Kalistan

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Empress Carolina II Ananto Turns 40
So-Called "red Empress" is a terrible Imperialist
Kaliburg, Grand Duchy of Ananto
July 23, 5713


As Empress awaits decision in New Englia, we pay tribute to her (already) long reign

Editorial Opinion

Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Carolina II Ananto is a weird kind of Imperialist.  Which is to say, she's not much of one at all.  She checks all the boxes of real imperium:

• She maintains absolute and unquestionable, unchallengeable authority, at levels unrivaled anywhere in Terra.  Her breath remains the source of all law in Kalistan, and she remains surrounded by devoted public servants who would rather resign than disobey.
  
• She is unimaginably wealthy and has access to unlimited credit, business contacts, investment capital, and anything she could possibly ever want.
  
• She commands a premier navy and the retrenched remnants of a once far greater Empire.  She reigns over a peaceful, prosperous and stable nation which has been at peace for decades, and has helped maintain the peace of the region for far longer.
  
• She is involving Kalistan in bidding on resource extraction on the other side of the planet in pursuit of Kalistan's national interest.
  
• She holds a mass of more than 93 Million Kalistanis, and countless millions globally captivated by immense charisma, confidence, and intellect, to the point where the term "cult of worship" is probably realer in Kalistan in reference to its leader than anywhere else in Terra.
  
• And she is an ultra chauvinist and Nationalist, selecting for a Chancellor and Head of Government a woman who has a plaque over her door that reads "Kalistan, first, last and always."
  

Reading this list, one could be forgiven for thinking that Empress Carolina exemplified, or perhaps, personifies the very concept of Imperialism.  To the degree that other leaders fall short of this list, you could say they fall short of the title Emperor.  She may set the standard for Imperium, and indeed, she does:  Nobody comes close to her on this list of criteria which marks her as an absolute, personalist, hereditary monarch, the sole source of all law and political legitimacy in Kalistan.  But Her Imperial Majesty is one of the worst imperialists on the planet, and has been for nearly all of her almost 18 year long reign.  Spoiler alert, that is not a bad thing, in her case.

As she turns 40 today, we thought it would be a good opportunity to evaluate what is likely the first half of her reign

Let's go right down the list.  She maintains absolute rule for certain.  But she also spent years considering reform of her Party and her political system.  Before she even formally took over, she set out to reform the Institutional Party, whose job it is to turn her utterances into policy for the Nation.  She allowed factionalism, she sacked the Chancellor who refused to comply with her instructions, and she openly became friendly with socialists and moderates.  Granted, these are not the firebreathing revolutionary socialists we may see in Communist nations:  They are still Institutionalists after all, but it is unheard of for the epitome of conservatism, the Monarch of a hereditary absolutist monarchy, to cozy up to socialists of any stripe.  Yet, her second longest serving minister is a socialist, and he has been instrumental in promoting infrastructure, construction, and public health projects in the Grand Duchy of Kalistan.  She is not referred to, on occasion, as "the Red Empress" for nothing after all.

Yes, she is fabulously wealthy.  But she is also one of the most openly devout, practicing Brethrenists among the monarchs.  She does not often wear jewelry, which is a significant departure from the very perpetually decked out Empress Mary I.  She wears very simple, though well made, clothing in public.  She rarely cuts her hair, preferring to keep it as close to natural as she can, and her hair styles look very stylish in their simplicity.  She maintains the homes she has, she has parted with the Hulanevek diamond, and notoriously has not spent much time with the Ananto Gem Horde, preferring to steadily aggrandize it privately than to make a huge show of it.  And she has not attended a formal audience in the gaudy, gem encrusted Formal Audience Chambers in years, preferring to have tea and cake in the much simpler Informal Audience setting.  Most importantly, she attends Meeting at least once a week, and has devoted numerous radio  addresses to her musings on Brethrenist testimonies.

She commands a massive navy, and she does maintain it, but she has not participated in a war during her reign.  In fact, despite the protests of her Chancellor, she has recently stated that she intends to let the Base Agreement with NEKK at Luncasi lapse and return Kalistani forward units home.  She has no intention of letting the Kalistani Navy into the Mad Dog Ocean, nor does she intend to sail the Third Fleet past Northern Indrala.  She is content to focus on Fortress Kalistan to make invasion of our nation a obvious strategic tragedy, promising to instead turn the nation into a charnel house for invaders if they decided that they wish to test Kalistan's defensive doctrine.  In doing so she seeks to use her navy and growing Airforce to discourage attack from foreign powers, to make it impossible to conceive of.  And perhaps her greatest sin against imperialism, she has given up property that was rightfully Kalistan's dominion in Gaduridos, rather than maintain a relationship which encourage even further dependency of that nation on ours.  No other empire has so willingly parted with their empire like that.  Retrenchment, not expansion is her MO.

She is involving Kalistan in resource acquisition on the other side of the planet, as an Imperialist would, but her stated goal, and there is no reason to disbelieve her in this because it conforms with her long standing beliefs about resource conservation here in Kalistan, is to refuse to use the resources she seeks to buy, and instead use that purchase to protect the environment.  She wants to help New Englia adopt clean energy alternatives rather than the filthy, but easy options that other nations are offering.  She takes a moral, normative stance, quite unlike an imperialist, who are often crass materialists who will put on a fake smile and extend a false hand to the nation they seek to exploit to death and then abandon to post colonialism.  As evidence of this point, no other bidder in the New Englia situation is proposing to not use the oil they purchase the rights to.  They all seek instead to profit directly from it, while representing their program as developmentalist to New Englia.

Her Imperial Majesty may have her very own personal fan club in Kalistan, and perhaps the world.  But she also is among the most harshly critiqued monarchs that Kalistan has ever had:  Much of this is because of her commitment to freedom of the press and other civil liberties which set Kalistan apart as one of the most politically clamped down social libertarian nations in Terra.  Kalistanis enjoy unparalleled civil liberties, and as long as criticism of the Empress is respectful and based in truth, we here at the National have even found that we have remarkable latitude to critique the Empress, despite the existence of Lese Majestie which makes it a crime to insult the Empress.  Kalistanis have unlimited reproductive freedom, regulated by free access to drugs, guns and media.  We are free to peacefully petition our government for redress of grievance, in the streets if need be.  We are free to form non-political social organizations.  We are free to worship as we please or not at all.  Our rights and liberties are protected from both an overzealous police force and a capricious and captured judiciary. Liberty isn’t only the lack of constraint, as liberal democracies construe it, but also for the liberty to mean anything people need to be able to actually use the liberty, and in Kalistan, especially under this empress, we have the fullest set of social liberties on Terra.   We have more liberties, it is possible, than many liberal democracies, and we most certainly have far more ability to actually enjoy our liberty due to relative general prosperity. That's hardly a mark of imperialism.  But it more contributes to people's love for their Empress. In liberal states it would engender political disorder and dissent.

And finally, yes, it is true, she, like every Kalistani Emperor and Empress, and in fact, nearly every institutionalist ever, is extremely chauvanist and expresses nearly constant preference for Kalistan, Kalistan's interest, and Kalistan's benefit.  Yet, this Empress may be the most cosmopolitan Empress in our History as well.  She is one of the few Monarchs who actually studied over seas.  She regularly stays in Valruzia, where she was gifted a castle.  She also makes trips to Hutori, and lives part of the year in Athosia.  She speaks Vrassan, Egelian, Canrillais, Valruzian and Dundorfic fluently and is fully literate on those languages.  She also speaks Redn at the Student Level and practices regularly with her Husband, who has been teaching Redn in Kaliburg.  She still can compete in Go at the professional level, writes philosophy, and publishes peer reviewed work in moral and ethical philosophy.  She plays the piano and interestingly enough is apparently learning the harp.  She knows carpentry, plumbing and auto mechanics, among other trades.  She is truly a renaissance woman, loves other nations, cultures and languages, foods, and new experiences, and she travels as often as she can.  This  hardly buttresses her National Chauvinist bona fides.

Most of all, she simply is not interested in imperialism.  Outside Athosia, she hasn't attempted to really interfere in foreign affairs at all, to influence her neighbors, or to push Kalistani influence abroad.  Its not that she hasn't tried, but since being formally crowned, and even before then, she has opted instead to make friends where she can, to cooperate rather than irritate, and to leave others alone in hopes they will leave Kalistan alone.  She has on occasion used rhetoric that has gotten her in trouble internationally, and people far too often confuse the words of her underlings for her policy.  But not withstanding, Her Imperial Majesty entered into office under heavy condescension, both home and abroad.  She was called petulant and was offered advice she did not need from those seeking to influence her direction as a new monarch, and thinking that this was acceptable given her age.  Instead, she has grown into a confident, mature monarch who values the council of those she appointed to give her council, who tries to meet with her people when possible, who springs into action when the situation calls for leadership.

These are all the qualities of an actual populist in a democracy.  Not a cloistered sovereign who is so far removed from her people and from the world that everything they say seems out of touch with reality.  She is a different sort, for certain.  A woman of, and a leader of the people, of Kalistan and Kalistanis.  In this sense, she may be a lousy imperialist, but who needs more imperialists?  Terra is so full of imperialists, its not even funny.  Instead, Her Imperial Majesty is Kalistan's Empress and we are her people.  She belongs to our people, and no other.  She is a terrible imperialist, but she literally exemplifies the essence of our Nation, of what it means to be Kalistani.

We wish Her Imperial Majesty, our Empress Carolina II Ananto a happy 40th Birthday, and hope for all our sake, that she is still with us when twice as many years again have passed.

@TheNational