Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
Whoops.
10char
10char
The World Turned Upside Down II
- Thread starter EQandcivfanatic
- Start date
Kamilian
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2002
- Messages
- 3,473
ABYSSINIAN EMPIRE - Brief Overview
Society, Culture, Religion, and Politics
In the nearly two decades since the end of the Somali Crisis, but some resentment continue to linger. There are still instances of robbery, killings, and other such things between some Christians and some Muslims. Quite a few Somalis who did not support their upstart government's radical Islamist agenda had fled their homeland as the Abyssinian troops withdrew, taking with them what they could carry or load up onto carts and trekking across the demarcating border. With the exception of those occasional attacks, the Somalis who had resettled in Abyssinia enjoyed much better circumstances, particularly since the Abyssinian government took away every single bit of industrial and otherwise equipment and development they could back across the border, leaving the rebels with a starved and impoverished country.
Though a majority of the Somali refugees settles in southeastern Ethiopia, some went as far as Khartoum while others found solace in the bustling capital, Addis Ababa. Some who had once lived on the Somali coasts moved to Djibouti, to seek jobs there.
The result of this massive migration had been that over the decade, while in the countryside those suspicious sentiments continued and occasionally flared (not so much in the Sudanese areas but in the poorer southeastern provinces not far from Somalia), the three cities of Addis Ababa, Khartoum, and Djibouti had become the "big three" of the Empire. Walking through the markets of the former two and the harbor of the latter, one could hear a mixture of languages being spoken, a melting pot of names for the wares sold by merchants. Arabic, Somali, and some Amharic in Khartoum - in that order - Somali and Amharic in Djibouti, and all three relatively equally in the capital.
The martial law was lifted in 1964, the last decree of Prime Minister Akka being that women's suffrage be granted for the 1970 elections - for the 1965 elections, women could stand for office. In the euphoria that surrounded the Democratic Party, which Akka the "great" was a member of, the leftists carried the day and 22 of the Left-Liberals' 40 Senators were women. The 1965 election was also historic as it was the first time in years that voters supported a communist party en masse, and the Abyssinian Socialist Union sat in parliament again with 29 seats of its own. Since Akka refused to serve again and decided to retire from high-powered politics, the new leader of the Democrats, Haile Juba, emerged as the Prime Minister and allied with the Socialists, ending the classic Democratic Bloc in which his party shared power with the Conservatives who tolerated the Left-Liberals and Social Democrats but could not agree to coalition with communists. Diminished in parliamentary power, the Conservatives retreated into the opposition along with the Christian Democrats and Nationalists. The new "Liberal League" coalition would dominate the government for 15 years and worked on increasing and facilitating women voter turnout, which in 1970 was only 20% but rose to 35% in 1975 and more than doubled to 72% of eligible women voters five years later. Still, even this dramatic spike in liberal-voting women could not counteract the incident in 1979, when the Patriarch of the Abyssinian Orthodox Church (Christianity) called on for support for a parliamentary vote on restoring the official status of Orthodox Christianity as the state religion.
Only the Christian Democrats picked up the call to action, but after only barely mustering the 10% necessary to put the proposal to a formal vote, they failed. The Prime Minister called the vote attempt "a fiasco," and condemned it as a naked attempt by the Patriarch to dominate a country split almost evenly between Christians and Muslims with some smaller denominations of Jews in between. The Emperor did not censor him, and the Patriarch responded in outrage and demanded that "devout Christians" rise up to "defend themselves" against Muslim encroachment. What followed was a level of unrest unseen since the height of the Somali Crisis - though only the fervent followers of the Church around Axum and in southeastern Ethiopia took it as a call to arms, the amount of small mosques burned down, churches burned in counter-protest, and violence caused great alarm throughout the administrative structure. Only when the War Minister threatened to put the Patriarch under house arrest and impose martial law did the violence subside; by then, about 300 people nationwide lay dead in a matter of five days of strife.
It was only due to this that the Leftist Golden Age ended when, in June of 1980, the Liberal League narrowly lost to an alliance led by the United Conservative Party. Nevertheless, neither the Nationalists nor the Christian Democrats are part of the coalition and actually see it as still far too progressive for their tastes, so rollbacks of reforms are highly unlikely. The Conservatives are, however, considering that the massive spending is starting to bring down the economy. Noone wants to decrease education funding, yet at the same time the Conservatives are leery about increasing taxes.
Education
Thanks to the government's massive education initiatives, more and more literate and properly-educated people are emerging into the Abyssinian economic, social, and political life. In the capital, many entertainment venues are held in cafes with stand-up comedians, poets, and other artists performing, and it's some popular jokes are "We Abyssinians may not be able to hold on to our territory, but at least we're among the best-educated this continent has to offer!" or "If only they taught Empire-Building and Maintenance at university, we'd enlighten the whole world by now". For years now, education has been a massive focus for the government to unify the country - only the Ethiopians and Eritreans have been natively speaking Amharic for centuries and are the closest ethnicities; besides them are Arab-speaking Sudanese, and Somali speakers, along with various minor dialects of the main three languages. The Empire's two official languages - Amharic and Arabic - are required on legal documents only in the Sudanese provinces; south and east of Sudan, however, only Amharic is used. An example of a typical curriculum in general education until 12th grade:
At university, students continue some basic education classes in their first and second year, though are expected to declare a focus field/major by the end of their second year. Gen-Ed requirements typically include a Math course, a Science, 2 Histories, 2 years of study in the language that had NOT been chosen in previous years (ie, if Arabic 5 through 12 have been chosen, then 2 years of Somali courses are required, and vice-versa), 2 Cultural and Societal Studies courses on sociology, ethnic relations, etc., 2 World Religions courses. Certain majors such as Economics and Political Science demand that students start learning a FOURTH language as early as their first year, choices often including English, Italian, Swahili, Nipponese, and Russian. The last two years, students choose courses geared primarily towards their desired major, encompassing all aspects from ethics and theory to applied knowledge, with Law, Economic/Finance, and Political Internships offered with the government to open a way for post-graduate careers.
Economics
The state of the Abyssinian economy is not a very optimistic one, unfortunately. Low taxes and high expenditures are creating a debt and budget deficit, but the Conservatives in power are unlikely to raise taxes but at the same time they know that the education system is very developed and must continue to be subsidized; with Dar-al-Islam still lurking around the corner and Somalia having apparently recovered enough since the fighting years ago, the military is a must-have and indeed still needs to be improved.
No international corporate associations exist yet on Abyssinian soil.
Society, Culture, Religion, and Politics
In the nearly two decades since the end of the Somali Crisis, but some resentment continue to linger. There are still instances of robbery, killings, and other such things between some Christians and some Muslims. Quite a few Somalis who did not support their upstart government's radical Islamist agenda had fled their homeland as the Abyssinian troops withdrew, taking with them what they could carry or load up onto carts and trekking across the demarcating border. With the exception of those occasional attacks, the Somalis who had resettled in Abyssinia enjoyed much better circumstances, particularly since the Abyssinian government took away every single bit of industrial and otherwise equipment and development they could back across the border, leaving the rebels with a starved and impoverished country.
Though a majority of the Somali refugees settles in southeastern Ethiopia, some went as far as Khartoum while others found solace in the bustling capital, Addis Ababa. Some who had once lived on the Somali coasts moved to Djibouti, to seek jobs there.
The result of this massive migration had been that over the decade, while in the countryside those suspicious sentiments continued and occasionally flared (not so much in the Sudanese areas but in the poorer southeastern provinces not far from Somalia), the three cities of Addis Ababa, Khartoum, and Djibouti had become the "big three" of the Empire. Walking through the markets of the former two and the harbor of the latter, one could hear a mixture of languages being spoken, a melting pot of names for the wares sold by merchants. Arabic, Somali, and some Amharic in Khartoum - in that order - Somali and Amharic in Djibouti, and all three relatively equally in the capital.
The martial law was lifted in 1964, the last decree of Prime Minister Akka being that women's suffrage be granted for the 1970 elections - for the 1965 elections, women could stand for office. In the euphoria that surrounded the Democratic Party, which Akka the "great" was a member of, the leftists carried the day and 22 of the Left-Liberals' 40 Senators were women. The 1965 election was also historic as it was the first time in years that voters supported a communist party en masse, and the Abyssinian Socialist Union sat in parliament again with 29 seats of its own. Since Akka refused to serve again and decided to retire from high-powered politics, the new leader of the Democrats, Haile Juba, emerged as the Prime Minister and allied with the Socialists, ending the classic Democratic Bloc in which his party shared power with the Conservatives who tolerated the Left-Liberals and Social Democrats but could not agree to coalition with communists. Diminished in parliamentary power, the Conservatives retreated into the opposition along with the Christian Democrats and Nationalists. The new "Liberal League" coalition would dominate the government for 15 years and worked on increasing and facilitating women voter turnout, which in 1970 was only 20% but rose to 35% in 1975 and more than doubled to 72% of eligible women voters five years later. Still, even this dramatic spike in liberal-voting women could not counteract the incident in 1979, when the Patriarch of the Abyssinian Orthodox Church (Christianity) called on for support for a parliamentary vote on restoring the official status of Orthodox Christianity as the state religion.
Only the Christian Democrats picked up the call to action, but after only barely mustering the 10% necessary to put the proposal to a formal vote, they failed. The Prime Minister called the vote attempt "a fiasco," and condemned it as a naked attempt by the Patriarch to dominate a country split almost evenly between Christians and Muslims with some smaller denominations of Jews in between. The Emperor did not censor him, and the Patriarch responded in outrage and demanded that "devout Christians" rise up to "defend themselves" against Muslim encroachment. What followed was a level of unrest unseen since the height of the Somali Crisis - though only the fervent followers of the Church around Axum and in southeastern Ethiopia took it as a call to arms, the amount of small mosques burned down, churches burned in counter-protest, and violence caused great alarm throughout the administrative structure. Only when the War Minister threatened to put the Patriarch under house arrest and impose martial law did the violence subside; by then, about 300 people nationwide lay dead in a matter of five days of strife.
It was only due to this that the Leftist Golden Age ended when, in June of 1980, the Liberal League narrowly lost to an alliance led by the United Conservative Party. Nevertheless, neither the Nationalists nor the Christian Democrats are part of the coalition and actually see it as still far too progressive for their tastes, so rollbacks of reforms are highly unlikely. The Conservatives are, however, considering that the massive spending is starting to bring down the economy. Noone wants to decrease education funding, yet at the same time the Conservatives are leery about increasing taxes.
Education
Thanks to the government's massive education initiatives, more and more literate and properly-educated people are emerging into the Abyssinian economic, social, and political life. In the capital, many entertainment venues are held in cafes with stand-up comedians, poets, and other artists performing, and it's some popular jokes are "We Abyssinians may not be able to hold on to our territory, but at least we're among the best-educated this continent has to offer!" or "If only they taught Empire-Building and Maintenance at university, we'd enlighten the whole world by now". For years now, education has been a massive focus for the government to unify the country - only the Ethiopians and Eritreans have been natively speaking Amharic for centuries and are the closest ethnicities; besides them are Arab-speaking Sudanese, and Somali speakers, along with various minor dialects of the main three languages. The Empire's two official languages - Amharic and Arabic - are required on legal documents only in the Sudanese provinces; south and east of Sudan, however, only Amharic is used. An example of a typical curriculum in general education until 12th grade:
- 1st through 4th grade - Math, Amharic Language, General Sciences, Abyssinian History, Music and Art, Physical Education, Basic Computer Literacy*
- 5th through 8th grade - Pre-Algebra/Algebra, Amharic Language/Literature, OPTION BETWEEN ARABIC AND SOMALI LANGUAGE, General Sciences, Abyssinian History in Contexts of Overall African/Middle Eastern History, Music and Art, Physical Education, Intermediate Computer Literacy*
- SECONDARY SCHOOL - 9th grade - Algebra, Amharic Language/Literature, Intro Biology or Chemistry, Abyssinian History in Regional Context, Music and Art, Physical Education 9, CONTINUATION OF ARABIC OR SOMALI AS CHOSEN IN PRIMARY SCHOOL, Intermediate Computer Literacy*
- 10th grade - Geometry, Amharic Literature 1, Biology or Chemistry, Modern Abyssinian History in Regional Context, Music and Art, Physical Education 10, Advanced Computer Literacy*, Arabic 10 or Somali 10
- 11th grade - Pre-Calculus, Amharic Literature 2, Physics 1, World History 1, Advanced Computer Literacy*, Options for Careers: Journalism, Economics, Accounting, Intro to Politics, etc., Arabic 11 or Somali 11, Arabic or Somali Literature,
- 12th grade - Calculus, Amharic Literature 3, Physics 2, World History 2, Options for Careers course continued, Arabic 12 or Somali 12, Arabic or Somali Literature 2
At university, students continue some basic education classes in their first and second year, though are expected to declare a focus field/major by the end of their second year. Gen-Ed requirements typically include a Math course, a Science, 2 Histories, 2 years of study in the language that had NOT been chosen in previous years (ie, if Arabic 5 through 12 have been chosen, then 2 years of Somali courses are required, and vice-versa), 2 Cultural and Societal Studies courses on sociology, ethnic relations, etc., 2 World Religions courses. Certain majors such as Economics and Political Science demand that students start learning a FOURTH language as early as their first year, choices often including English, Italian, Swahili, Nipponese, and Russian. The last two years, students choose courses geared primarily towards their desired major, encompassing all aspects from ethics and theory to applied knowledge, with Law, Economic/Finance, and Political Internships offered with the government to open a way for post-graduate careers.
Economics
The state of the Abyssinian economy is not a very optimistic one, unfortunately. Low taxes and high expenditures are creating a debt and budget deficit, but the Conservatives in power are unlikely to raise taxes but at the same time they know that the education system is very developed and must continue to be subsidized; with Dar-al-Islam still lurking around the corner and Somalia having apparently recovered enough since the fighting years ago, the military is a must-have and indeed still needs to be improved.
No international corporate associations exist yet on Abyssinian soil.
Kamilian
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2002
- Messages
- 3,473
From Abyssinia
To Ogdis-Ford Automotive Company:
Would you like to open some bases in Abyssinia? Our people like your cars and we've owned Liberian cars since production first began.
From Abyssinia
To Orlando Reconstruction Organization:
Would you like to open some offices in Abyssinia to start some construction projects in our country?
To Ogdis-Ford Automotive Company:
Would you like to open some bases in Abyssinia? Our people like your cars and we've owned Liberian cars since production first began.
From Abyssinia
To Orlando Reconstruction Organization:
Would you like to open some offices in Abyssinia to start some construction projects in our country?
Milarqui
Deity
I have yet to see the answers from these people.
Milarqui
Deity
OOC: What would the constitution say about their being a theocracy? Imagine: "You have the right to worship Allah. If you don't wish to follow this right, you will be tortured until you do. If even then you don't wish it, you'll die and your kin will be told that in the end, you reneged of your former faith and embraced Allah as your only God."
Milarqui
Deity
OOC: This incident is pretty much like the Fort Sumter incident that started the American Civil War...
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
OOC: I understand you're excited and you have every right to be, however please don't triple post.
Milarqui
Deity
OOC: Sorry, I had too much sugar this morning 
and I am also currently waiting for those people whom I mentioned before to send me an answer. germanicus12 shall be added to that list, as I have yet to hear from him regarding his offer to build warehouses and a port in my country.
Merry Christmas to all of you!
and I am also currently waiting for those people whom I mentioned before to send me an answer. germanicus12 shall be added to that list, as I have yet to hear from him regarding his offer to build warehouses and a port in my country.Merry Christmas to all of you!
Ace of Gold
MAKE WAY FOR THE BAD GUY
Nippon would like to wish all of you, except dar-al-islam a merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
OOC: Merry Christmas to all of you except the Soviet Union, whom I leave out because they're a bunch of godless communists and they don't celebrate Christmas. 
germanicus12
First Citizen of Rome
OOC: Sorry, I had too much sugar this morning
Merry Christmas to all of you!
Assuming you are Andalusia, I assumed the answer was already there.... I asked if I could do so, and you replied yes so I figured the answer was already answered by yourself.
Nonetheless, our response is yes, we will.
Eire Interactive would like to wish everyone a merry christmas and reccomends them all to buy their latest game the Never Ending Story for all their children and family members as its the perfect bonding experiance. Stay tuned for the first expansion thats yet to be named.
Milarqui
Deity
Well, I was waiting for details like how much money do you want, where would you like to put your warehouses and the port, etcetera, etcetera. It'll be nice to have you working within my nation (yes, I am Andalusia).
EDIT: La nación de Andalucía les desea a todos ustedes unas Muy Felices Navidades y un Muy Próspero Año Nuevo.
TheLastJacobite
No Commies
The UFS wishes everyone a Merry Christmas!
Except the godless Communists of course.
Damn Commies
Except the godless Communists of course.
Damn Commies
germanicus12
First Citizen of Rome
Yes now I see what you meant, we planned to fly down to your nation and take a look around for the best ideal locations before we even iron out the details, as we have no idea how much it will actually cost. Land purchases vary from region to region, warehousing depends on local tax and utilities provided, as well as local workforce.
You will recieve a price range from us following the update.
EDIT: Merry Christmas from the Shipping Industry. Today's specials include half price on all shipping goods and free shipping for weapons! Come and ship before this special ends at 11:59:59 pm London time Christams Day!
Jason The King
Deity
Orders sent.
I will be away on vacation and away from internet from tomorrow until next year. All diplomacy will be answered when I get back.
I will be away on vacation and away from internet from tomorrow until next year. All diplomacy will be answered when I get back.
Similar threads
