Intergalactic Summit

Because helping slaves achieve freedom, providing billions of them with a safe place to live and work, and giving them opportunities to become successful and prominent people in our society is sooooo horrible!

Not to mention how outright evil we were for helping the Matari that chose not to live in the Federation to set up a government, and provide trillions of dollars worth of aid as long as an alliance that has proven it will never be broken even in the most dire and extreme circumstances. This friendship is absolutely disgusting! How could we? Oh how guilty we are!

We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, we should help the Amarr on their next reclaiming to make up for it. The next time I see a Matari, I'm going to get down on my knees, kiss his feet explaining how sorry I am, and knock him out with a rock so I can drag him onto a slave ship.

You completely misunderstand me. You agreed to take in a huge number of people with no requirement upon them that they adapt your cultural and social mores. This is generous to the point of insanity. I'm not saying that the Matari have paid a high price to enter the Federation - I'm saying that they haven't paid ANY price, that I can see.

Whole districts of cities, whole cities entire - whole WORLDS indeed operate as cultural enclaves within the your body politic. As someone who has studied and practiced the fine art of managing disparate cultures within a single workforce, it makes me shudder to see.

Because managing a population that is culturally so different from your own is very difficult without either imposing your prejudices on them or vice-versa. Managing the security of a bloc that locally outnumbers you means that you cannot take for granted which way they will jump politically or socially - or your ability to enforce control in a pinch.

Inevitably, once a cultural minority reaches a certain size, it encysts itself within the body politic. You get districts where your own language is spoken as a second tongue. Where the street gangs operate according to rules you don't understand. Where the population instinctively mistrusts your law enforcement personnel - unless you recruit heavily from within that community, whereupon you simply take an external problem and internalise it!

Are you suggesting that there can be little peace and understanding between people who do not assimilate with each other? That is what I've taken from your last two posts...though I hope I am mistaken in my assumptions.

On some points I do agree, but as a whole, I disagree.

Prejudice isn't slang for law and order. People will go here or there no matter if they share the same background and principles as yourself. It is a matter of "control," as you say. Some are easily controlled by outside forces beyond your grasp, like media and propaganda, and if this is a problem then you clearly lacked control to begin with.

-Eran

Class registrations for the Fall Semester at Caille university are still open and perhaps you could find a slot available in some basic 100 level Caldari oriented Humanities classes. Until you have the most basic grounding in who and why we are, there's really little point discussing it with you in any detail.

Have you tried explaining that to them?

Your effort made an impact Ava. At least on me, for what it's worth.

Thank you.

Then I apologize for the misunderstanding. However, we saw what forcing people to make some sacrifice or payment to enter our society has done. The Amarr's mistakes here are very obvious, however we have made mistakes regarding other cultures as well. Part of why the Gallente Caldari war started was that we were trying to merge the cultural and national identity of the Caldari with our own, which was disastrous. We attempted the same thing with the Intaki and almost lost them as well. With the Matari, we made sure not to do the same thing.

The melting pot is a great idea and makes people warm and fuzzy inside to think about, but that's simply not how cultures work. While people like to observe, admire, and even take part in the culture of another group of people, they will never want to lose theirs. Which is why keeping cultures unique and separate, yet working together and unified under our flag has proven to be the better choice. A cultural fruit salad if you well. Everyone mingling and together, yet not mixing in and blending.

An unfortunate byproduct of this are cases of discrimination, but it's a necessary price to pay to avoid another civil war. If there's one trait that defines the Federation more than anything is that we make tons of mistakes, but we are willing to learn and grow from them.



You're forgetting that our system of government makes it possible to manage such different groups of people. Every citizen has a voice in this country. If say an entire district of Matari are displeased with the way they are being treated they can vote for candidates that will improve their position and even nominate their own. If that fails there is still plenty they could do. They could write and petition to the government all the way up to the national level. If that fails, a peaceful protest or boycott is often an effective solution.

The only time people riot and revolt against you is when they don't feel that there are any other options or when mass hysteria comes into effect. Considering that the latter is rare, it's possible and simple to maintain security and order across multiple groups of people. There are plenty of non violent ways for citizens of the Federation to express their concerns, which isn't the case for other nations where people can't vote, peaceful protests get shot down (sometimes literally) and it's near impossible to communicate with a member of government.

Only about six Republicans have voiced support and/or their opinions on the matter. I think the people arguing about the Federation are off-topic, but at least they are keeping this thread alive until someone else comes along and puts it back on track.

Some good things have been said here. It seems to be having the effect I thought it would, though.

-Eran

I, Elsebeth, of Rhiannon, born Rhiannon, Sebiestor of Mikramurka, Matar, add my voice to this call.