A Policy Long Forgotten

The news breaks on an otherwise quiet day in Country X. The country’s latest census has just been taken, and the future is - to put it mildly - looking rather grim: mass emigration has led to the population declining by upwards of 10% from the previous census; the political institutions are struggling to find a pool of talented new individuals to keep the country running for extended periods of time; the executive of the nation is too timid to advertise abroad for immigration over fear of international backlash and political squabbles keep Country X locked in a state of permanent inaction.

Friends, I am sure by now you realise that Country X represents the current state of our region (it should be noted, however, that Thaecia’s situation is less severe than laid out above). The region, at the time of writing, boasts a population of 227. It is not a bad showing for a User-Created Region (UCR), but we all know that as a region we can do much, much better. The last time the population was this low was May 2019, well before we reached our peak of around 350 nations. Our low population has manifested itself in many ways: multiple Congresses which could barely keep themselves afloat; elections being barely competitive; difficulty at times maintaining activity especially on the RMB and even at times on Discord; the decline of mainstream political parties’ memberships despite the core of the community staying relatively intact… I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while, and we’ve had many debates about recruitment on Discord. I have come to the conclusion that the most effective way to increase our population in the shortest span of time is to usher in the return of a policy long forgotten by the Rayekka Administration: monthly World Assembly-wide recruitment telegrams.

February 14, 2019 and regional population sits at a laughable 41 nations. The Thaecian government, determined to grow the fledgling region, has just sent out a recruitment telegram to the whole of the WA. The rest of the NS world is slightly surprised by the region using such unconventional recruitment tactics, but fails to care for its size. Thaecia’s population explodes, increasing to around 130 by the time the telegram finishes sending 10 days later. A new region is born and a regional culture begins developing, especially on discord. A strong commitment to a fresh democracy is growing as new nations flood Thaecia with enthusiasm, competence and energy. Population remains fairly constant across the next month until March 29th, when another is sent out. We soar again, climbing from 117 to 167. Yet another is sent on May 10th taking us from 216 to near 290 nations. There are two other examples to mention (in late August and late September), however I feel the point has been made clear. WA-wide recruitment works. And it works really, really well.

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The sad thing about WA-wide recruitment is that it can, evidently, be incredibly useful for a region looking to grow its size, but comes with one massive (depending on who you ask) sacrifice: foreign relations. Other regions understandably do not like having their WA members recruited, and we have had foreign government officials, like Altino, urging us to refrain from the practice. That went down a treat, didn’t it? Our region is incredibly proud of its independence and its history. We have never been one to bend over backwards at the whims of another. The Assembly of Regions, Copernica, the Auctoritan Commonwealth, et cetera, all saw to that. So why, I must ask, are we now willingly neglecting the regional interest to remain in the grace of people who, to be completely honest, we do not care about?

If we re-adopt this policy, we are bound to get some international criticism, however please do not interpret that as my advocacy for burning every foreign relation we currently have. There are some regions, like the Free Nations Region and Force, who I consider good friends of the region, and I believe they must be excluded from any future WA telegrams. We want to keep some friends close to us, but in my humble opinion, our domestic policy should not be dictated to us by people who don’t like us and who don’t care about us. Whichever regions are excluded is entirely up to the incumbent administration and in particular the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

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And look, I’ve been on the receiving end of the whining telegrams, the upset discord DMs, the lot. It isn’t very pleasant, I’ll tell you that for free. But was it worth it to see the region’s government flourishing and its culture rapidly developing? Hell yes. Was it worth it to weather the storm of rage of bitter regions whilst ensuring Thaecia was not killed by the Summer Slump? Without question. This itself even raises another point: Summer is not long round the corner. It is absolutely imperative that we increase our population as much as we can all the way up until May in order to keep our region’s population figures high enough to sustain our large government size. Summer hit us last year, and it hit us incredibly hard. With our current population statistics, we simply can’t afford to undergo another Summer 2019.

Friends, please always remember that our region is strong and resilient. We have been through thick and thin, we have stood firm through all the nay-sayers and doomsday prophets to stand as a united and happy community. With the intent of further strengthening our great region, I urge the newly-inaugurated Korsinia Administration to restore this long-forgotten recruitment tactic and start driving a true campaign to rebuild Thaecia.

Acknowledgements to Terentiland and Zanaana, who have done some great work with the Thaecian Journal very recently in reporting the population decline.