THE FLAG OF THE REPUBLIC
Official Journal of the Free and Virtuous Nation of Guntreland
9th Day of Felinose, Year XX of the Republic (excerpts)
FROM THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY — 8 Felinose
Presidency of Rezer
Masden. It pains me, truly, to behold in the conduct of the Republic acts which, even with the best intentions, cannot be named other than sheer folly. This morning Evrer’s paper sang paeans to strangers who have taken our citizenship in order to win release from prison, bedecking them with their own declarations of enthusiasm — declarations which bring tears of joy to the good Henscherites, who are filled with faith in the unity of mankind against tyranny. Even the official gazette printed an article lauding their Civic Oath, as if it were some great triumph of the Republic that had cast thousands of enemy soldiers out of their ranks and transplanted them into ours. Alas, these were men already discarded by their former armies; though they now wear the Guntrelandic uniform and hold Guntrelandic passports, their hearts must remain Tildelandic — their parents, wives and children are still in Tildeland; their towns and villages are those in which they grew, their homes still bind them.
My honoured colleagues, who style themselves friends not merely of virtue and the Republic but even of the animal republic — whose citizens they so often invoke — I would remind them of the Cat, which above all loves its own territory: let them, when they look upon a cat, consider also the Tildelanders, who have no less reason than the cat to love the soil where their time was spent, more than that other soil which a few words were able to make theirs only to fling open a prison door. Doubtless, if not all then the great number among them intend, when first favourable occasion presents itself, to desert to the enemy; or perchance to stab us in the back in a most decisive hour — an act they may deem necessary to prove their fealty to their old side — and for that we cannot, perhaps, greatly blame them…
The President tolled the bell and interrupted Citizen Masden’s speech.
President. I warn you, Citizen Masden: it is not constitutional thus to speak of our fellow-citizens who have taken the Civic Oath. All citizens of the Republic of Guntreland are equal in rights, duties, and dignity; among them there must reign fraternity, not suspicion!
Masden. My intent is not to speak ill of those who have taken the oath — for that has been done, and they have been made our brothers — and if reality must submit to the Constitution (though in nature, as you know, the contrary is more often the case — save where we speak of that Constitution which Nature herself composes) then I, too, will bend my private feelings toward these men to the fact that they are now my brothers, one blood and one flesh…
Schmeck. — Even seasoned with the same spices! — (general laughter)
Masden. I ask the Commander of the Health Department, Citizen non-Doctor Schmeck, to maintain decorum and not to interrupt me, least of all with cannibal jests which fill our citizens with unease, distrust of the Republic’s health system, and, in the last resort, distrust of the Republic itself. — (Cries of “Boo to Masden!” and “Boo to Schmeck!”) — These remarks are, I repeat, the emanation of his personal character, not his race. — (Shouts of “Hurrah!” and “Well said!” from Masden’s club and neutral benches) — My purpose is not to censure our new fellow-citizens, for their citizenship is irrevocable by the Constitution, except by the commission of some deed deserving expulsion from the body politic — as that institution is prettily termed in Henscherite-Schmeckite jargon. What is done must be respected; and if thereby we receive a knife in the Republic’s back, then glory and thanks be to the majority which made such provisions and to Evrer’s journal and its opinions on the revolution of mankind — let it be a lesson to this entire Assembly how it fares when Constitution, law, and decree are adapted to inevitable reality. If, on the other hand, we have acquired honest and virtuous citizens who keep the oath they swore, let no one suppose I would wish otherwise. Yet I insist that henceforth we show greater prudence and regard for the immutabilities of nature; therefore I propose we alter the decree concerning prisoners so that, until war’s end, admission to Guntrelandic citizenship be suspended for all captives save those in whose case, beyond reasonable doubt and with testimony from Guntrelandic witnesses, it is shown that they voluntarily and without coercion grounded their balloons upon territory under the Republic’s control, or surrendered to Republican aerial patrols before any necessity for combat, or leapt by parachute from their craft before mortal peril beset them, or otherwise set foot upon our soil with the exclusive intent of joining the Republican cause. Only in such persons may we be confident — or, to speak more rightly, may we have any rational reason to believe — that they shall comport themselves as good Guntrelandic citizens; and that only provided it can be demonstrated they possess no close family members in their native lands whose lives might be used to coerce them toward royalism. Any other manner by which those whose feelings and upbringing do not belong to us are admitted into our ranks is a danger to the Republic and, I will say plainly, negligence of her destiny. — (Applause)
Hrebs. If we alter the captive decree, let us insert therein that which is the best protection for all good Republicans: place barrels of powder beneath the dungeons where captives are kept, so the enemy shall know that, if he would set upon our freedom, before he can enslave us his own countrymen shall be slain. — (Citizen Hrebs is cut short by loud applause) — This will press the citizens of hostile lands to put pressure upon their rulers — rulers who value their subjects not at all — to desist from assaulting our liberty, and will enable a peace in which these captives are exchanged for our imprisoned compatriots whom the enemy holds.
Henscher. Whatever coat of arms is on the passport, let that coat of arms be on the heart! Citizens, let not a single man who has taken the Oath be cast under suspicion! An oath to tyrants binds no soul; the Oath to the Republic — that invisible tricolour band about the breast of the good citizen — is by the law of Nature the strongest of bonds by which a Person’s honour and duty can be bound! Those who have linked their fate to the fate of the Republic of Guntreland, those who, should she fall, will themselves perish — perhaps more bitterly than other Guntrelanders, for their former masters will call them traitors — and those who, should she triumph, will taste the fruits of her liberty and live for ever in her glory, these are our brothers by the flag; and shame upon him who questions their Republicanism and their Guntrelandry!
And if it were otherwise — if among them lurked those whose defection to our side formed part of some tyrannic stratagem, or men who had no true intention of becoming sincere Guntrelandic republicans — it would be no citizenly course to treat the Civic Oath, that word which binds a man’s honour, as a filthy instrument of deceit and fraud: such a scorn would profane the sanctity of the Oath and affront the natural dignity of Man and Citizen; and if any man did commit sacrilege against these inviolable things, let the shame and loathing of that sacrilege rest upon him alone, and not upon us, the representatives of the people’s sovereignty of a nation free and natural and founded upon Virtue.
We respect the cat; and since it has not the reason to perceive the meaning of flag, passport, or law, we may believe that a cat brought from Tildeland would in some cases prefer the soil of that slavish country to our free ground: but Man, a being of law, cannot be bound to a country other than that which, by its law, has made him a free citizen. There are forms of political assessment by which it is determined which captives possess the requisite consciousness to be Citizens of our Republic, and there are civic juries who, with the conscience of good republicans, decide upon naturalization according to whether the admission of a given candidate, judged by his personal qualities, would be a gain for the Republic; if, by some unhappy corrupt device, royalists in heart should contrive to deceive forms and juries and to infiltrate our ranks with base intentions, our duty toward every man of honest mind who would fight for universal liberty — which is the natural right and duty of every upright man — would be to ensure that he is not deprived of that possibility.
The standard proposed by Citizen Masden fails to meet the exigencies of the complex events of war, a naval and an aerial blockade: it fails to cover every case in which a man might truly desire to fight for freedom. Consider a man who desires liberty, yet finds himself upon the deck of a balloon whose majority favour tyranny — he remains under its unclean hand. Therefore Masden’s proposal, in this form, must be rejected, as must earlier proposals that only those who set foot on our soil by the perilous act of parachuting be admitted to citizenship; such splendid acts will certainly win the confidence of civic juries, but let us not deny Liberty the chance to find her children also among those who lacked the physical daring to perform so singular and birdlike a deed and who are more human than avian. Let us weigh the fact that these unhappy slaves of tyranny have already paid a certain toll to liberty — they stood in the line of its just fire and by fortunate chance did not pay for their service to tyranny with their lives.
It is true that in most men there exists a natural loyalty to the land in which they were reared and in which their families and friends dwell — and Nature’s greatness is that it ordains this. Taking into account that their native lands lie in the manacles of tyrants, and that their families and friends are so bound, whom many of our new fellow-citizens long to return to — but as liberators — (here Citizen Henscher was interrupted by applause and cries of “Hurrah!”) — we shall provide that these citizens shall, within thirty days of the liberation of their native countries, have the option to retrieve the citizenship of those lands and to be released from the Guntrelandic Civic Oath. Yet Nature has also planted in man the capacity to feel that another land, even a very distant one, may better suit the constitution and sentiments of his private soul. Let us not doubt that those who choose a country by reason may be truer to it than those who received it by the chance of birth; so born Tildelanders may indeed become great Guntrelanders, for Reason will not betray what freely it has chosen.
As for the blackmail of royalist soldiers with the lives of their loved ones, all know that royalist states, in the vileness of their irrational cruelties, answer to the deed they deem treason by murdering the whole family of the supposed traitor; yet the Committee of Public Command has concluded that oto and jobst dare not do this, because they covet the military aid of Karolina-Louise and know that her person, under the influence of enlightenment, would sternly condemn such practices. Thus much for Citizen Masden’s proposal.
As to Citizen Hrebs’ suggestion, I say it is irrational: powder is too necessary to the Republic for other ends — to our fighting force — and the same deterrent effect might be achieved by threatening and executing captives by other means, if moral warrant existed, without wasting powder; moreover we do not suppose that the tyrant of Tildeland would change his policy at the whim of his slaves, for were that so he would be a President, not a tyrant. I propose that the Assembly, by a unanimous act, reject the proposals of Citizens Masden and Hrebs and rebuke every speech which casts doubt upon the honourable intentions of those who have taken the Civic Oath of the Republic of Guntreland. — (Citizen Henscher’s proposal is adopted.)
The speech was followed by long and loud applause.
Citizen Henscher, Chairman of the Committee of Public Command, then submitted the following proposal:
Henscher. Let my next proposal be heard with the utmost attention. Citizens have heard and read from Members of this Assembly three notions which affront the People’s justice. The first of these ignoble notions avers that Clarence Afsen should be spared the sentence of annihilation, on the ground that he did not partake in the crimes for which his brother is notorious, and that upon his hands there is not the blood of the nation. Citizens, he who wore upon his breast the shameful princely ribbon cannot have the nation’s blood absent from his hands, for the very title of “prince” is itself a crime against the Nation.
The second, fouler still, is the proposal that, if the vile Afsens be condemned to annihilation, they ought nevertheless to be spared for their value as hostages in negotiation. The National Assembly well knows the position of the tyrants of Tildeland, Neuland, and Bautia: they will not exchange prisoners with the Republic, and they will treat as void — as if aught were more void than themselves and their titles — any bargain which tyrant alfons might strike with the Republic to recover his sons. Yet even if that were not so, the moral duty of the Republic is to execute justice though the world perish; and he who would, despite this, seek to postpone the annihilation of Clarence and Rupert Afsen must be viewed with suspicion.
Finally, the third and most dishonourable of these notions is that the indictment against the two Afsens should omit deeds they committed prior to the founding of the Republic, on the plea that no man can be punished for acts which, at the time they were done, were not defined as crimes. What? Is it not a crime to be a tyrant, even though the laws of tyranny did not reckon that crime? Are murder, robbery, abduction, and calumny not crimes because, under the laws of tyranny, so-called princes were permitted to treat their then-subjects and the populations of their princely domains in such a fashion? To recognise by law the statutes of tyranny would be to grant legitimacy to tyranny itself — and it is well that the indictment did not so abet it. Acts whose criminal nature is written into the very eternal moral law of Nature bear forever the seal of evil and will by that same law demand an adequate sanction.
Citizens, my compatriots, brothers by Constitution and by flag! The People have shown sufficient patience that the indictment against the two Afsens should be drawn up; now they demand to see justice as it must be. Those who oppose this shall rightly be counted friends of the accused. I therefore propose — since the indictment is prepared and there exists no legal cause to delay their trial — that the citizens Clarence and Rupert Afsen be brought before the Judicial Committee of the National Assembly within ten hours, in accordance with the principles of legal procedure applicable to captured enemies of the Republic. — (The proposal was adopted amid prolonged applause.)
Defrager. Citizens! I beg you to be merciful in your victory; let us not become the very tyrants we have overthrown and imprisoned. If it is this Assembly’s will that the former princes be brought to trial within ten Republican hours, I entreat the members of the Judicial Committee that, if they find guilt, after they have pronounced that guilt and all facts of the charge have been ascertained and thus the virtue of Truth satisfied, let them, being raised above the savageries of the younger Afsens who turned the wheel, hanged and burned our friends, spare the lives of these Republic’s enemies; and I would remind you that these former princes will also be useful hostages of the Republic who, whatever foreign kings may prate now, may one day be our card in every future negotiation for peace and for foreign recognition of our Republic, which by nature must come sooner or later.
Many voices. Boo!
Henscher. Compassion must be reserved for the martyrs of the Revolution; for its enemies there may be left naught but a strong hatred born of the purity of the soul!
Hover. I speak from the gallery in the name of the Republican public! You shelter yourself behind your inviolability so that you cannot be judged until the majority of representatives decide — which they will not, because you are so paltry and because they pity the citizens who elected you and would not shame them by condemning their chosen to be a royalist; perhaps they hope you will one day write a fair history of the Revolution, and so they deem you useful. But I, as a free citizen, may accuse you freely until that hour — and so I do, Defrager! You are a royalist who became a revolutionary only because you hate the younger branch of the Afsens, believing them to be guilty of the elder’s disappearance[1]; moreover I declare you a libertine who leaves the Assembly several times a day to visit the bedchambers of aged ladies citizenesses — former countesses and marchionesses. Boo to Defrager, royalist and libertine!
Defrager. Esteemed Citizeness Hover, I shall not answer you in like measure out of respect for your sex, but I will only… — (Citizen Defrager was interrupted by loud whistles, cries of “Boo!” and the President’s bell.)
[1] The branch of the so-called "Elder Afsens" descended from Clarence I, the eldest son of Fridhold I Afsen, and ruled until the year 96 of the Congress (90 B.R.), when all three heirs from this branch lost their lives to illness, which many believe was caused by poisoning. They strongly opposed the equalization of the "king's men" with nobles in terms of privileges. In the year 90th before the Republic, Alphonse I, whose dynastic branch originated from Friedhold's younger son Alphonse, ascended the throne of Guntreland, becoming the progenitor of the “Younger Afsen” line, which relied on the strong support of the "king's men" who, during their reign, had a position more similar to that of nobles.
