Nandrat Community College
Nandrat, Tavaris
9 February 2022, 1:49 PM
Nandrat, Vana felt, was a city that acted a bit too big for its britches. It was a pretentious kind of place, the sort of city that insisted it had a unique culture superior to everyone else despite the fact that it barely had a culture at all. It was smaller than Olara, for Akrona’s sake, and Goddess only knew how crushingly dull Olara was. There was absolutely nothing special about their local food—you could get seafood like it anywhere else on the west coast, or really, anywhere else at all. The people of Nandrat—and this extended to those in the rest of the province as well—talked a lot about their river. The Nandrat River was, indeed, the most voluminous river in the country, but it wasn’t even the longest. And after years of DNP governance, you couldn’t even swim in it anyway, it was so polluted. But, of course, that was why she was here.
As unremarkable as Nandrat was, unfortunately it was of crucial importance in the political realm—or so Vana was told. In truth, not that she would dare admit it out loud, but she was no political animal. She had ambition, surely, and ideas, and she could talk about them, but in order to be a politician, one had to have a… sense of strategy. You had to be able to know who to talk to at what time for which reason, and you had to always have some sort of response ready in waiting for any given surprise. It was exhausting work, and it made Vana feel—for the first time, really—old.
She was lucky to have Atra for help in the political department. Atra had in great abundance everything that Vana lacked, and she felt that together they made an unstoppable team. Vana had admired her for almost Atra’s entire career—when Vana was elected Matron in 2002, a 40-year old Atra Metravar had just been elected First Councilor of Crystal Province. Atra was sixty years old—well into “old” for an orc—but she looked like she was thirty. She had the energy, the drive, and the speed of Žarís Nevran Alandar but without the significant issue of youth holding her back. There were people all over Tavaris that Žarís could never, ever reach, simply because they refused to be told what to do or take advice from someone younger than them. It was a culture that venerated elders—though, that was obvious to anyone who knew anything at all about how the Church of Akrona was governed.
“Alright, ma’am, it’s almost time. There’s a mix of students and community members out there, so a very broad audience. Don’t be afraid to take some time to speak directly to different groups,” said Atra. Both of them would be speaking during the event, as was their usual. Vana stuck to broad ideals and messages of hope. Atra spoke about policy and politics.
“What are the demographics like, do you think?”
“Well, the school stopped surveying students on religious affiliation in 2017, but the numbers then showed about 60% Akronist. It’s likely to still be around there, because students at a community college like this trend less affluent. But, like I mentioned in Anara last week, we shouldn’t take that to mean we’ll get that kind of spread here. Remember, Akronists are more likely to have already made up their mind. The traditionalists who may end up living in Acronis are going to be more curious, and especially in a place like Nandrat, we really need to speak to them.”
“Understood,” said Vana, embarrassed that she had forgotten Atra explaining it before. There was a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she hadn’t felt in… decades, probably. It was anxiety, and she wished it would go away.
“Alright, here we go,” said Atra. As if she could read the Matron’s mind, she placed a warm hand on her back and the two walked out onto the stage arm-in-arm.
There was, at once, a whooshing sound as everyone in the room stood up as the Matron walked across the stage, and then a crashing roar of applause and cheers. There was quite a bit of orange in the crowd, quite a bit indeed, but it wasn’t everywhere. That said, everyone seemed happy enough; Vana couldn’t hear any boos, and there were still temples where folks booed her from time to time.
“Hello, hello, hello!” Vana called out, motioning with her hands for everyone to sit. “You are all a gift, and it is a gift to be here.” Plenty of people called out, as if by instinct, “as are you.” “Oh, I love being in Nandrat, it’s such a special city,” the Matron lied as the crowd gradually quieted. “What a pleasure it is to have the chance to speak to you all today. I’m very thankful that your professors have agreed to let you out of class to come see us. I’ll try and drag things out so you don’t have to go back.” She winked, and the crowd laughed. Suddenly, her anxiety was gone. This was where she loved to be—in front of a crowd with a heart full of vigor and a message to spread.
“I’m very excited to have the chance to speak to you today. You know, I do a lot of talking to a lot of different kinds of people, it’s perhaps the most important part of my job. And as anyone who has ever had the misfortune of being seated next to me at a table will tell you, I do enjoy talking to people very much.” There were more laughs, and Vana couldn’t help but smirk. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Atra nodding, so she made a show of turning to her and playfully glaring. The laughter grew louder, and Vana’s smile grew larger. At that moment, Vana felt like she was 20 again.
“Anyway, as I was saying, I do a lot of talking, about all kinds of different things. I talk about theology, I talk about accounting and budgets, I talk about poverty, I talk about the environment, I talk about compassion and forgiveness… but during this particular moment in history, I’m here to talk about something I’ve never spoken much about before. I’m here to talk about that most dreaded of monsters… politics. Until last month, I had never said these words out loud with my mouth before, but I’m here to tell you that you should vote yes in a referendum. It’s quite unprecedented; not even during the crematorium votes in the 50s and 60s did the Matron participate in something as mundane and ungodly as campaigning. And it seems jarring—it certainly feels strange for me to be talking publicly about things like this—but the simple truth is that we are living in extraordinary times. So I hope you’ll forgive me for stepping into the fray, because in this moment, no one can afford to remain silent.”
The crowd had fallen into absolute silence, and Vana could see how focused they were on her. There were only a handful of people in the audience who would have been around early enough to remember the crematorium votes, but even their mention seemed to affect people. Once upon a time, Akronists had recalled the 50s and 60s as a moment of victory in the face of enormous adversity, but as time had gone on, people had begun to realize that the promised land of true equality they had expected wasn’t coming. Young people, who hadn’t lived through the troubled era before the votes, had come to see those days as a time of foolish optimism and broken promises.
Once, 1965—the year the final province legalized crematoriums and did not see it repealed again—had been called ‘the end of political Akronism.’ Looking back, though, it was clear it had only been the beginning. People had been calling for the Matrons and the Elders to speak louder and be more political for decades now, and this was the crowning moment for those people. Vana was giving birth to an entirely new era of Akronism, and she had to get it right, or the faith would be broken forever. Her greatest mission in this moment was not to convince people to vote yes in the referendum, it was to convince people that the Church could be trusted to be a political actor. And that was a far more difficult task than just getting people to tick a particular box on a ballot, especially because above all, she had to do it without letting the people realize that was what she was doing.
“What we are all tasked with is nothing less than ensuring the future of Akronism, and the future of the world. And really, I should say those in the reverse order—our world is the most important thing there is, and it’s in jeopardy today. And I don’t just mean because of the environment, either, although that is certainly incredibly important. What I really mean when I say the world is in jeopardy is that its people—we—are in jeopardy. It doesn’t even matter what religion you are, if you even have one. All of us are living on a precipice that is threatening to give way.” The Matron paused for a moment, trying to gauge the mood of the crowd. One had to tread a fine line between doom and hope. The people were still looking up at her, and there were even a few nods in the audience, so she continued.
“And you may ask yourself how this could be true. After all, we live in an era with technology far more advanced than our grandparents could have ever imagined. The amount of wealth produced on our planet is staggering, almost inconceivable. Today, we can treat illnesses that killed thousands, millions of people in the past with a single shot or course of pills. We can speak with people on the other side of the world instantly, and travel there in only a matter of hours. Some would have us believe that this is progress, that we have attained the future our ancestors dreamed of. But we haven’t. We aren’t even close, and we’ve become blind to that truth. And I have one simple word, just one single word, that sums up and proves exactly what I mean. That word is inequality.”
The applause was sudden and rancorous. People stood to clap, and there were cheers and whoops from all across the crowd. Nearly everyone was nodding now. Vana nodded along with them. It was the young people who understood this message most fundamentally, which was one of the things Vana told herself to remind her of hope when times seemed gloomy.
“Rising GDP numbers don’t tell you that today, the top 10% of income earners in Tavaris own more than two-thirds of the wealth in the entire economy. The top 1% control more than one third on their own. The top one percent. That’s about $775 billion Standard Hawking Dollars in our economy, which is more than the entire economy of Alksearia. The bottom 50%—that is to say, half of the entire country—control only 44 billion, or two percent of the economy. Put another way, for every dollar someone in the bottom half of the income distribution chart has to their name, people like Toran Nuvo Ranzalar own more than seventeen. Speaking of Toran Nuvo Ranzalar, he earned more than 350 times as much as his entry-level employees last year, yet paid less in taxes. He has something like 50 billion dollars to his name, meaning he could make a donation to this college that increases its endowment by five times and have spent only one-one thousandth of his wealth. I want you to think about how much money is in your bank account, divide it by a thousand, and think how much you would miss that amount if you donated it. Would you?”
Many in the audience shook their heads, though no one spoke. “This is a global problem, though it is particularly true here in Tavaris, a country that has been deliberately destroying its social safety net for more than twenty years for the express purpose of shoveling more money into the pockets of people like Toran Nuvo Ranzalar. They call it ‘trickle-down economics,’ because the Toran Nuvo Ranzalars of the country are meant to take all the extra money they’re earning and graciously let some of it mercifully enter the rest of the economy so we can all, allegedly, benefit. Have you benefited? Have your taxes gone down? Has your tuition decreased? Are your groceries cheaper? Something’s trickling all right, but it sure as Akrona isn’t wealth. My father was fond of a saying, and I think of it more and more these days—don’t piss on my face and tell me it’s raining.”
Once again, the crowd burst into roaring applause. The line was a surefire winner, every time. “The rich in Tavaris are getting richer, while the rest of us have to fight over continuously smaller table scraps. The wages of working people have been stagnant for years, while tax cuts for the rich mean billionaires are making more and more every year. In the past twenty years, the Tavari government has introduced co-pays for doctor visits, eye exams and dental care, meaning Tavari people who are on the public health insurance option have to pay for medical care on top of the taxes they already pay. For people who are lucky enough to be on private health plans, even those premiums have increased by, on average, more than 100% since 2002. And the government has even begun considering introducing co-pays for hospital care. Imagine going to the hospital in an emergency and getting a bill. A bill! How cruel can it get? Who is benefitting? Private hospital executives and insurance companies, but certainly not working people!”
“Not only have taxes fallen for the rich, not only have costs increased for the rest of us, but the Tavari government has actively pursued cutting down the benefits of the social safety net. Many of you are too young to remember a time when the Kingdom paid cash welfare to needy families, because that was eliminated in 2001. Nowadays, families have to navigate a dense web of red tape to be able to access a complicated, confusing system of various vouchers, all the while meeting arbitrary, ever-changing requirements to ‘prove’ they ‘deserve’ assistance. Tavaris demands that its neediest people be constantly working or searching for work, but Akrona help them if they need child care or if they are disabled, because Tavaris has cut those benefits as well. Politicians call this a victory. They say that it has shed billions of dollars in costs from the government budget, which means they have all the more to shovel into the military war machine. If you or anyone you know has ever been unsure of where their next meal will come from, you can at least feel comforted by the fact that Tavaris now has aircraft carriers.”
By now, Vana was barely hearing the applause—there was blood rushing in her ears, and she felt electrified. She had even gone off the script some, saying some of the more political things that Atra usually mentioned. Sometimes, Atra would gently and quickly touch Vana’s elbow as a signal to get back on track, but she certainly hadn’t yet. “We don’t have to take all this lying down,” Vana intoned, making the crowd grow even louder. “There is another way.”
Vana motioned with her hands for the crowd to resume sitting, because it had gotten so loud no one could hear her. “I have watched, we all have watched, as Tavaris has become a country that does not serve its people but expects its people to serve it. The Tavari government asks how much further it can cut, rather than how much more it can do. You are expected to sacrifice yourself so that the economy can grow and Toran Nuvo Ranzalar can earn a few more našdat. You are expected to abandon your principles because they are inconvenient to the state. You are expected to be grateful for the scraps you are handed while the rich eat like kings. And speaking of kings, don’t even get me started on what we are expected to tolerate from him. Tavaris is a country by and for rich people, but what I am here to offer you is a country for people!”
“More than five hundred years ago, the goddess Akrona appeared before us and charged us with a sacred mission, and while Tavaris has failed and floundered and abandoned any principles it might have had, the Church of Akrona has held fast and true to its beliefs through the centuries. And I know that some of you aren’t Akronist. I know some of you aren’t religious at all. But you don’t have to be in order to benefit from that Acronis has to offer. The proposition is simple, it couldn’t be simpler. It is: you matter. You are good enough. You deserve fair treatment. You deserve a government that devotes itself to the cause of the neediest people, not the wealthiest. A government that devotes itself to serving the people, not treating them like burdens, or like line items on a budget. Akronists believe that life is sacred, and Acronis will believe that each and every single person within its borders is sacred, too.”
“Each of you is a gift! When we say ‘you are a gift,’ we mean it! Each and every one of you is a gift from God! You, and you, and you, and you!” Vana pointed at various people in the crowd with one hand while pounding on the podium with the other. “You mean something! You have something to offer! All of you represent something special, something divine! And it’s damn time that you get treated like it!”
Vana had to stop speaking for a solid three minutes because the crowd had become so loud. They simply kept cheering and cheering, shouting at the top of their lungs. There were tears in their eyes and passionate vigor in their faces. The Matron turned to look at Atra for a few moments, and Atra was grinning from ear to ear—a rare sight. The two women wrapped arms around each others’ shoulders for a moment as they looked over the crowd. It was incredible, it was unlike anything Vana had ever seen. They had been concerned that the people in this community college gymnasium would be traditionalists who didn’t want to hear what Akronists were offering. Even if that were true, it was clear that their minds and hearts were in a different place now.
“Now, in a few moments, I’m going to hand the mic over to the honorable Atra Metravar, and she’s going to get into the specifics of what Acronis has to offer. She’s going to tell you about our plans for what welfare ought to look like, about what education ought to look like, about the things a country that shuns militarism, foreign intervention, and austerity can do for you. But I want to make one last point, and it is this: in the next few weeks, the people on the other side of this question are going to make you all kinds of promises. They’re going to give you a whole laundry list of things they claim they’ll do for you. And it’s your own decision if you believe them or not, but what I want you to do is use your eyes and your ears. Look and listen not just at what they tell you now, but what they have done in the past. The government of Tavaris has clearly laid out what its preferred way of treating people is, it’s been doing it for decades now under all kinds of political parties. The Prime Minister can dangle Constitutional reforms and budget increases in front of you all she wants, it doesn’t change what she and all her predecessors have been prioritizing for as long as most of you have been alive. Politicians have promised and failed to deliver countless tantalizing things, but us? We are promising what we have been doing for five hundred years and counting. We feed the hungry. We shelter the exposed. We have always believed that every person is equal, and that we are all one Line. The country of Acronis will not just be accountable to its citizens, it will be accountable to God, and to life itself. There can be no greater conviction, and no greater truth. What Tavaris has done, it has done for money, or for glory, or for land. But Acronis will act always, unwaveringly always, in the service of life.”
In that moment, Vana was certain that the roar of the people in that gymnasium could be heard from the Moon itself.
