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In his recent article suggesting ways we should accept new citizens from France, Jamie McBride makes some calm and rational points on how we can mitigate the downside of our eventual occupation of South-Central France. I do not question Jamie's motivation or even his goals; if you accept that the war is either a good thing, or a necessary evil, then his conclusions follow logically. However, I feel he is being (and please pardon the insult) optimistic.

There are no truly comparable eRepublic situations to the current war in France. Never before have more than two nations gang-banged another nation into oblivion - every previous occupation of foreign nations has been by a single nation, with the singular exception of Switzerland (which was occupied mostly by France, but one province remained in Italian hands). France will be divided between five nations, and there will be no obvious occuping nation for the French (current and future) to choose as their home.

However, we can draw at least some lessons from the plight of the Isrealis under Turkish occupation. Like the American occupation of France, the Turkish occupation of Isreal has the following elements: 1) A larger nation conquering a smaller one, 2) A significant language barrier, 3) Large amounts of verbal taunting by the victor, with significant counter-taunting, and 4) little to no intention by the conquering nation to ever let their conquered territory go, despite little to no economic benefit from the conquered territory.

The animosity between the Isrealis and Turks is somewhat unusual, considering that Turkey is the closest thing Isreal has to a friend in the Mideast - Turkey, unlike other Mideast players, at least negotiates with the Isrealis calmly, and little historical grudge exists between the two bases, with the exception of Jews of Armenian descent. Yet in eRepublik, the hatred between the two national groups is palpable, with constant accusations of cheating, taunting, unfair and underhanded tactics. Even now, when the Turks are offered fairly significant amounts of gold to let Isreal have two territories (and the right to reconquer if Isreal does anything Turkey doesn't like, such as an alliance with ATLANTIS), half the Turks are saying no, and I suspect the acceptance rate for Isrealis is similarly abysmal.

Turkey has the power (absent ATLANTIS entry into the conflicts) to keep the territories occupied, but it has paid a dear cost for that - it had at one point to resort to confiscatory 99% tax rates and massive printing of cash in an effort to starve out the Isrealis, and its economy still is far weaker than it should be given their population; both sides engage in economic boycotts of each other in purchasing and employment, for instance - to the point that some on both sides will buy foreign at a higher price, than buy "domestic" from the other side.

Our cost may not be nearly as high. But it will be higher than it should be, and the primary reason is the large number of "Americans" who just can't resist taunting the French. We're not only winners (which makes other nations resent us to begin with), we're very poor winners. We're in-your-face winners. And amazingly enough, we have the gall (pardon the pun) to call the French "rude."

You really want the French to assimilate into America? Forget it. We'll have already assulted their national pride in unforgivable ways. The French have a language most Americans do not speak, and will remain an insular minority within the United States.

You want the French to switch alliance from PEACE to ATLANTIS? Why would any self-respecting Frenchman ally with the coalition of forces that took their nation away? To the French, we've given ample proof that ATLANTIS is the "bad guys" of the world, and PEACE is the "necessary evil", rather than (as the Americans believe) the other way around. If anything, we've guaranteed that every future French player will be a soldier for PEACE, or whatever alliance emerges to oppose ATLANTIS in the future.

There's also history involved here; it's not THAT long ago that France was Germany's, ahem, female canine. Back in the early 1940s, the Germans took Northern France as a new German Province, and left a puppet regime in power in Southern France, in the city of Vichy. The Vichy French collaborators were the first against the wall when we liberated France - indeed, if a Frenchman had a German soldier and a French collaberator tied up in his basement, and only one bullet left, he'd let the German go. The French are brutal to collaberators, and will not easily change their allegiance against what they percieve as the interests of their nation.


In short, wanting to "bring the French in" to America AS Americans, by force of arms, is a bit like a rapist wanting his victim to talk dirty to him. I'm sorry, Jamie, but while your goals are laudible, they will not succede.

So what CAN we do? My suggestion is, while Jamie's suggestions are good things to do to lower resentment, we should not expect any of them to be successful. We should, however, be fully prepared to be accepting and tolerant of the French as an insular minority. We must not rise to the bait when they taunt us, and we must not taunt them - more of them know English than you would expect. And while they may have a good sense of humor about it IRL when it's just good-natured ribbing, joking about the French after we've conquered them is just poor sportsmanship at best, and an open call for endless and useless revolts and resistance at worst.


Links (for some reason I can't seem to add them in)
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/accepting-the-french-708077/1 Jamie's article
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-neml-israil-referandumu-707238/1 Turkish "referendum" on proposed Isreali peace deal - at article time, passing by a single vote after trailing until very recently.