Join the new world

This interview is the first in a series of interviews that I would like to conduct within the following weeks. I believe the Dutch media community is showing some fresh and young activity and I want to be a part of this new liveliness, to help giving journalistic activity a fresh impulse. I will also attempt to improve my own interviewing skills by trying out various methods and approaches. Every support in the form of critique is very much appreciated.


THEY ARE THE youngest party in our country. They are active in our media, handing out food to their members and gold for people who join their party or who bring someone else in. And they have a daring goal: to bring back the United Netherlands, the historic union between the eNetherlands and their southern neighbour eBelgium.

UNP (the United Netherlands Party) is a quickly growing party. Perhaps, they should thank their food and gold programme and their active media presence for this, but maybe there is some real ideology and vision behind their strong language. How serious is this new political group, and what is their ideology? I decided to meet with newly elected Party President Kordak and hear him out on his party’s opinions and future.


Thank you for talking with me Kordak. Now, please tell me something about the emergence of UNP. Shtula was Party President before you, was UNP a joint initiative?
‘Thank you for the interview, I think it is great to see more interviews in our community, it make our media more interesting. To answer your question I have to take you back to day 1900. I was the leader back then of the Dutch People’s Party and Shtula was the leader of the Patriot Party. We decided that it was the best the join together so we would be able to take part in the congress elections. We decided to choose the name United Netherlands Party. We picked that name for many reasons, one of them was a reference to the old days of the United Netherlands. More important was the idea of having a peaceful community, we wanted to become the party that would build bridges between old enemies. It was the era of GPN, no other party was strong enough to really oppose them. That resulted in many political fights and anarchy, problems we wanted to tackle. To make this story short: UNP was quite succesfull, at one point we were the second largest party of the country with 47 members and every government had many UNP ministers and state-secretaries. Together with Shtula I managed to build the strong party we always dreamed of and that we will try to bring back.’

So the UNP that we today see really is not that young! Still, it profiles itself in a young, fresh way. In this article, for instance, you claim that UNP is “the only true leftist party in the Netherlands”. I’d like to point out that according to the game mechanics, both UNP and DemNL are “Center-Left”. So DemNL is not “truly leftist”? Why?
‘Well that is a very good question. In our country the parties never really made use of their orientation, everyone was just center this center that. We want to take a clear stance on what our position is on topics. We stand for free food for the community, guidance and education of new players and a strong, large government. For example, the university project was started to help new players. I agree that it is good to learn by doing, but to get some recognition and by building up some experience it is nice to be able to attend univerisity. It was me who introduced the university and made the total program and it was DemNL President Willem that aborted the program. If DemNL was truly leftist they would have put some effort in it!’

I see your point. If UNP had his way, the University would come back, but not only that. Your party wants to bring back the historic UNL. It’s not the past, you say, but the future. Inhowfar would this future look like its historic predecessor? What would be the same and what would be the differences?
‘We should put real life arguments away and see what we have in common. Both eNL and eBE have large amounts of international players in their communities. Our international friends are the key in keeping our communities alive and active. We should merge together and try to attract as many foreign citizens as possible. Of course it is important to do this safely, we prefer to invite people into our country instead of waiting for some random people to apply. Our countries could profit from each other’s economical bonus and military power. Especially now when we have less and less citizens it is important to do this merge! However like we stated before we want to take smaller steps and want to start to work together on several ministries.’

Neither you nor Shtula actually witnessed the United Netherlands. Nobody in the party did, actually. Still, when I hear you speak about the United Netherlands, you make it sound as if it is the Promised Land lieing ahead. Is that not a bit strange?
‘We live in a land of milk and honey, by that I mean that we have a beautiful country on a very good strategic spot. We need to let the world know that we are the promised land for them, which we strongly believe in. The former United Netherlands is a long time ago, I do not expect anyone to be such an old fossil. I expect people to believe in the plans and in friendship between eNL and eBE.’

I must say that you are very optimistic. Are you not too positive about the UNL? Older players who were here during the first Union are mostly against the idea of bringing it back. Why would you go against their critique?
‘It is funny to see most of those comments coming from people that constantly hop between eNL and eBE. Wouldn’t it be much easier for them to be able to stay in one country? 😉 Older players look to the past where the United Netherlands failed, because all Belgians joined the Belgian Party. When we merge, it is important to prevent that nationals of one country unite into one party. We should be in parties based on ideology, not nationality. I see that as one of the greatest challenges when we recreate the United Netherlands/Belgium, since it was one of the main reasons that the old United Netherlands collapsed.’

Stating ideologies over nationality isn’t the only obstacle. The game mecanichs itself do not allow countries to merge. The United Netherlands would technically have to be the Netherlands or Belgium. Which one would it be?
‘I have nothing against a United Belgium, it is just a name you see on the screen ingame.’

Getting back to ideology. The word “United” suggests that there is friendhip and companionship. At this moment, the relation between Belgium and the Netherlands is somewhat cooled down. Do you think the Belgians would be willing to re-unite? And how would this happen; via the political or military road?
‘I have tried the military road many times in the past, even when I was the president of the eNetherlands. It won’t work to attack eBelgium now and occupy them, maybe we can win, but we cannot keep their regions. Besides of that I want a merge of our communities, it wouldn’t do any good to force them to join us.’

You seem to be good at getting people to join you: your party hands out food to members and gold to players who join or who bring someone to the party. Some call this bribery or “buying members”. What do you say to these people, how do you justify giving stuff to people in exchange for support? One must question: are your members truly dedicated or are they just there for the food and gold?
‘We just want to help new players and we feel like the government is not doing that enough yet. We do not only give to our own members, but also to other people. So it is not really bribery and even if there are people who join for the money, then so what? We help them to grow and hope they continue playing. If they stay, they will bring us and our party profit on the long run.’

Is there anything you would like to say to people who do not know which party to join, or who are doubting whether to join UNP or not?
‘Are you a real leftist and do you want to join a crazy bunch of people? Then you really should join the United Netherlands Party! We also welcome the international players who are not Dutch in real life. If you don’t like our program you should join one of the mainstream parties, we are not afraid to express our opinion to the eWorld!’

Thank you so much for our talk. I hope I gave you enough space to express your ideas and vision of your party. I was planning on giving you the last word, but I do have to say, on my own behalf, that I learned more about your party via this talk. I myself, as a witness of the Union (you call me a fossil, thanks…) do not see how it could have a longlasting, fruitfull future, but you have shown me that UNP’s dream is more than an empty wish - it is actually something that you are seriously and rationally discussing and thinking about. Seeing such dedication can only brighten my heart.



Central quote per question
1. ‘We stand for free food for the community, guidance and education of new players and a strong, large government.’
2. ‘Our international friends are the key in keeping our communities alive and active.’
3. ‘I expect people to believe in the plans and in friendship between eNL and eBE.’
4. ‘We should be in parties based on ideology, not nationality. I see that as one of the greatest challenges when we recreate the United Netherlands/Belgium, since it was one of the main reasons that the old United Netherlands collapsed.’
5. ‘I have nothing against a United Belgium, it is just a name you see on the screen ingame.’
6. ‘I want a merge of our communities, it wouldn’t do any good to force them to join us.’
7. ‘We just want to help new players and we feel like the government is not doing that enough yet.’
8. ‘If you don’t like our program you should join one of the mainstream parties.’