Join the new world

Having lived in eEgypt for almost all of its existence in Erepublik. I have seen this country through its ups and its downs. Sadly, a lot more downs than ups, but adversity can build a spirit of community and comeradery - and I've seen our common struggle against PTO force people of different political pursuasions and ideas find common ground, learn to understand the other, and to collaborate in the interests of building a nation.

For me this is the point of eRepublik. I know it isn't the point for other people. For many it's a chance to build a virtual equivalent of their own real-world (RL) country, perhaps make it stronger and more powerful in the eworld. Sometimes correct what they see as the wrongs of RL, or even take the national and ideaological battles of RL and see if they can't be more successful with them here.

To me there is something good in this, as here in this world, you can achieve something different. But it can also be a chance to import the negative emotions of mistrust, misunderstanding, hatred, prejudice and worse...

In eEgypt our common struggle has brought together those who in RL would be at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Those who would comiserate the fall of Mubarak stand side-by-side with and understand those that would vote in the upcoming Presidential elections for Hamza Abu Ismail! Finding comon cause and unity where in RL we are divided is beautiful to see, and shows us how we can do things a little different here.

Likewise, we can break the constraints of RL. Serbs are very happy that their ancient homeland of Kosovo remains a region in the eWorld. Saudis and Emiratis get to elect their own governments here. No military council gets to decide who can and cannot be a Presidential candidate in Egypt. ANYONE can be a full citizen of Israel without having to be Jewish. In this world Indonesia is more powerful than UK. Here the power to organise socially is far more important than the control of weapons, UN Security Council seats, or the ownership of nuclear weapons. And if you want to migrate to another country where the pay is better and you can make a better life for yourself... NO ONE can stop you!

This is why I am here. This is why I'm in the eworld, we can do things differently. We can do things better. Of course we still reference to RL - afterall, country names reflect RL. But from there on in we can be different. And, I always hope, do things a little better than in RL.

I'll use an example that is close to all Arab's hearts. The issue of Al Nakhba and the creation of Israel in RL. Whilst I believe that it is not helpful to undo the creation of Israel, I do believe that the successive wrongs to the Palestinians since 1948 can and should be undone. So it is really a joy to me to see that in the eWorld all the terms by which the Palestinians had sought recognition as a state at the UN General Assembly in September 2011 have been realised. I summarise the terms as this:


1) A Palestinian State based on the borders of West Bank and Gaza pre-1967. Go look at the erepublik map, although we have yet to add ePalestine, the country of eIsrael does not occupy any of the post-1967 occupied territory (see my campaign to add ePalestine here).

2)East Jerusalem as the Capital of Palestine. Less clear as cities are not marked in eRepublik. But pre-1967 West Jerusalem was Israeli and we can suppose that East Jerusalem is not part of the 'Jerusalem District' on the eRepublik map.

3)Freeze all settlement activity. The concept of settlements does not exist in erepublik - and I doubt it ever will.

4)Right of Return for Palestinians. in eRepublik ANYONE can be a citizen of Israel.


What does disappoint me is that we do not do a little more to fight the intrusion of RL prejudices into the eworld. So for example, eSaudi is occupied by Cyprus, Greece and Israel - however I know that some in Egypt find it most insulting that Israel occupies the country. Personally I want to see all the countries leave and let Saudi establish itself as a country. But this is a good opportunity for us to stop and consider our own prejudices - why do we consider it more insulting that Israel is on Saudi lands than anyone else?

It also disappoints me a little when people suggest that your RL nationality should be your eworld nationality. Or worse, they talk about religion and ethnicity as somehow essentially Egyptian. Even in RL, try telling Egyptian Copts that Egypt is only a Muslim country, or telling the Nubians that Egypt is an Arab-only country.

What Egypt is in the eworld is the sum of its citizens right now (real, not multis). If they identify as mostly Christian and enthnically Croat - then sorry, that's what Egypt is. But actually as we have discovered, Egypt is more multicultural than our detractors would like to admit. We were dominated by Croats for some time after the birth of the country, and acutally in the beginning of this country's life they acted for the good of our country, because they supported a national agenda and were genuine people. Sadly that changed, and a group of mostly Croats began creating multis to dominate our country, and that is wrong. But something good did come out of that because it brought the rest of us together.

In our country today we have more and more RL Egyptians, but we also have RL Americans, Brits, Tunisians, Yemenis, Saudis, Macedonians, Serbs, Croats and more working together for a common eEgyptian agenda. And this is my conclusion. To be eEgyptian is to work together as an eEgyptian community. To want what's best for eEgypt and not for some other external interest or country, and to want to socialise, co-operate and understand each other and overcome the prejudices of the real world that work so hard to cloud and narrow our judgement and vision.

In the upcoming elections I hope for everyone to vote for those candidates that want to compete on ideas. Those that want to suggest ways of making this country better and seek to get genuine citizens to vote for them on the basis of those ideas.

And to those that want to cheat. Want to short-cut the difficult process of convincing people of your ideas, by simply creating multis to mindlessly vote for you - I have the one word that Egyptians, Libyans, Tunisian, and Yemenis of the real world have been chanting for more than a year now:




Franz Kafka