NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: If you want this to be in the main war thread, Antanjyl, I will re-post it there. If you want though, you can post in this one.
IC:


POW camp

The work was relatively easy. The POW quarters were built from pre-made sections, while the Allaneans built fences, minefields, and guard towers around the camp. The prisoners were given bright-orange uniforms, warm enough to live in the heated prisoner quarters or for a short stroll outside, and certainly better then an Antanjyl combat uniform, but not any good for long-term survival in the cold of Antanjyl.

The Allaneans, as they promised, delivered 21-inch color televisions for the quarters – one for every twenty people, as well as a variety of DVD’s for them to watch. Those were more carefully chosen then the Antanjyli imagined. They involved films such as ‘The Postman’, ‘Patriot’, ‘Stargate’ – all various spins on the idea of individual liberty. Films such as ‘Equilibrium’, ‘The Matrix’, and even ‘Star Trek: Insurrection’ were favored for the same reason.

There were also study programs. All the illiterate prisoners were ordered to attend remedial English and reading/writing programs, lasting eight hours a day. Punishments – comparatively mild, similar to ones in a western Boot Camp – were available to those who didn’t do their homework. It was all like a school, one could say – except the teachers had assault rifles and you couldn’t leave unless you wanted to step on a landmine.

If you were literate, you would not have it easier. Allaneans had a variety of courses for them as well. They were consciously aware that the literate were the upper crust of the Antanjil society… so if anyting, more effort had to be spent educating them. Thus, courses on Civics, History, and Literature were introduced – and all were mandatory.

Sergeant-Major Lew Bernhardt was one of the people teaching the Civics course. There were forty Antanjyli in his opening class – way too much for comfort, and he was sure some of them might try to rush him and do some of the acts of violence that prisoners of war try to do on their guards. He also knew he was secretly packing three handguns and that there were six heavily armed Marines outside the wooden building. So he could afford to be nice and friendly.

“My friends! Welcome to Sergeant Bernhardt’s one and only civics class, best civics class in Antanjyl! You already know that eventually, this war is going to be over. Eventually, you people will be all free. But you also know what your government did. They killed millions of innocent people. It is the goal of the United States Government – the reason why we even bothered with this war – that the next Antanjyli government does not kill so many innocents.

You are by all measures the best of Antanjyl. You are the only ones who came out and fought for your nation. Emperor Galf was too much a wussy to come here and take on the armed might of Allaneans. And the fact you are the best means that, after war, you’ll be possibly the most influential part of Antanjyl society. Have any of you read Kipling?”

There was silence.

“I see now. Kipling has an excellent poem just about this. It is titled “Kitchener’s School.”

The sergeant paced back and forth through the classroom, his voice mesmerisingly rhythmical:

Oh, Hubshee, carry your shoes in your hand and bow your head on your breast!
This is the message of Kitchener who did not break you in jest.
It was permitted to him to fulfil the long-appointed years;
Reaching the end ordained of old over your dead Emirs.

Back and forth, back and forth paced the Sergeant, his cane knocking on the wooden floor in rhythm, the ancient lyrics hanging in the air, their meaning hanging in the heads of those who listened for long after he was done.

He stamped only before your walls, and the Tomb ye knew was dust:
He gathered up under his armpits all the swords of your trust:
He set a guard on your granaries, securing the weak from the strong:
He said:—“Go work the waterwheels that were abolished so long.”

Somewhere out there, they knew, the Antalian palace was a smoking crater. Scandavian missiles screamed through the air, demolishing AA embankments and military factories. And here was the Allanean drill sergeant – teaching them instead of wreaking the fury of Allanea upon them.

He said:—“Go safely, being abased. I have accomplished my vow.
That was the mercy of Kitchener. Cometh his madness now!
He does not desire as ye desire, nor devise as ye devise:
He is preparing a second host—an army to make you wise.

They did not know it, but back in Allanea, speeches were given, donations made, and many gave to the effort – not just the military. The Salvation Army, the Baptist Church of Allanea, the Scientologists were on their way, in private jets and cruise ships. Hundreds of book cases were loaded into the military cargo aircraft, mixed in with te boxes of artillery shells and grenades. The Allanean Kentucky Department of Education sponsored a hundred teachers to travel to Antanjyl. This was going to be huge.

Not at the mouth of his clean-lipped guns shall ye learn his name again,
But letter by letter, from Kaf to Kaf, at the mouths of his chosen men.
He has gone back to his own city, not seeking presents or bribes,
But openly asking the English for money to buy you Hakims and scribes.

Knowing that ye are forfeit by battle and have no right to live,
He begs for money to bring you learning—and all the English give.
It is their treasure—it is their pleasure—thus are their hearts inclined:
For Allah created the English mad—the maddest of all mankind!

General North was on the phone with Congressmen and Senators, private donors and school managers, every chartiable group he could find. He understood there would soon be more POW’s – and more POW’s should not be a burden on the Allaneans, but a better opportunity.

They do not consider the Meaning of Things; they consult not creed nor clan.
Behold, they clap the slave on the back, and behold, he ariseth a man!
They terribly carpet the earth with dead, and before their cannon cool,
They walk unarmed by twos and threes to call the living to school.

How is this reason (which is their reason) to judge a scholar’s worth,
By casting a ball at three straight sticks and defending the same with a fourth?
But this they do (which is doubtless a spell) and other matters more strange,
Until, by the operation of years, the hearts of their scholars change:

Till these make come and go great boats or engines upon the rail
(But always the English watch near by to prop them when they fail);
Till these make laws of their own choice and Judges of their own blood;
And all the mad English obey the judges and say that that Law is good.

Somewhere above them, more and more aircraft roared on descent, bringing not only more cruise missiles to fire on those who were still fighting, but books about history, writings by the best of thinkers and poets, books about Common law and jury nullification, freedom of speech and the abolitionist movement. Perhaps, in the long run, those were going to be the most powerful weapons of all.

Certainly they were mad from of old; but I think one new thing,
That the magic whereby they work their magic—wherefrom their fortunes spring—
May be that they show all peoples their magic and ask no price in return.
Wherefore, since ye are bond to that magic, O Hubshee, make haste and learn!

Certainly also is Kitchener mad. But one sure thing I know—
If he who broke you be minded to teach you, to his Madrissa go!
Go, and carry your shoes in your hand and bow your head on your breast,
For he who did not slay you in sport, he will not teach you in jest.

The Sergeant stopped, smiling at the Antanjyli.

Certainly, my friends, your side is so far losing this war. And it will continue to lose. This is to be generally expected when fighitng five nations, each of which is bigger, richer, and more economically advanced then Antanjyl. The combined population of Scandavian States, Omzz, Psychotic Psychos, Allanea and Derscon exceeds yours by a factor of over fifteen to one.

But mostly, this conflict is a conflict of cultures. You have seen – we have shown you photographs – what your culture does to it’s lower classes, it’s outcasts, it’s slaves. And you see – you are here – what our culture does to it’s enemies. We try and impart our culture to you – so that when Allanea and her allies finally leave, your people will be our enemies no longer. You will not need our aid to stop another Emperor Galf from coming to power – if you learn from us, you will stop him yourself, and drink vodka over his body.

We will teach you what makes our nations wealthy, and strong, and advanced – so that yours can be that. We will teach you all about fair trials, about free-market economy, about limited government and about all those other things that make nations great – and that will make yours great as well. In fact, we will teach you the things that help nations prevail at war, and in any other kind of contest as well.

Let me start with the most important words, perhaps, of all human history:"

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…

OOC: Antanjyl isn't that much of an English culture. Only 27% speak it, but I'm pretty sure remedial Antanjyl/Antanjylian is what you meant. IC:

POW Camp

The group of Antanjylian POWs ranged from the ages of fourteen to early fourties, and held a large number of women there as well. While the government was oppressive of most non-Rashidi religions and, of course, slaves, everyone else was given roughly the same amount of rights which, in retrospect were not as many as in most nations. However, the soldiers were too loyal to authority to speak up or do anything rash.

The movies of course, were well taken, since in Antanjyl the only thing to look forward to every day was church and watching Arena fights on television. The only actual movies ever done in the country were documentaries, most of which were religious, and strange cartoons which, if seen, would almost easily show their intent; to get people to love the government(especially Galf) and not trust foreigners.

The soldiers in the classroom sat still as they attempted to make sense of what was given to them in the Civics course. When they heard bad things spoken about their past emperor, they seemed to grow a bit tense, as if they thought he would come and get them. It was hard to believe that any amount of nations could stand a chance against Emperor Galf and his Gods, but somehow, according to this man, Scandavian States and her allies were doing just that.

The speach was complicated and since it was essentially fully of metaphors, most of the older soldiers did not seem to really understand it, and it was apparent on their faces. As it went on, more and more of them seemed to lose track of what was being said, as they attempted to understand parts of it, while overlooking the point of the speach. It culminated when a sixteen year old officer banged his head against the desk. He then hastily whispered an appology and shrugged.

All in all though, they eventually slowly began to understand what this freedom actually meant. At least, however, what it seemed to mean in the paradigm of their culture. Freedom was essentially allowing anyone to do what they wanted, despite even if it annoys someone, as long as it does not repress or harm them... Or something like that, it was still rather vague for the first day.

By the time he finished, a young woman in her mid-teens who had previously worked for the Agency rose her hand, "Why exactly are all men created equal, while women aren't equal to men? Oh and what exactly is the creator? Should that be our parents?" She asked calmly with a puzzled expression on her face, obviously taking everything the man said literally.

OOC: Oh nonono. I definitely meant English (as well as possibly some Antanjylian) is being taught. By the time I’m through, these guys are going to be bilingual.

IC:

The Allanean smiled.

“I don’t know if women are not equal to men, young lady. But I do know that what the people who wrote this meant that all people are equal before the law, and that it was evil to deprive a person of their rights just because they were different. As for the Creator… well, at the time, people believe in a religion were there only was on God. Those who didn’t, they thought that one God was a good symbol for having only one moral truth. So, the person who actually wrote this document – his name was Thomas Jefferson – he wasn’t quite a believer in God, but he wanted to get this message through about the fact that there is only one moral truth, and that he believed this moral truth mandated freedom.”

He walked through the lines, as he distributed textbooks marked “Basic Civics.”

”Those are the kind of books that we use in Allanea to teach children slightly younger then you are, so they grow up to be free, brave men. They are unfortunately not in your language, but we will be supplying dictionaries and courses in the language they are written in after class hours, so you can speak it. We’ll get a translation done soon, but you understand that we don’t have one on tap right now. The English there is relatively simple, so with a dictionary and some courses and maybe a friend to help out, you will not have problems.”

He nodded at the former Agency officer: ”What is your name?”

She replied.

”Very well. I’ll tell the superiors to note you. You’re a bright kid. Asking the right questions is sometimes more important then knowing the right answers.”

The Sergeant returned to the front of the class.

”Now back to our subject. As I said, this idea that people have innate – natural – God-given – whatever you wish – rights, it has some really powerful implications, when you think of it. It means among other things that your government is not the source of your rights. You have your rights since you are born, not because some high-and-mighty king and emperor gave them to you – you have them, period. The government? The government is just a night guard. It protects your rights from infringement. You tolerate it, and the minor loss of rights that is taxation – only until such a time as it protects your rights. If it becomes abusive of those ends – then it is your right, your duty in fact, to alter or abolish your government altogether, and search for another government or method of rule.”

He looked at the prisoners.

”If you hired a guard to protect your warehouse and you caught him stealing your goods… would you keep him on the job or would you fire him? What about a babysitter that is beating your kids? A doctor that is poisoning the patients? It’s the same with governments.

Naturally, of course, when this doctrine was the founding document of a major nation – and make no mistake, the United States of America was a major nation in it’s time, Allaneans are the remote descendants of its citizens – when that happened, many people were quite upset. They created a variety of phiolosophies, ideologies, and so forth to counteract that statement. Before we get to them, I need to explain more about this statement, what it means, and where it came from.”

The class continued in this vain.

When the school day ended – in fact, when all the after-hours remedial classes ended- and the prisoners were in their quarters, studying for tomorrow and watching the films Allaneans provided, the news were announced:

Emperor Galf was announced dead by his own governemnt – though the Allaneans denied killing him, they reported that the government said they did - and the Antalyan palace was now a smoking crater. Clearly, Galf and his Gods were not all they were hyped up to be – though of course nobody was as crass as to state that openly.

There was a wide range of emotion upon hearing the news, from a certain sadness that the landmark of their nation had been turned into a crater, to relief that Emperor Galf was gone, and without any leader to motivate the people the war would perhaps soon begin to slow down. The Allaneans had strong ideas, even though they did seem to have trouble believing that they were doing so well in the war against Antanjyl. There was also a reverberation in the crowd, as if any of the Antanjylians which were still holding onto their religion were slowly beginning to lose it.

The movies went over well, even though only a marginal amount of the soldiers were able to understand it. The quarters were actually unisex, as the Antanjylian government had never bothered to make seperate buildings into two sections, trying to save as much currency as they could with soldiers. This carried over slightly into some things, and most of the POWs began to break up into groups to assist them in understanding the lessons taught, since if the Allaneans were correct, they would need to know them by the time the government was abolished.

All in all though, the thing that seemed to have the biggest impact was the movie known as "The Matrix" since the main character of Neo's trencoat vaguely resembled the Agency uniform, and the POWs found that rather amusing, given the context of the movie. By the time most of them went to sleep, a small number still made a daily prayer to the God Below, in the hopes that he would hear their prayers and assist them.

Antanjyli POW Camp

“Get out! Now”!

The Allanean officer began to shove disturbed POW’s out of one of the barracks. “Your precious government is shelling you! Go for the trenches! Now!” – he pointed them to a place inside the POW camp, where, among the smoke and stench of several barracks already on fire, Allanean vehicles were moving to dig trenches for the concealment of POW’s. “Go! Now! Hide yourself!”

They may have disbelieved the notion, but there it was – Antanjyli tanks in the distance, lobbing missiles in their direction. They ran towards the cover. Some fell, taken down by missile shrapnel. Still, the majority survived.

General North’s quarters, later that day

“Sir, we have a problem. We lost 5,000 POW’s today, from Antanjylian bombardment. We need to keep them warm and safe, somehow, and this becomes a problem in this winter with their bombardment and such. I took upon myself to order that the air bridge begin evacuating them back to Allanea… let us built a POW camp there. In Haven Allanea or the mainland, in the Prussian bay…”

The lieutenant expected an angry retort. Instead, North smiled happily.

“Very good! Excellent! The mainland is safer, it’s covered by Prussian ABM. I approve what you did. Also, the transports… when they land all the troops, send them to Kinshash port, load them with POWs and send them home.

And so it went. Each time when a vehicle came to the shore, bringing troops and equipment, it also was sent back, full of POW’s.

When the POW’s arrived at Allanea, they would find a warmer ‘temperate’ climate – and, what would astonish them more, an unchanged class schedule in all their courses. It would be as if they were never evacuated from Kinshash.

On paper, the war was not yet over- a ceasefire there was, but no peace agreement. Thus, the Allaneans did not have to release the POW's. Nor did they. Instead, they created huge POW camps to accommodate the entire bulk of the Antanjylian armed forces that surrendered to the USAF. They taught the soldiers how to read and write, they taught them history, they taught them literature – and most of all, they taught them Allanean values.

They did release some of the troops – the ones who, on complex, hard-to-fake psychological tests and knowledge exams, proved to have sunk in the Allanean message most of all. In other worlds, they were seeking out and releasing the most brainwashed of the troops. Each of them received back his Antanjylian-issue rifle, a small lump of gold, and a free ticket home on an Air Force cargo jet.

In the meanwhile, the Allaneans were doing something more interesting in Antanjyl. They were building a variety of automobile roads through the mountains, employing Antanjylian labor for most of the hard work, contracting for Allanean corporations to do most of it. Both economies benefitted, but this wasn't the point.

Rather, the point was to change Antanjylian culture through changing the country's approach to transportation. As such, a part of Allanea's 7-trillion commerce budget was used to give loans to Allanean Arms, Inc. - who immediately set-up a variety of automobile factories in Antanjylian territory, manufacturing not expensive oversized Allanean cars – but rather, copies of the venerable Soviet Zaporozhetz and Zhiguli models. These were cheap even at their time – now, they'd be cheap enough for Antanjylian citizens to afford – and they created job attractions for people to leave the mountains and live near the shore.

In the meanwhile, MicroCosm, Inc. decided that now was a good time to revive the two-hundred-dollar laptop franchise – and begin making and selling them in Antanjyl. Yes, they had a government loan for that one, too.

Back in his office, the President of the United States of Allanea smiled. Did the Antanjylian rulers not see what he was doing?

Most of the soldiers whom had made it through the psychological examination were completely brainwashed, however with such an enormous amount of soldiers being tested, it was only natural that one or two would make it out relatively the same as they were before. These men and women, upon returning back would avoid the government and tell other sources, in an attempt to make it known what was being done.

The roads were far from welcome, but they were built nonetheless. The expenses keeping the roads in service in the nearly arctic enviornment would make them death traps by next summer, not factoring in landslides. The government did not state this openly, though numerous editorials stated this as well. The fact that the cars polluted so much also caused a few small protests from the Green Party, demanding cleaner cars for the already overly polluted nation.

The lap-tops were relatively the most well-taken of all of Allaneans enterprises, though computers made in Antanjyl were still bought more, especially during the eight months of harsh winter, where carrying a laptop outside was a sure way to get it destroyed. Still, at least it was something, and slowly but surely the nation was updating, however not entirely the way Allanea had intended. With the free speach and ideals of the outside world, not only did democracy and freedom slowly seep in, but as did communism and how barbaric the outside world truly was, making some actually think the government was right. Any hopes of a tourism industry in Antanjyl was almost instantly bound for failure, since the prices needed and the numerous wars going on all over the world made most feel that Antanjyl was safer, even with the men in black killing innocent civilians and mass protests being fired upon.

Along with all of these, some areas of Antanjyl were slowly breaking, as the Agency began to weaken, the very backbone of the nation. The more remote areas were closed off during the winters except by railroad, and during these times gangs and warlords which had previously never existed had attempted to take power.

The wars were quickly silenced the next summer by Agency Death Squads, but in the past most of the nation were at least more loyal under one banner. Some of the parties themselves had actually started taking over certain areas of the country, and even the most optimistic Antanjylian scholars knew that this would eventually lead to something which hadn't happened since the founding of Rashidi: A civil war.