NationStates Jolt Archive

In the Beddgelen Democratic Republic and the Indian Soviet Commonwealth of Tamil Eelam, most large media outlets are state owned, and reflective in some degree of the Party line on issues of any importance. Many individuals and Soviets (which amount to Unions or village councils) publish their own propaganda, but lacking substantial resources with which to compile meaningful data on a national or even regional level and having necessarily limited distribution their news value is often marginal at best, and many Soviets operate in any case under the watchful eyes of political commissars or GSIC informants.

On the other hand, ex-patriots tend to be ideological or personal opponents of the Igovian parties or other influential persons in the BDR or ISCTE, so most of their foreign-based publications are typically dismissive of positive achievements and fundamentally blind to many aspects of Igovian society and political motivation. Many are sponsored by reactionary governments or right-wing think tanks et cetera.

The Igovian Digest, printed in Britain and posted on computer networks*, is run by second and third generation Geletian Britons and other life-long members of the Geletian diaspora, who in theory have less of an axe to grind. Foreign journalists and scholars interested in Beddgelert and Tamil Eelam also contribute regularly to the Digest, which attempts to compile information from all available sources and present an unbiased view of the Igovian states.

Some ex-patriot publications hostile to the Communists have charged that the Digest group is infiltrated by GSIC, the powerful Beddgelen security and information apparatus, and in turn Akink has on several occasions raised concerns about the group's funding and self-censorship in the British and global markets.

Still, at this time, the Digest is generally accepted to be the best public compendium of information and news about life behind the wicker wall.

*Pending consensus on the Internet or lack thereof in the new AMW.

S.I.C.

Deep in the Beddgelen Democratic Republic, early in the evening, historic conversations carry through the air in electromagnetic oscillations. The manner of one is oddly stilted, formal, unnatural. Then again, the speakers think this of the subject.

"Rydw i eisiau wyau."

"Wyau sy yn y fasged."

"Sawl wy sy yn y fasged?"

"Tair ar ddeg."

A baker's dozen. Finally, all in one basket!

Blackjackets were multiplying around the principle Lutheran mission in Trevenya, which had been under watch from day one of the revolutionary era. Most agents were still having trouble understanding why some Christians were accommodated while Catholics and Orthodox were -quite rightly- barred in the national interest, so they were highly excited by the prospect of a swoop.

The mechanical Welsh -Latin of Geletia, if such a term wasn't too awkward- resumed, hissing and crackling over the secure channel.

"Mae Gelert wedi dal cyw iâr."

Everyone tensed up. Arsenal Shipka submachine-guns and P-M02 pistols were clutched under jackets. Suddenly, a singing and laughter arose in the next street. It drew near. Everyone froze. Around the corner came a mob of red shirted young men. Deinamo Trevenya had just given Ferencváros a beating in the third round of the national cup. 4-1! The fans bounced by in their own time, while inside, thirteen Christians... did whatever Christians do when they aren't putting Muslims to the sword or hording gold. Unless... no, probably not.

"Rŵan!"

Now! Guns out, move in!

The Digest's Coverage

Last Foreign Churches Closed as Portmeirion Unveils new Cathedral!

For nearly four decades in the twentieth century Beddgelert -then the Principality of Geletia- walked in the shadow of the Eastern Orthodox Church. With the overthrow of Tsarist lapdog Prince Llewellyn Map Gelert, this Church, seen as a tool of social control imposed by Kyiv to subdue the independent Geletian, was outlawed.

The Roman invasion of Greece in the beginning of the 1980s was accidentally integral in the May Revolution of 1982, driving the Cornovii north where the Clan Igo would take a leading role in Llewellyn's ouster. This also served to remind the Geletians of their oldest enemy, Rome. Orinoccorix, head of the Clan Igo at the time, who had risen to become Chieftain of the Cornovii and lead his people in a movement against Athenian authority over the semi-nomadic tribe, would later charge that the Greek Catholic Church had undermined his people and in fact facilitated the Roman takeover. This was enough to make certain the barring of the Catholic Church in Beddgelert at the same time as the Orthodoxy was turfed out.

For almost seven years after the May Revolution, the Geletian Communist Party under former dissident Colonel Kezo (a nom de guerre, of course) shielded other religious groups, apparently in line with Progintern policy.

It is only now, with the arrest by GSIC of several religious personalities on charges of sedition and espionage, that Portmeirion has moved to reclassify other organised religions alongside the banned Churches of Rome and the Orthodoxy.

Chairwoman of the Cultural Council of the Beddgelen Democratic Republic comrade Vera Igo, wife of Graeme, announced the state's intervention into the religious theatre, saying that foreign espionage was caught up in the whole affair, infiltrating clergy and congregations at Protestant Churches, Mosques, and a particular Lutheran, 'scriptural society and propaganda centre' said by some sources claiming to be linked to its membership to have been a bible study group.

It is not clear at this stage whether the arrested persons are Beddgelen or foreign nationals.

To prevent this infiltration from causing a repeat of the fall of Greece and avert a return to the Principality or the imposition of US-style theocracy, it is said, the League of Beddgelen Communists, according to Vera, would oversee a reorganisation of religious institutions in the BDR. Henceforth, the state shall oversee temple organisations, and it is with this new responsibility in mind that a new Cathedral has been opened at Portmeirion in Akink, to serve as the centre of the new Geletian Church.

British condemnation of this attack on religious freedom is, as might be expected, somewhat weak-kneed at best. Given the United States' almost certain excoriation of Geletian policy on this front, few in London see the need to be especially vocal. Indeed, given Britain's attempts to form something of an understanding between free Europeans, vociferous opposition would be counterproductive, at best.

The statement issued, therefore, was of a mixed attitude. It could essentially be reduced to the standard boilerplate issued by the Foreign Office, which was "People should be allowed to choose their Gods, governments and goods without interference by the state, but we'll stop short of actually calling you out on it."