THE FLINT TRIBUNE:

“On the Concert of Nations”

An Opinion-piece by political philosopher Herbert Fleete

54th Day of Spring, 522 AOV

On the 1st of Spring Our Highness The Queen Iain Waryeye held her inaugural speech to the citizens of Slate, amidst a gale of pressing winds and rain. While most of her shouts mingled with the howling hurricane, being the usual promises an imminent monarch is expected to swear, one announcement reached above the deafening winds, sending silent gasps through the windswept few, who were able to grasp the magnitude of it at the time. The announcement being, that she would work her utmost to promote the unification and collaboration of international interests and security; That she had plans to unite the six great nations of Lanjyr under a loose international governing body, devoted to safekeeping and diplomacy, which would bear the name “The Concert of Nations”. It would seem that she is already set on differenciating herself from her predecessor, the beloved King Baldrey, who resigned just last year. But just how realistic would such a merging of international interests be?

If one was to entirely cast away all cultural predispositions and observe the continent of Lanjyr with untainted ears, as though it indeed was a piece of music, one would not only find a score so complex and intricate that its core message would be entirely lost upon the person, I doubt that even the most talented of musicians would be capable of performing it in the first place. Indeed, the scattered bits of broken treaties and severed ties that both occurred during ‘The Great Eclipse’ twenty years ago, and those that followed it, have left a continent of such absolute dissonance, that uniting it and calling it ‘music’ would be insulting even to the most contemporary and avant-garde composers of the modern age. Only a small look at this symphony-to-be is enough to prove it:

The conflicting minor key of Drakr, where bright ideas spark fused that either ignite another school of philosophical doomsaying into existence, or implodes a previous one. The diminished chords of the holy shadow war that plagues the streets of Crisillyir’s cities. The crescendo of reactionary nationalism both within Crisillyir’s eternal rival Elfaivar, and infernal counterpart Danor, which only stokes this fiendish fire. And taking the solo for itself, the amateur nation of Ber, who’s facade of cosmopolitan inclusion only shields their internal affairs, which grows more present and violent on the global scale. And to compose this “Concert of Nations” is Risur, who themselves seem unsure whether to pave the way for progress or to appease ancient accords.

Furthermore letting this pandemonious piece be Conducted by a queen with only two months of governing experience should not only dissuade the blind obediance of accepting this proposal as a great addition, but also outline the dangers that accompany forced unity with foreign nations of nefarious pasts, who’s wounds left by the domineering peacebroker King Baldrey still have not healed. The Lanjyr that emerged after “The Great Eclipse” is simply not ripe enough for talks of merging interests, when each nation barely know their own, and proposing such, a mere 20 years after one of the worlds greatest apocalyptic events of the modern age, is not only a show of poor taste, but an ominous sign that we are all forgiving and forgetting much too soon…