The Afaes Utphätseschti Act before the Ziu as RZ42 proposes that the Wall be torn down, opening Talossa once more to intermicronational politics. On one side of the debate stands proponents including Distáin Miestrâ Schivâ, who has decried the wall as a xenophobic relic of the ancien régime of House Madison, and Seneschal Lüc da Schir, who says the wall smells of “bigoted prohibitionism”, as well as Free Democratic Alliance leader C. Carlüs Xheraltescu and the bill’s sponsor, Senator Glüc da Dhi. The most vocal opponent of the Act has been RUMP Leader Sir Alexandreu Davinescu, who has stated he sees nothing to be gained by the Wall’s destruction other than a national descent into “mindless exchanges of diplomats, disputes over nonsense, [and] fake alliances,” and who has alternatively proposed an investigation into the benefits and drawbacks of dismantling the Wall.
With the vote on RZ42 beginning, Senator da Dhi took time out of his schedule to sit down with Beric’ht to discuss his Act, the changing face of Talossa, and more.
Beric’ht Talossan: So after all these years, what has raised this sudden groundswell to take down the wall?
Glüc da Dhi: Its not a new issue. A more open foreign policy has always been an issue for the MRPT and for me and other progressive politicians, but the reason there’s a bill now is simply that there is a majority (or seems to be at least, we won't know for sure until the Clark has ended).
BT: If the bill does pass, and the MRPT returns to government, do you have any immediate actions planned in the realm of foreign relations?
GD: Well, I can’t speak for the next government of course - I probably won’t be in it - but I would hope that any government with an active foreign minister will use this new opportunity at least to find out what the possibilities are and try to open doors. I don’t think that we can say conclusively whether we will benefit from diplomatic contacts, cultural exchange, tourism before we actually do it, so lets try and find out. I can’t see any harm to that. But obviously it will depend on the priorities of the government. (con:t sür 4) (con:t da 1) If a party with only two or so ministers gets in charge I can imagine that their first focus will be immigration, but to predict the future now and say the government should always say no, even if some respectable nation came up with a good offer, I don't see the point of that. Anyway, we will be discussing the next MRPT platform soon, so I can imagine we include some clause about researching micronations and reaching out and what that will mean in practice will depend on the coalition and what we find out.
BT: Talossan politics, ever in flux, still seem to be settling after Reunison. The Wall has been a feature of our law for some time - do you think swelling support for its destruction signals that Talossa is still breaking free of the past?
GD: Yeah, definitely. It’s all small steps, but since Reunision I have believed that it was in a way inevitable same with the freedom of Talossans to join micronations. I know there are past wounds and we should be careful about making the same mistakes in the past, but new citizens, they don’t come here to get involved in old conflicts. Many new citizens (including myself) did not understand why we had to be so angry at the republic. They didn’t get why [we] had to force everyone to stay away from micronations. And this one, it’s probably less emotional than past issues, but I do feel that in general newer citizens are sympathetic to the idea. They want explore the possibilities rather than have Talossa stuck behind its old fears. But it’s all tiny steps, and that’s good - I think we evolve gradually. Too fast and we might lose some of the things that makes Talossa so great for us, but if we don’t want to try and change at all we might just run out of energy someday.
BT: Supporters of the Wall have long raised concerns about Talossa's dignity or legitimacy being impacted by its destruction - the original bill that put the wall in place drew a distinction between 'self-legitimizing' and 'other-legitimizing' nations, favoring the former. Today, critics and questioners have voiced similar ideas. As the bill's author, how do you think Talossa's stature will change with passage, if at all?
GD: Not much. No, I think all governments will be very careful - and anyway, very limited by their time. And we've included a number of restrictions; we're not talking about recognizing all bug nations as sovereign states or joining some pan-micronational alliance here. Honestly, the whole argument reminds me of the things that were said when we were talking about the ban on micronational citizenship: we would get all these people talking about wars and alliances on Witt - none of that happened, and I think if we feel the government is at risk of going too far, the citizens and the opposition are critical enough to prevent that. Even after this, it will be small steps. I mean, when we talk about legitimacy (I’d say a large part of it comes from the Talossans themselves) but we also talk of our past - a long history that makes us different from many others. More than 30 years. But we forget that in that past Talossa has had much much more extensive involvement with all kinds of weird nations than what we're currently talking about and yet, here we are, serious as ever. Some people say any form of friendliness with other like minded nations would just be meaningless pomp, but lets be real - the sentence immediately preceding the [Semi-Permeable Wall Act] is that full diplomatic relations are said to exist between Talossa and the US. Talk about meaningless. The old [Kingdom of Talossa] website had a gazillion pages about various army ranks and statutes - only three or four of those are actually filled by people. In that sense, actually talking to actual people who share our hobby is much more real.
[This interview has been edited and condensed for readability]
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