[JF4CP] Netherlands at crossroads
Janty F
Presidential elections are incoming again, and this time, we seem to head into a race during very interesting times for this nation. Times, when Netherlands has a choice to either step up, and become relevant at the world's stage; or fall back into obscurity, where some of our citizens believe it belongs.
I had always had high hopes for the Netherlands. Originally, when I came here, I quickly recognized the problems, that were choking the potential of this country. 2-clicking politicians, who only focused on holding political power, without giving anything back in return. Debates being held out of the reach of majority of citizens with their content being controlled and even censored by the rulling class. Lack of ambition to do anything to change this status quo, due to the fact the 2-clickers would lose all their imaginary power, if the nation started to become active.
Ironically, these same people, who have been abusing Dutch democracy for years, are now pretending to be "champions of people" and calling others "dictators", just because they follow actual rules, and not made-up schemes devised by them. I wish I could say it is funny...
Either way, I have quickly find out, that I am not the only one, who would like Netherlands to undergo a change, and that there is a silent majority oppressed by minority, which is willing to work to improve this nation, but they only need a slight nudge to set things in motion. And that's exactly what happened, with starting point of elections in September 2018, where my vote helped to deliver the first sign of better times incoming to this nation.
Ever since then, me and countless other Dutch citizens have worked tirelessly to make the eNL prospering! It would need a separate article just to name them all, that's how many of them there were (and still are). It has not been an easy task, and many of those, who helped to change the Netherlands to a better place are no longer with us, or are currently dormant or not active, as they used to be. Some of those simply got tired, some of those found out other things to do, some of those got annoyed by constant attacks and accusations of the former power-holders, who failed to adapt to this new situation, and decided to cast themselves out of the society, which they no longer recognize and respect. But we had other people coming, taking up the torch from their comrades, and continuing the goal of better, prosperous Netherlands. And these people, and their contribution, for which I am extremely thankful, brought Netherlands, where it is today.
We are standing at a crossroads. It's not the first time when we find ourselves in crossroads situation (we have navigated through several crossroads already, passing each of them successfully), but it is the first time, where this crossroads includes our allies as well in such a way. Allies, who have always been there to support us and help us, and who are now offering us a new path for the future. A path, which the current government has decided to pursue, and which is now in hands of our highest legislative body of Congress to decide upon.
I understand some of you might not know, what to expect from this new path. Some of you might get scared and fall under the sway of doomsayers, who always wrongly predict the worst for the Netherlands. Some of you might be afraid we are losing our values and that maybe doing nothing is actually the best choice to do. I understand your concerns, and I understand this might not be the easiest decision to make. However please let me ensure, that I have been going through the same dilemma for days, even weeks now. It has not been easy, as this is the first time I stood between such a decision myself. And so did the other members of the Government, and members of Congress as well. And yet - if I did not believe in this new path, that is opening for us, I would not have supported it in the first place.
So let's work and navigate this crossroad together, as we have done in the past! Only together, we can make Netherlands even more better place!
The concerned citizen of eNetherlands
Comments
o7
Onion loses another layer...
They lose us only in the members section. They are our allies, we will not leave them alone and will help anytime they need help
In the last 5 years the only tangible evidence of your allegiance was your membership in Orion.
I make no apologies for the madhouse that is the eUK >_> (and any alliance that was daft enough to accept us)
Have to admit Orion was quite lively with UK in it 😇 .
Just like EU.
o7
o7 At your service, sir!
Wait, you pTOed The Netherlands? Good job.
V+
I don't see why do you want to leave Orion. Alliances are almost nonexistent since the end of the MPP era. Usually it's intentional to leave alliances in order to "hide" relations but this isn't a courageous or commendable thing. The elimination of the formal representation of relations will ultimately lead to the fading and the actual end of these relations.
To follow examples of our friends of Iran, Sweden, Peru and Lithuania, who have all advanced from Orion to stronger, similarly aligned alliances 😉 .
Asterian-Codean wars are not important at all, personally I would not pursue a promotion in that. One side is not better than the other, all they have is strength nothing else. You in contrast have a five years old alliance.
We do not plan to join neither Asteria, nor CODE. Highly doubt we would fit into any of those anyway 😃 .
Either way, Netherlands is known for more than just "being a member of Orion". And there are countries, who recognize this, and who want to closer cooperate with us, just as we want to closer cooperate with them. We still have a lot to learn overall, and I believe other nations can learn from us in some cases as well 🙂 .
I admit other nations can learn a lot from you, if I did not give up on the game completely that is partially to see if you can succeed in your survival. Yet I don't see how any of your future plan requires to leave Orion. Being the only really active country your leaving appears to be a death sentence to the alliance. And future paths can be either similar to UK's, who after pushing the quit button on the alliance pushed the logout button on the game, or becoming similar to Lithuania or Peru. These countries despite being strong, aren't a good example for anything apart from why this game is a complete failure. By pursuing the traditional strong country model, breeding accounts etc you just do the very same thing that lead to the death of the community based game.
The things we were doing until now made us stronger, and that's we will keep doing them as long as we can. Due to the size of our population, we simply need to have a different approach, if we want to have both a strong country, and healthy community. A lot of nations are eliminating the community in order to be strong, while some nations rather prefer to be irrelevant to "protect" their people. We believe neither of those extremes is necessary. And to be able to do both, it also requires results, or motivation to keep things going, or to find ways, hwo to do them better.
This is all a part of that.
A community in which certain players are thousand times stronger than others simply cannot be healthy. Even without any ill intention players will realize they are not needed anymore and leave. I don't know if any country killed its community intentionally, it is rather the inevitable result of the natural evolution, that happens mostly unnoticed. Relevance depends on what we attribute relevance to, and the relevance of the Netherlands is not to be sought in country power.
Anyway I don't want to discourage you and I wish much success whatever you do.
A community in which certain players are thousand times stronger than others simply cannot be healthy.
...well, nothing we can sadly do about that, except keep enouraging even the weakest of our players to keep playing and showing them we value them by our programs. Overall, I always believed that it is better to have 50 real players, than 50 bot accounts. and I will keep following that doctrine till the moment I eDie 🙂 .
Good luck friends!
🤖
Sorry to be pedantic, but signing yourself "The concerned citizen of eNetherlands" implies that the rest of us are not (concerned citizens, that is). Which we are...
I'm just saying. Thanks for all your work! 😃
"A" concerned citizen then 😇 ?
Ok, you asked... that's too generic, I think, to convey your meaning. Which I guess might be something more like, 'One who cares about his eHomeland.' Or 'One willing to work hard for eNL.'
It's hard to avoid platitudes in politics... 😃
go go go