January 21, 2017
In the last couple of days, The Allied States has been broadly condemned and accused of a number of things, and will no longer continue to host the NationStates World Fair as a result. We feel that it is only right, and fair, that we address the things that have been said about us, and present our version of the story. We do not claim to be blameless by any stretch of the imagination, but we feel the scale and ferocity of response was vastly disproportionate to the offense. This will likely be the last comment the Government of The Allied States makes on this matter.
A Brief Timeline of Events
- Britarvia, the founder of our region, made some jokes in poor taste in our private discord server. He was reprimanded by our moderators, and instructed not to do anything.
- Britarvia, at some point roughly a week later, with no warning nor knowledge of the rest of the region sent a single, unacceptable telegram to Brunhilde the Foreign Affairs Minister of Europeia. In this irresponsible and unjustifiable telegram, he said “Heil Hotler” [sic] and “Drink Bleach”. Britarvia was acting without authorisation from The Allied States, in his capacity as a private individual.
- Europeia, with whom TAS held an accord of friendship, and who was well aware that under the legal structure of TAS the founder does not represent the region, posted a statement in their embassy. In this statement they go beyond the actions of Britarvia, and make accusations of rampant homophobia and racism. They did not contact TAS at any point before making this statement to make us aware of the actions of Britarvia, nor did they make any attempt at a diplomatic resolution. Instead, they announced a general boycott of the NSWF if TAS was the host.
- A number of regions joined in the boycott of the NSWF; all of this happened before anyone within the TAS government has been made aware of anything wrong, or given any chance to reply.
- TAS made an official statement condemning any statements that may have been made by any member of the region, asks for time to investigate, and says a statement will be forthcoming.
- TAS made the first request to see any evidence against their founder so that an investigation can be carried out. It takes a number of hours before this evidence is made available, during which time more regions join the boycott. At this point, TAS is still as yet only just beginning to be able to work out what has happened at all.
- TAS then made its first statement, broadly condemning the actions of the founder, announcing an official investigation and asking for chance to figure out what was going on before the court of public opinion condemned the region without any semblance of due process.
- Over the next 24 hours, TAS attempted to negotiate with Europeia, including all of the steps that had been taken to resolve the issue, raising diplomatic concerns with the way Europeia had conducted itself, even considering the removal of the founder and the re-founding of the region, with all that would entail. Throughout this period, TAS repeatedly asked Europeian officials for a position on what steps they wanted TAS to take to resolve issue, but Europeia gave no indication of any way to resolve the issue that would be acceptable to them, and frequently declined to respond to questions for many hours at a time.
- Along with the NSWF committee, TAS proposed to Europeia that the hosting of the World Fair be transferred to a predecessor region of TAS, The Allied Republics, founded by a different member to remove even the semblance of attachment to Britarvia. Europeia declined this offer.
- Throughout this process, TAS raised a number of issues with the accusations made against The Allied States community in the public sphere relating to allegations of racism, homophobia, and Nazism. By the end of negotiations, the Europeian government stood firm in their insistence of condemning The Allied States, and effectively declaring both the nature of our community, and by extension the members of that community, to be homophobic, racist, Nazis and trolls. Given the fact that numerous members of the European government were frequent members of our community, enjoying the relaxed and inclusive atmosphere we try to cultivate, we found these allegations to be utterly shocking.
Steps that were taken
It is very important to note that, as a democratic and constitutional region, The Allied States does not do things by unilateral decision of any one person. This may not satisfy the tempers of those baying for blood, but the region is taking important steps to handle the Founder:
- An official investigation was mounted by our Department of Justice to see if charges could be brought through our courts to rectify the situation quickly. Sadly, this was not possible under pre-existing laws, however the step was taken.
- Laws have been drawn up and are passing through our system which will set out the mechanism by which a founder can be replaced. Once that bill is signed into law, our process will be used to allow the people of the region to deal with him appropriately, and there is a strong possibility that a public referendum on his future as founder will be conducted.
- A resolution to condemn the behavior is proceeding through our legislature
- A formal apology was issued by the founder to Brunhilde, and to Europeia in general. Britarvia has removed controversial material from his pre-title.
Allegations of Racism, Homophobia, etc.
In their statement, Europeia was condemnatory towards the region of The Allied States, accusing us of a number of things that we firmly disagree with. We are somewhat baffled by the racism allegation, as it seems to have been drawn from Europeians with access to our region trawling through months of history to find isolated exampled of people using the N-word, without any regard for the simple fact that those who used language as an expression of hate were punished swiftly. The allegations of homophobia are utterly preposterous, given that The Allied States is a region with, at last census, 50% of its members identifying themselves as LGBTQ+. We have, as has been repeatedly stressed a strong system of rules and community guidelines that prevents the use of language intended to attack, or promote hate. Again, these allegations appear to be drawn from Europeians trawling through months of history to find examples of people using the f-word in a negative context, and again without noting that these instances were swiftly dealt with. The Allied States prides itself on being a LGBTQ+ friendly region, and we deny any allegations to the contrary.
Finally, members of Europeia have alleged that there was either inherent Nazism, or a tolerance of Nazism, within TAS based solely on a few scattered references: the pre-title of the founder which was “the fascist alt-right trumpublic of…” and 4 examples of the word “heil” in the WFE of TAS. The first is not an official stance of the region, and is actually a joke playing on the fact that people who dislike Donald Trump often label him as a fascist. The second is an internal joke of the region, familiar to all who know us- including some Europeians- and refers to one of our influential members who people generally agree with because he’s normally right: hence ‘Heil TNR’. The member in question also speaks German. Neither of these are in any way representative of a tolerance of hatred- and a mere cursory glance at our laws and community standards show a zero tolerance policy to hate.
A note on our regional ethos
The Allied States was founded on ideas similar to those that the United States of America stands for. We aim, as much as is possible, to grant our members as much freedom as possible whilst still protecting individuals from attacks and from hatred. This can sometimes appear to be a tacit endorsement of distasteful ideas, but instead it is merely a respect for the fact that we do not require everyone to agree with us all the time. As with all communities, we don’t always get it right. Finding the line is not always easy, because we’re trying to find the balance between allowing people as much freedom as we can, and keeping people safe. Our reluctance to engage in thought-policing does not condone bad behaviour, nor does it condone ideas that some might find distasteful.
In Conclusion
We’re not perfect, and we have never claimed to be. The actions of one person shouldn’t condemn a whole region. Every region in this game has their share of people who have made mistakes. Every region in this game has had the occasional member who has done something pretty terrible. Most regions get afforded the courtesy of dealing with these issues quietly, and through their own procedures and methods. Instead, the region was publicly condemned by our friends before we have even had chance to discipline our own. But more than that, in seeking to condemn us, Europeia attacked the very character of us a region, and made a number of allegations that we maintain are unfair.
While relations with Europeia are strained right now and we fervently disagree with the way the situation was handled by the Europeian government, we would like to unreservedly apologize to Brunhilde for the telegram sent by our Founder, and to restate, once again, that the region believes that what the Founder sent was wrong and indefensible. We are dismayed that Brunhilde was subject to an attack like that by one of our citizens. Despite the unfortunate fact that dialogue between TAS and Europeia was not productive this week, in part due to the reasons we have laid out here, the Government of TAS has no plans for further action on the forum embassies we maintain with Europeia, and remains willing to engage with them in the future if they are amenable.
