Matthew Vickery, President of the Parliament of Man on Avalon, says:
"'We can get excellent terms, and I've dealt with Governor Saracoglu, I know he'll see to it that agreements are honored.'" (XI, p. 566)
Thus, we learn that Saracoglu is an honorable and efficient diplomat. But he did promote that war against Ythri in the first place and his smug response to Luisa's accusation that he was motivated by careerism:
"'One is permitted to daydream.'" (XII, p. 579)
- persuades me that her accusation is on the money. But, whatever the governor's personal motivation, let's look at the stated reasons for the war. Saracoglu says that the Ythrians started most of the violent border incidents and that:
"'...they are predators by nature. And they've no strong authority - no government at all - to control the impulses of groups. That's been a major stumbling block in the effort to reach an accommodation.'" (III, p. 473)
That leads back to thoughts about how Avalon at least might manage its foreign relations better but let's leave that till tomorrow.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
For foreign relations between nations, including very different kinds of nations, to work means there will be have to SOME kind of over all authority that can speak in a binding way for all of a particular nation. The lack of an authority which could speak for the Domain as a whole, at least in some matters, was one of its weaknesses.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I had to use "nation" for the Domain for lack of a better term. Ythrians don't have nations in the human sense.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Humans didn't have nations until historically fairly recently -- it's more or less an Early Bronze Age invention, and didn't assume its fully modern form until quite recently.
Nations "nationalize violence". Only the State can fight wars and only the State can make peace.
Under most other forms of human social organization this is not so. Violence is "private enterprise".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And while libertarians and any lingering "withering away of the state" Marxists might not like it, I think, by and large it's better for the state to "nationalize violence," that only it can make war or peace. Private enterprise violence just leads to out of control crime and sheer anarchy.
Happy New Year! Sean
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