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News > Opinion > Columns
The disgrace of Ryccia
By Constantin Tudor Predoiu, 8th July 2022.
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The Valoran capital, Mirochi, during the short cease-fire after bombardment in the Ryccian invasion of 2022. Source: ONN.
I stumbled across an old article on Vilue International from 2019 yesterday while doing research on Ryccia. However, when I read the article, I felt my brain bonk against my cranium as it gave me a headache when placed in the current geopolitical situation. The short article was written by Matts Hyllu who is the President of the Friends of Ryccia Society and contemplated how the world owed Ryccia a great deal and how we should respect Ryccia still. No doubt even back in 2019. Mr. Hyllu called out the great sacrifices of Ryccian soldiers who now are buried on the Sicullite Islands. While no one in their right minds would ever insult those brave soldiers who fought for the South Pacific’s freedom, the fact remains that they are now all dead. I should also mention that by no means is this an attack on Mr. Hyllu or his Society, but his article serves as a mere catalyst for this column.
The Ryccian soldiers that now have committed a putsch and still terrorize Valora today, are in my eyes no longer the same Ryccian soldiers that carried the Cordillian campaigns on their shoulders. Especially now that martial law has been declared and the junta shoots everyone as if they were living in hell. Ryccia may have been home to greatness once, but now has turned into the darkest of dystopias. One which it confronted in its past several times. In the Democratic Revolutions and the Great War. Yet now Ryccia has become a disgrace to that legacy.
It’s no secret that modern Ryccia was forged with guns in the Democratic Revolution from 1888 until 1925. When Karnetvor imperialists lit the world ablaze with their aggression, Ryccia again stood as a defender of freedom. The Ryccian military was seen as heroes as all nations would have glorified their armed forces. Even here in Stoinia we have dozens of monuments dedicated to the Allied Powers, but somehow that glory has been perverted in Ryccia. Following the Democratic Revolution, the Ryccian military became fanatic in its meritocracy as well as patriotism. When governments couldn’t be formed or internal political tensions rose, the military stepped in and told the government to form a governing coalition as they spoke to them with guns in hand. Rattling up corruption through military tribunals and circumventing the normal democratic process as elected officials finally formed a government. Yet the Ryccian people cheered as military officials were openly political from across the entire spectrum and this gave them a near apolitical view on politics in the people’s eyes. Thus a dangerous precedent was set that would bring Ryccia into its current predicament. All because the people were too blind to see the faults in the Ryccian military. Its glorification as a judge. A stark contrast with its primary goal.
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The founding principles of separation of powers has been proven as a stabilizing factor over a dozen times. Yet somehow the Ryccian people turned a blind eye to it. All in the name of immediate stability and order. Most of the time these coups didn’t suspend the legislature, but still solidified the military’s role as a judge. Few stopped to ask the following question: Who decides when the judge has gonna too far or made a wrong decision? None in this case. For the judge is armed and won’t have any excuses. Civil rights or not. Suspended legislature or not. The Ryccian populace was like a rabbit with broken legs in a forest. How can you truly guarantee freedom of speech when you always risk being arrested or even shot for speaking out?
This whole history reminds me of a true visionary, the Sallodesian sci-fi writer Frank Robert who wrote one of the first modern sci-fi epics: Drifts[1]. The Ryccian people failed to remember his most important lesson to humanity: always question your leaders! Had the Ryccians done so with their military coups, then perhaps this entire history of subverting democracy could have been averted and the Ryccian military still would be a respectable institution. Had it only continued with its foundational duties to protect the Ryccian people and not perverted the role of the democratically elected officials.
Too ingrained in Ryccian society has this military judge become, like a reeking weed on your porch, that when it reluctantly didn’t intervene in 2010, Ryccia fell in unprecedented political instability. To be expected as the politicians had learned to only work together at gunpoint and lost the art of conscious compromise. Hence why the Ryccian military only radicalized its belief that they should indeed be the judge that steps in case of chaos for only they can save the nation! Yet when they did so this time, alea democratica iacta est!
While the Ryccian glorification of its military is one aspect that’s at fault here, another is the Kingdom of Valora history that helped spark this current putsch. With a precedent of intervening in its own government, it’s unsurprising that Ryccia would involve itself in territories where many Ryccians lived. The military must protect all Ryccians! Wherever the might be! Fate decided that Valora would become the powder keg of Cordillia for decades to come. While the relation between Ryccia and Valora is still heavily debated to this day, it’s unquestionable that the situation has only escalated with armed interventions. One can deduce that Ryccia sees Valora as a client state as its measure cross the borders of international law and in some cases even warcrimes or crimes against humanity. The combination of an all too eager military and volatile situation has brought us here today. All because no one dared to say to the Ryccian military that they were exceeding their mandate.
But what are the solutions that shall grant Ryccia a safe & stable future? If the military pushed to form a government, why couldn’t a King or President do so? Certainly other countries such as Sedunn, Gianatla and Stoinia have proven that such a civilized manner can exist. Even the Peocracy has proven itself despite the Arnchow Rebellion. However, with the frequent military coups in Ryccia this whole idea has been shot & maimed in the minds of the Ryccians like cannibalized street dog. So much so that when they experimented in the early 2000’s with such a system, the system collapsed as ethnic tensions rose again. Perhaps the Democratic Revolution still runs deep in Ryccian culture, but I believe that that first military coup should have come with a receipt. Once forged by the gun, kept by the gun.
So what is to be done with Ryccia after the junta is overthrown? I invite all of you to think of ideas to prevent another catastrophe such as recent events. For once and forevermore. Yet I can’t help but fear that the seeds of military intervention in government affairs are too strong in Ryccia. Or has this putsch awoken a realization in the Ryccians that the current military ideology has gone too far? That the current Ryccian junta is nothing more but an utter perversion of the Ryccian ideals it so proclaims to represent.
The future remains unknown still as the Ryccian junta acts as despicable as a maggot in a rotten corps. I certainly hope Ryccia can once more earn the right to be called the Home of Greatness as I’ve seen on social media. However, it remains to be seen if the Ryccian military generation of today, still has any shred of honour that the one had which fought in the Great War. Or perhaps the honour of Ryccian soldiers resting on the Sicullite Islands is to be washed away by the waves of perversion that floood today the Ryccian shores.
[1] OOC Note: Drifts is meant to be an IRP version of Frank Herbert’s Dune.