OOC Thread
New Migama, Xofrautan. Febuary 4, 2024
The Republic of Xofrautan. It is known for its high mountains, stunning architecture, population, curry, and most importantly, its most dramatic history. Once a series of tribes and kingdoms were forced together under the Phibetan East Trading Company. This transferred over to the crown as the Phibetan Raj of Xofrautan. Following the two great wars, the independence movement's growth led to a skirmish with the once-great empire. Their independence has brought in a few issues. Questions on what to do with foreigners, those who don’t follow the majority religion, and whether or not to get rid of their industry left over from were issues that the Xofrautan parliament had debated back and forth. A new political party called the Xofrautan’s Peoples Party, a Nationalist group, have decided to keep the industry, kick the foreigners out, and maintain that Grixusni was the majority religion.
Years onward, now Xofrautan, the great land of freedom and fields of gold, was now becoming a barren hell hole. For many a year, food shortages and crop failures were becoming more and more common, but now the worse has come. Without proper food stored in the public warehouses. Thousands upon thousands of Xofrautanese were starving, in their shacks or on the streets. There is no rice, no bread, not anything. The Price of fresh fruit and vegetables have rose significantly that even those of the lower upper class struggled to get by. Without work, without a market, the Xofrautanese economy was in free fall. With thousands of companies and businesses laying off workers that were barely paid in the first place, millions of people are without income, and now it seems that the first extreme winter as meteorologists are reporting.
Picture if you will, in a small village in the middle of the farmlands of Xofrautan, nothing grows from it, as the fields have been ruined. Drought, soil degradation, locus, frequent snow storms, a combination of all three made the crops impossible to grow. In a small hut, a family suffers through the cold. A small fire made from the twigs and leaves that are left around the village burns inside while the mother comforts her crying baby, feeding her with a sponge dipped in water, for they have no money to buy milk. A child also sits by the fire to keep warm, they sold all of their furniture to buy a measly loaf of bread that was now at ₹5,000 due to inflation.
The father comes back home, formerly a farmer that is several months unemployed, starving like the rest of his family. He stumbles in without saying a word. The mother wanted to ask if he was able to find a job, but she was too hungry to move, or say anything. The father goes up to his child by the fire. A boy of only five years, but looks younger from malnutrition. The father took his son by the arms and casually thrown him out of the hut. The boy lies on the floor, no strength to fight back.
“I’m sorry,” the father says weakly, “We have no food for you. You’ll have to fend for yourself now”. The child tries to fight back with what little strength he had left. Crying, begging to be back in, but no luck. He is forced to wander around the village, going door to door begging for food, but there was none. The boy had to travel to the neighboring city of New Migama to find food. He came across a baby abandoned in an alley, as many children were in times of famine, for the gurus of Grixusni have repeated the sacred texts, “an orphaned child is a child of the gods”. He picks up the baby, thinking if the child had a starving little brother or sister, he could get more money or more food. They walk for miles, hitchhiking on trains headed to the capital.
There was nothing for them either when they arrived at the capital. There was not enough food to go around, and several of the poorest families, children, even men and women were out on the streets, starving to death, as they too came from the villages in hopes to find food. Temples, churches, and local charities have ran out of food and closed for the day in hopes to get more to feed the starving masses. The homes of the rich still lived comfortably. Their wastes thrown out as children raced and fought one another for the scraps that fell on the floor. Mothers even went door to door to beg for the starchy water that was left over from the rice cooking process. The city (and the country for that matter) was in starving chaos. It was worth a try so that the boy and the baby he picked up would live another day. And they continued to walk on, weak, restless, searching for food in a land that was plenty, now depleting.
The Xofrautanian Parliament
The Xofrautanian Parliament met in an emergency meeting, with both the prime minister and the president in attendance. For years now, the parliament has been kicking the can of famine down the road, using its extensive resources in exporting, letting foreign investors in, accepting foreign aid, but there is so much that could happen before a crisis can pop its ugly head.
“How is it that our country, bountiful in arable land and with a dense population of farmers, can be on the brink of starvation?” Shouts MP Mohun Kusari of the Progressive People’s Party, the complete opposite of the current government ran by the Xofrautan People’s Party. The XPP’s Nationalist, conservative, view of their country has ran the country into the ground in the eyes of the progressive, intellectual, secular PPP. “Our citizens sit on the streets their ribs visible to anyone walking around and dying from all of this “industrial progress” you speak of!”
“This has nothing to do with MY policies!” The prime minister, Nehal Gurnani shouts back. The parliament was in a fuming rage with several of the MPs arguing back in forth in shouting matches of the current situation. “We are trying to boost our economy so that more and more people can afford food in times of famine without aid of the vile foreigners!”
“Only for the upper caste! Your protectionist policies means that less food are in the markets, prices for essential stables have skyrocketed, inflation keeps getting worse and worse, and the masses starve while exports of seafood and rice continue, the food staples our citizens need to survive!!” The shouting gets worse and worse, all while the President, Om Mandalik, sits back until he couldn’t stand it anymore.
“My friends!” He shouts as the assembly gets quiet. “My friends! We can not continue to fight over the situation while our people starve. This makes us weak against the major powers!” The president quickly uses their hate of being weak powers against the bulldogs of foreign nations. He doesn’t care too much about the people of the lower castes, and the truth is that Xofrautan’s upper caste were doing just fine, as many private warehouses are owned by landlords and soldiers, and they are filled to the brim. Om Mandalik himself is a Xofrautanese Prince, one of the last few that are connected to the royalty of the old Xofraia Empire. He grew up that the upper castes are the most important of the castes, and the lower castes are to be treated with disdain.
“We must find a way for our temples to provide more to these untouchables. Prime Minister, I want the foreign minister to send out to all papers that we are running low on food supplies, it will get us foreign aid to work with and sympathy which can lead to all sorts of gifts and offers. I want as much as we can to help our citizens”.
“We’ll try sir”
“While the rest of us believe we have more issuing matters, like the bridge project that will link our mainland with the Pheicavix Islands”. A lot of the XPP members agreed on that but the howls of the MPs ring out throughout the Houses.
“Mr. President” shouts a member of the Xofrautan National Congress, MP Cionnaye Kaneko. “This is ridiculous! If we don’t do something about this famine now, the people are going to rise up, and I can assure you Mr. President that we will be on the brink of civil war if that happens”.
“And our prime minister’s economic policies will deter that”
“You mean her military policies of a militarized police force. And what do we need nukes for anyway?” The MPs continue to fight amongst themselves as the republic continues to starves, and that starvation is heading towards turmoil. The clock was ticking. There is so much a nation can do before it is on the brink of civil war.
The revolution is drawing near.
