I am merely a swimmer. A swimming instructor. A person chosen to speak to you all today not as equals in the prestige we have each acquired outside this room, but as equals in the common inheritance of humanity which cannot be confined anywhere for as long as our species walks Miyana.
And it is in the interest of this inheritance that I call upon your collective intelligence to answer a question now dearly in need of an answer: what is to be the fate of Rossia and her people?
I do not think I need to recount at length for such an attentive audience the events that pose this question, so I will be brief. In April of 2020, the first reports of a blockade of Thor Passage by a Rossian naval squadron broke to the international press after coverage in the North American Republics’s People’s Daily. For nearly a year, 271 days, no action was taken against this violation of both the Social Liberal Union’s principles and of the right to travel freely across Miyana. On that 271st day, Amanda Tamia, speaking on behalf of the Republics, declared that private diplomatic efforts between the two nations had failed, that they had secured evidence of links between the Rossian government and terrorist organizations operating on their soil, and that the Republics would enter a state of war with Rossia as a result. In her declaration, the blockade was but a passing mention, the foremost of a litany of accusations followed by a clear statement of intent. The Republics would pursue the war until the downfall of the acting government of Rossia. Not once in her statements that day did she express any sympathy or consideration for what the Rossian people would need to contend with once their government had been fell by Republican arms.
The People’s Daily carried this news under the headline “The Fight for Peace”.
Nevertheless, after 10 days of deliberations, my people saw fit to honor, in part, the Republican call for Union assistance. The Holy Empire of Toonela, at peace with the other polities of Miyana for over a century, would join the war, but with a different goal. Our goal was to end the Rossian blockade of Thor Passage. It was not an aim limited by lack of ambition or cowardice. No, if all that was being asked of Toonela’s peoples was the risk of death along a path which, at the end of, laid the real liberation of Rossia’s people from a brutal and cruel regime, we would have fought upon every Rossian coast to have played some small part in having aided their struggle! But we could not fantasize about an aim which could not be realized, for we had discovered no evidence of a Rossian dissent, understanding of their own oppression and seeking their own path to freedom, who would stand in solidarity with us if we struggled as one people, a people temporarily transcending the bounds of nations and distance, against a common foe in the oppressive Rossian regime, a foe guilty of numerous and terrible crimes.
No, we restrained ourselves from idle fantasies, and so too did the Communes of Ramelia, the Federal Republic of Anaaxes, and the Truast Leysa, all of whom openly joined the war effort and contributed to the successful end of the blockade in the following months, and all of whom, by the virtue of their own lights, have acted as we have.
What did the leadership of the Council Republic of North American Republics do when the blockade was ended? Did it end the rationing that they had repeatedly claimed would no longer be necessary with the lifting of the blockade? No. Did they reach out to the members of this body, this Union and their friends, to request direct relief, relevant expertise, or recommendations? No. Did they produce public evidence, not of the misdeeds this body knows all too well the Rossian government is guilty of orchestrating, but that they were acting in accordance with an ethics of solidarity by standing aside and heeding the words of Rossians seeking their own liberation? No! They restated their intent to fell the Rossian government. To "liberate" her people. And when the Toonelan people, equal partners in the war effort, who had sacrificed labour and life to travel halfway across Miyana to assist in the most consequential part of their struggle, issued an ultimatum that would have held the most corrupt elements of Rossian society accountable while centering the most downtrodden of its people, did the Republics reach out to us, any of us, to coordinate a strategy that could have split Rossia’s ruling class and forced their surrender, putting the good of the many above the clemency that may have been granted a select few?
You all already know the answer.
Earlier today, the Republics launched their invasion. The day before, their government, who I can only conclude does not know the meaning of solidarity if it is too proud to ask for help when its people are suffering, finally passed agricultural reform, but again stated that rationing would end; only this time, it would be “once trade resumes”, as if the remaining Rossian fleet elements that had been tied up by the Republics’s own forces for months were somehow still capable of disrupting trade. In a statement given the day of the invasion, People's Commissar Amanda Tamia once again reiterated the threat to her people posed by the Rossian government. A government whose leadership was now mostly bits and pieces, unilaterally executed by Republican missiles, not brought to account by those most suffering under them: the Rossian people.
All of that being said, I wish to pose to you all one final series of questions. What good will it do the Social Liberal Union if we, not the people of Rossia, decide their fate for them? What good will come from this body’s member states allowing one of its own to fell a government, even one as murderous as the Rossian regime, with no stated plans to allow the most oppressed of the indigenous people to lead in the hard decisions which must come afterwards? What good will result from an international alliance such as ours, supposedly motivated by the spirit of uplifting not just one another but all who toil on this earth, if accountability begins and ends when one of us is strong enough to carry on its own designs without consent or advice?
These are the questions that each and every one of you must resolutely answer in these critical hours.
Toonela has already done so. In spite of the dire alienation from us this unilateral invasion will foster, the working people of Rossia who will find their suffering increased most are due the arrival of the supplies they will undoubtedly need to rebuild their infrastructure after the remnants of their government surrender. They will find some of these aboard the First Imperial Defense Fleet’s transport convey, which by now will be on standby within the Goncaran Ocean, near Rossia's eastern coast.
If your own people might speak on this matter, delegates, let them be heard.
Thank you."
- - - - - - - - - -
"President of the Assembly, Fellow Delegates, Leaders,
My presence here, my speaking to you today, is unprecedented in the history of my peoples, who have long refrained from the delegation of any one person to speak on their behalf. Not just here, but also within the lands we have come to call home, where it is an impossibility. But as much as I am constantly humbled by the people of my home, I do not think that is the most important precedent being set here today. More important to me is the fact that I am not here as a professional civil servant, public administrator, politician, or movement leader. And I do not say this as a clever rhetorical device. I am merely a swimmer. A swimming instructor. A person chosen to speak to you all today not as equals in the prestige we have each acquired outside this room, but as equals in the common inheritance of humanity which cannot be confined anywhere for as long as our species walks Miyana.
And it is in the interest of this inheritance that I call upon your collective intelligence to answer a question now dearly in need of an answer: what is to be the fate of Rossia and her people?
I do not think I need to recount at length for such an attentive audience the events that pose this question, so I will be brief. In April of 2020, the first reports of a blockade of Thor Passage by a Rossian naval squadron broke to the international press after coverage in the North American Republics’s People’s Daily. For nearly a year, 271 days, no action was taken against this violation of both the Social Liberal Union’s principles and of the right to travel freely across Miyana. On that 271st day, Amanda Tamia, speaking on behalf of the Republics, declared that private diplomatic efforts between the two nations had failed, that they had secured evidence of links between the Rossian government and terrorist organizations operating on their soil, and that the Republics would enter a state of war with Rossia as a result. In her declaration, the blockade was but a passing mention, the foremost of a litany of accusations followed by a clear statement of intent. The Republics would pursue the war until the downfall of the acting government of Rossia. Not once in her statements that day did she express any sympathy or consideration for what the Rossian people would need to contend with once their government had been fell by Republican arms.
The People’s Daily carried this news under the headline “The Fight for Peace”.
Nevertheless, after 10 days of deliberations, my people saw fit to honor, in part, the Republican call for Union assistance. The Holy Empire of Toonela, at peace with the other polities of Miyana for over a century, would join the war, but with a different goal. Our goal was to end the Rossian blockade of Thor Passage. It was not an aim limited by lack of ambition or cowardice. No, if all that was being asked of Toonela’s peoples was the risk of death along a path which, at the end of, laid the real liberation of Rossia’s people from a brutal and cruel regime, we would have fought upon every Rossian coast to have played some small part in having aided their struggle! But we could not fantasize about an aim which could not be realized, for we had discovered no evidence of a Rossian dissent, understanding of their own oppression and seeking their own path to freedom, who would stand in solidarity with us if we struggled as one people, a people temporarily transcending the bounds of nations and distance, against a common foe in the oppressive Rossian regime, a foe guilty of numerous and terrible crimes.
No, we restrained ourselves from idle fantasies, and so too did the Communes of Ramelia, the Federal Republic of Anaaxes, and the Truast Leysa, all of whom openly joined the war effort and contributed to the successful end of the blockade in the following months, and all of whom, by the virtue of their own lights, have acted as we have.
What did the leadership of the Council Republic of North American Republics do when the blockade was ended? Did it end the rationing that they had repeatedly claimed would no longer be necessary with the lifting of the blockade? No. Did they reach out to the members of this body, this Union and their friends, to request direct relief, relevant expertise, or recommendations? No. Did they produce public evidence, not of the misdeeds this body knows all too well the Rossian government is guilty of orchestrating, but that they were acting in accordance with an ethics of solidarity by standing aside and heeding the words of Rossians seeking their own liberation? No! They restated their intent to fell the Rossian government. To "liberate" her people. And when the Toonelan people, equal partners in the war effort, who had sacrificed labour and life to travel halfway across Miyana to assist in the most consequential part of their struggle, issued an ultimatum that would have held the most corrupt elements of Rossian society accountable while centering the most downtrodden of its people, did the Republics reach out to us, any of us, to coordinate a strategy that could have split Rossia’s ruling class and forced their surrender, putting the good of the many above the clemency that may have been granted a select few?
You all already know the answer.
Earlier today, the Republics launched their invasion. The day before, their government, who I can only conclude does not know the meaning of solidarity if it is too proud to ask for help when its people are suffering, finally passed agricultural reform, but again stated that rationing would end; only this time, it would be “once trade resumes”, as if the remaining Rossian fleet elements that had been tied up by the Republics’s own forces for months were somehow still capable of disrupting trade. In a statement given the day of the invasion, People's Commissar Amanda Tamia once again reiterated the threat to her people posed by the Rossian government. A government whose leadership was now mostly bits and pieces, unilaterally executed by Republican missiles, not brought to account by those most suffering under them: the Rossian people.
All of that being said, I wish to pose to you all one final series of questions. What good will it do the Social Liberal Union if we, not the people of Rossia, decide their fate for them? What good will come from this body’s member states allowing one of its own to fell a government, even one as murderous as the Rossian regime, with no stated plans to allow the most oppressed of the indigenous people to lead in the hard decisions which must come afterwards? What good will result from an international alliance such as ours, supposedly motivated by the spirit of uplifting not just one another but all who toil on this earth, if accountability begins and ends when one of us is strong enough to carry on its own designs without consent or advice?
These are the questions that each and every one of you must resolutely answer in these critical hours.
Toonela has already done so. In spite of the dire alienation from us this unilateral invasion will foster, the working people of Rossia who will find their suffering increased most are due the arrival of the supplies they will undoubtedly need to rebuild their infrastructure after the remnants of their government surrender. They will find some of these aboard the First Imperial Defense Fleet’s transport convey, which by now will be on standby within the Goncaran Ocean, near Rossia's eastern coast.
If your own people might speak on this matter, delegates, let them be heard.
Thank you."
