- Pronouns
- he / him / his
Why I still believe in the GAP
HEM Tiberius
In the closing days of January 2012 I went to the Grand Hall to promote a radical new idea. Europeia had reached yet another high water mark as the scars of 2011's turmoil began healing. We were seeing record population levels, record activity levels, and our region seemed to be begging for some higher calling.
So I went to the Grand Hall and tried to sell something that I knew would lack universal support. I called upon our region, and our community, to give back to the world and help create something new. I knew that by doing so we could rise game-wide activity and channel our Europeian legacy into something truly remarkable.
I called this plan the "Good Neighbor Policy".
Some people called it imperialism, some people called it a waste of resources, and some people had nothing to say about it at all. While I did not maintain consistent enough activity in 2012 to promote the idea further, it piqued the interest of one key citizen -- Anumia.
In October of 2013, over a year after I floated my idea to the general public, Anumia announced his bid for the Presidency and a blueprint of what would be one of Europeia's most ambitious plans ever -- The Great Architecture Project.
To suggest that the GAP had a rocky start would be an understatement. A newly minted President Anumia was preoccupied with other affairs -- both in-region and in real life -- to give the project the much needed attention it required. The point-man of the project -- Common Sense Politics -- was likewise beleaguered with various commitments. By the end of Anumia's first term, the project was largely seen as having made no progress.
Anumia then tapped Lethen to help lead the project as Minister of Cultivation, and Lethen put huge swaths of time and energy into building up a new Ministry from the ground up. But still, progress came slow. Citizens had some legitimate complaints about lack of communications about progress as the term went on, but citizens seemed to have disproportionally higher standards for communication from the Ministry of Cultivation than they had for many other -- arguably even more critical Ministries -- such as the Navy or Foreign Affairs.
By May 2014 we had signed two Construction Partnership Agreements, but progress stalled with the handover of the department from Lethen to Ogastein -- who after promising to build up the program, almost immediately disavowed it and vanished from Europeia.
By this point, an already impatient population had grown tired of hearing about the GAP. People were growing weary of waiting, and politically, the entire program was becoming a ball and chain around any and every administration that was forced to touch it. However, Kraketopia -- who had since succeeded Anumia as President -- gave the program another stab with Malashaan as Ogastein's successor.
He could not have made a better choice. By late September the program had six partner regions with more negotiations on the way. Architect assignments were being evenly distributed, and the program had finally seemed to gain some much needed momentum.
But somehow, it didn't matter.
The well of political will had finally dried up. When Malashaan himself sought the Presidency the Ministry of Cultivation was scrapped and mothballed within the Department of Foreign Affairs. Without a concentrated effort this term, all the progress made over the early autumn seems to have evaporated. As of today, the Senate is considering the repeal of the Foreign Cultivation Act, which would sweep away the last remnants of our first (and probably last) coherent foreign aid program.
In late December 2012, I penned an article questioning the near universal complacency that I saw in the region. There was a particular observation from future President Cerain Quilor that I feel is apt to relay:
The Malashaan Administration, just a few weeks ago, announced the failure of an international paper project that would have rose the profile of Europeia around the globe. Today, we are seeing universal consensus in shuttering a program that would have done the same, and was perhaps on the crux of doing so.
There is a large part of me that feels we have become so good at getting the trains run on time here in Europeia, that we grow frustrated when everything we touch fails to turn to gold instantly. As Cerain so accurately points out, we appear to lack the political will to pursue anything that threatens to shatter our self contained ceilings. We are so afraid of the sour investment, of the poison pill, of disproportionally high risks that we have become reluctant to take any risks at all. So we stay within our comfort levels and write the best damned recruitment telegrams in Nationstates, throw the best festivals on the internet, but fail to go beyond the wall we have built around ourselves.
We talk about resource management and claim that we can spend our time better in other places, but...doing what, exactly? While in antiquity excess time and manpower could always go toward recruitment and welcoming, such things are a relic of a day gone by. Today we sit as one of the most privileged regions in one of Nationstates' most privileged eras, yet we only marginally surpass our former selves at performing the most basic tasks of government.
Nobody said the GAP would be easy. Nobody has ever said that anything worth doing would be easy. But while it is failure that seems to scare a great deal of people here, I am far more terrified by the fact that we barely even seem to try.
There are those that will argue that the repeal of the Foreign Cultivation Act does not necessarily mean the end of the GAP, but I disagree. The continual de-institutionalization of the GAP in the name of "flexibility" has brought less activity and less progress on the program -- not more. We will continue to push the GAP out of public sight, until the only place people will read about its designs are in history books.
There are those who will point to the shortcomings of the Ministry of Cultivation and of the GAP, for there were many. But our standards for the GAP always seemed to be higher than our standards for every other office. For how many failed Ministry of Cultures have we seen? How many failed Grand Admirals? But with those later offices we slogged on, knowing that tomorrow would be better in those departments. We never gave that chance to the GAP, even though the GAP represented a challenging of the glass ceiling that so ominously lingers over our heads -- so very close -- but somehow always just out of our reach.
There are many educated statesmen and politicians who will disagree with me, perhaps vehemently. Their opinions are based on their Europeian experiences, which are all just as authentic as my own. I very much doubt that the result of this article will be the restoration of the GAP, at least in its holistic form. But perhaps the result will be a new project being assembled, a new idea being proposed, a new citizen seeking office, or a new voice speaking up! No amount of stumbles in the past can impede a future step forward! Indeed, this is perhaps the most crucial lesson I have learned in my time as your founder.
For it was with only my voice that -- almost three years ago -- I proposed the "GNP". Two years after that, Europeia changed one letter, and with outstretched arms, we chased the "GAP".
What voice will propose the next idea? What are we capable of accomplishing tomorrow, if only we dare to race across the current and seize it?
Europeia, the future is yours.
HEM Tiberius
In the closing days of January 2012 I went to the Grand Hall to promote a radical new idea. Europeia had reached yet another high water mark as the scars of 2011's turmoil began healing. We were seeing record population levels, record activity levels, and our region seemed to be begging for some higher calling.
So I went to the Grand Hall and tried to sell something that I knew would lack universal support. I called upon our region, and our community, to give back to the world and help create something new. I knew that by doing so we could rise game-wide activity and channel our Europeian legacy into something truly remarkable.
I called this plan the "Good Neighbor Policy".
Some people called it imperialism, some people called it a waste of resources, and some people had nothing to say about it at all. While I did not maintain consistent enough activity in 2012 to promote the idea further, it piqued the interest of one key citizen -- Anumia.
In October of 2013, over a year after I floated my idea to the general public, Anumia announced his bid for the Presidency and a blueprint of what would be one of Europeia's most ambitious plans ever -- The Great Architecture Project.
Architects of Destiny - Julian Anumia (October 2013) said:
To suggest that the GAP had a rocky start would be an understatement. A newly minted President Anumia was preoccupied with other affairs -- both in-region and in real life -- to give the project the much needed attention it required. The point-man of the project -- Common Sense Politics -- was likewise beleaguered with various commitments. By the end of Anumia's first term, the project was largely seen as having made no progress.
Anumia then tapped Lethen to help lead the project as Minister of Cultivation, and Lethen put huge swaths of time and energy into building up a new Ministry from the ground up. But still, progress came slow. Citizens had some legitimate complaints about lack of communications about progress as the term went on, but citizens seemed to have disproportionally higher standards for communication from the Ministry of Cultivation than they had for many other -- arguably even more critical Ministries -- such as the Navy or Foreign Affairs.
By May 2014 we had signed two Construction Partnership Agreements, but progress stalled with the handover of the department from Lethen to Ogastein -- who after promising to build up the program, almost immediately disavowed it and vanished from Europeia.
By this point, an already impatient population had grown tired of hearing about the GAP. People were growing weary of waiting, and politically, the entire program was becoming a ball and chain around any and every administration that was forced to touch it. However, Kraketopia -- who had since succeeded Anumia as President -- gave the program another stab with Malashaan as Ogastein's successor.
He could not have made a better choice. By late September the program had six partner regions with more negotiations on the way. Architect assignments were being evenly distributed, and the program had finally seemed to gain some much needed momentum.
But somehow, it didn't matter.
The well of political will had finally dried up. When Malashaan himself sought the Presidency the Ministry of Cultivation was scrapped and mothballed within the Department of Foreign Affairs. Without a concentrated effort this term, all the progress made over the early autumn seems to have evaporated. As of today, the Senate is considering the repeal of the Foreign Cultivation Act, which would sweep away the last remnants of our first (and probably last) coherent foreign aid program.
In late December 2012, I penned an article questioning the near universal complacency that I saw in the region. There was a particular observation from future President Cerain Quilor that I feel is apt to relay:
Cerain Quilor in response to "Is the Grass that much Greener?" said:
The Malashaan Administration, just a few weeks ago, announced the failure of an international paper project that would have rose the profile of Europeia around the globe. Today, we are seeing universal consensus in shuttering a program that would have done the same, and was perhaps on the crux of doing so.
There is a large part of me that feels we have become so good at getting the trains run on time here in Europeia, that we grow frustrated when everything we touch fails to turn to gold instantly. As Cerain so accurately points out, we appear to lack the political will to pursue anything that threatens to shatter our self contained ceilings. We are so afraid of the sour investment, of the poison pill, of disproportionally high risks that we have become reluctant to take any risks at all. So we stay within our comfort levels and write the best damned recruitment telegrams in Nationstates, throw the best festivals on the internet, but fail to go beyond the wall we have built around ourselves.
We talk about resource management and claim that we can spend our time better in other places, but...doing what, exactly? While in antiquity excess time and manpower could always go toward recruitment and welcoming, such things are a relic of a day gone by. Today we sit as one of the most privileged regions in one of Nationstates' most privileged eras, yet we only marginally surpass our former selves at performing the most basic tasks of government.
Nobody said the GAP would be easy. Nobody has ever said that anything worth doing would be easy. But while it is failure that seems to scare a great deal of people here, I am far more terrified by the fact that we barely even seem to try.
There are those that will argue that the repeal of the Foreign Cultivation Act does not necessarily mean the end of the GAP, but I disagree. The continual de-institutionalization of the GAP in the name of "flexibility" has brought less activity and less progress on the program -- not more. We will continue to push the GAP out of public sight, until the only place people will read about its designs are in history books.
There are those who will point to the shortcomings of the Ministry of Cultivation and of the GAP, for there were many. But our standards for the GAP always seemed to be higher than our standards for every other office. For how many failed Ministry of Cultures have we seen? How many failed Grand Admirals? But with those later offices we slogged on, knowing that tomorrow would be better in those departments. We never gave that chance to the GAP, even though the GAP represented a challenging of the glass ceiling that so ominously lingers over our heads -- so very close -- but somehow always just out of our reach.
There are many educated statesmen and politicians who will disagree with me, perhaps vehemently. Their opinions are based on their Europeian experiences, which are all just as authentic as my own. I very much doubt that the result of this article will be the restoration of the GAP, at least in its holistic form. But perhaps the result will be a new project being assembled, a new idea being proposed, a new citizen seeking office, or a new voice speaking up! No amount of stumbles in the past can impede a future step forward! Indeed, this is perhaps the most crucial lesson I have learned in my time as your founder.
For it was with only my voice that -- almost three years ago -- I proposed the "GNP". Two years after that, Europeia changed one letter, and with outstretched arms, we chased the "GAP".
What voice will propose the next idea? What are we capable of accomplishing tomorrow, if only we dare to race across the current and seize it?
Europeia, the future is yours.
