Natural enemies – Unlikely friends

Day 1,120, 11:20 • Published in Hungary Hungary • by 655321
[62+7]/[1120] – [propaganda-filled afternoon]
Egy magyar nyelvű absztrakt alant olvasható

Here’s a cliché to start off a really long wall of text: eRep is driven by nationalism. Do you agree with it? Yeah, you surely do. Just think of the Hungarian-Romanian, Serbian-Croatian, Turkish-Greek, Polish-German or Polish-Russian conflicts, or the Hungarian, Polish and Turkish baby booms; yes, they can all be explained by aggressive nationalism. The effects of nationalism on eRep seem so obvious, that people tend to confuse two things with one another. There are a lot of folks out there in the virtual world who think that the unquestionable fact that nationalism helped eRepublik to grow real big also means that the decisions made by the major eNations are mostly motivated by violent nationalism, too. Wrong.



I will tell you a story that sheds light on a different aspect of eRepublik, one that is a lot more interesting than the obvious one. My example in the story will be Hungary, simply because this is the country I know best. It was almost two years ago, when a huge baby boom struck eHungary after most of her regions had been occupied by eRomania. Many had thought back in those times (and almost as many still think that way, see examples here and here) that a huge group of ultra-nationalists had flocked eRepublik, players who would only be driven by hate and IRL frustrations.

These speculations of an ultra-nationalistic doom were not completely fictitious. As Eastern Europe has lagged behind the West for centuries, stereotypical thinking, negative feelings toward other nations still characterise the East, just as they characterised the Western societies till the second part of the 20th century. As I use Hungary as an example, let me tell you a few words about the stereotypes and IRL frustrations of Hungarians (such frustrations are present in the collective subconsciousness of all cultures, especially in the East). The IRL frustrations of Hungarians toward other nations can be sorted into two groups: mutual and unilateral disgust or discontent.

Hungarians share mutual hate with some of the neighbouring countries, especially with Serbia, Slovakia and Romania. The reason? Certain developments of the 19th and 20th century, the fact that these countries now control large chunks of land formerly belonging to Hungary, and a considerable Hungarian minority living in those areas. But the reasons are not really important. The important thing is that tensions exist between Hungarians and those other three nations, and those tensions will be with us for a very long time. Hungarians also cherish unilateral hate in their heart toward some selected nations, the most important of these being the French, the Russians and perhaps the Turks as well. I call it unilateral, because the people living in these countries are probably not even aware of the fact that they generate such intense feelings in Hungarians. Over the centuries Hungary usually ended up on the losing side of thing, and for that reason Hungarians developed a funny defence mechanism: we like to think that others are to be blamed for our own failures. We blame the French, for orchestrating the peace treaty that lead to the loss of Hungarian territories to our neighbours; we blame the Russians for cancelling all our (not very numerous) attempts to break the existing world order (from 1848 to 1956); we also blame the Turkish for occupying much of Hungary for a long time, an act that ultimately erased Hungary from the main pages of the history books.

Of course, we also like to think that there are friends as well, out there in this alien worl😛 the Germans, and especially the Polish. The Polish-Hungarian friendship used to be legendary (see for example the music linked on top, performed by a Hungarian band called Control Group at the beginning of the 1980ies, in an era when it was enough to mention Gdansk or Poland, and your very physical well-being could have been in great danger; it’s not their best recording ever though, that’s for sure).



So given that the Hungarians are so frustrated about a lot of European nations, they would surely use eRep as an opportunity to pay back for all the historical wounds suffered from them. Wrong.
eHungary has been in the same alliance with eFrance and eRussia right from the beginning. eTurkey was not part of PEACE all the time, but still, eHungary and eTurkey has always been close friends. eHungary has an MPP with eSlovakia, and the eHungarian-eSerbian alliance is one of the strongest in eRep. The only country that we can consider an enemy in eRep, and is on the list of our ‘really don’t like them’ countries, is eRomania.

If IRL you asked the Hungarians to choose between Croatians and Serbians, at least 95 out of 100 would go for the Croats. If they had to choose between the Polish and the Serbians, 100 out of 100 would choose the Polish. Still, in eRep eSerbians are our strongest and best friends, and eCroatia and ePoland are among the three countries that we had most of our fights against. If IRL you asked the Hungarians to choose between Serbians and Romanians, 99 out of 100 would choose neither, 1 would probably go for the Serbians, but only because of Kusturica. eHungary’s closest ally is a country that is most disliked IRL, and among her fiercest enemies you can find two countries which Hungarians quite like IRL. There’s >>IRL ultra-nationalist frustrations overshadowing the clear vision of eRep decision makers for you.



Don’t get me wrong. This article is not about the usual ‘Oh, we are so good bodies, let’s lick each other’s butt a bit’ kind of crap. Alliances change, we have seen countries switching sides, and so on. The fact that several hundred eHungarian players travelled to eSerbia when Liaoning was under attack, or more than one hundred eSerbians came to the Hungarian chat when the last eHungarian region was under attack (despite official military orders directed to other battles), show a really great part of this game, even if eHungary and eSerbia were to part ways some time in the future.

We like to make jokes about admins, be outraged about cheating opponents, we like to talk about the good individual friends we made in this game, about the great fights we had together, and so on, and yes, these are all good reasons why we like eRepublik. But for me the really great thing about eRep is that two communities have learnt to become good friends despite all the IRL tensions in the background. It’s easy, you might say, as this is just a game. Yes, it is just a game, yet I still think that such unlikely friendships, like the Hungarian-Serbian one, are the best part of it.

Drága olvasó! Lusta vagyok magyar verziót készíteni erről a cikkről. Egyébként is olyasmiről van benne szó, ami a magyar játékosok nagy részének evidencia, de nem biztos, hogy ugyanez a helyzet a külföldiekkel. A cikk tehát igazából felvilágosítási szándékból született, még akkor is, ha valószínűleg csak kevés külföldihez jut majd el.
Az ötletet még agifux írása adta régebben, csak nem volt időm megírni. Egy mondatban összefoglalva arról lenne szó, hogy bár manapság természetesnek tartjuk a magyar-szerb szövetséget, jobban belegondolva ez a szövetség az eRep egyik legfurcsább szüleménye, amennyiben minden IRL kötődés ennek élesen ellentmondana. Azt hiszem, egy kicsit megveregethetjük a vállunkat, hiszen a játékban (saját IRL beidegződéseinket leküzdve) sikerült valami olyat összehozni, ami a valóságban még nagyon sokáig nem valósulhat meg: őszinte tiszteletre alapozott együttműködést. Emeljük hát meg kalapunkat egymás előtt, és természetesen üssünk a Hadügyi közlöny útmutatásai szerint.