Republic
The chaos is unacceptable. Íkrat and her government must resign
Veia Veivet Iveva and her mobs, now fully integrated into the organization of the Agrarian Union, run rampant across the countryside, kidnapping and imprisoning hundreds of politicians, bureaucrats, and community leaders in their effort to purge the country of what they see as "corruption" and "cosmpolitanism."
The thugs of the Arian Church - though, with its recent formal rejection of Arius and his doctrine, it hardly deserves the name anymore - abduct, en masse, the women, men, and children who have managed to escape its violent, medieval clutches to the so-called "intentional communities" it has established across the country with the full protection of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the full-throated backing of the Farmer-Green Alliance.
The Ministry of Justice, led by professed ethnonationalist Gertrude Istikas, works to dispossess and displace ethnic minorities, persecute and imprison their leaders, and redistribute the resulting gains to rural Kitetois, leaving tens, if not at this point hundreds, of thousands penniless and homeless, forced to march hundreds of miles away from their actual homes to impoverished, if even existent, villages in the most isolated possible regions of the Urals and far north.
The Censorate has seized control of supply and distribution networks across the country in order to extort ordinary Istkalenic people and force a return to feudal order, compelling millions of people across the country to labor under cleric-"judges" in positions not far removed from serfdom in a deluded and deranged attempt to restore the world of Liris.
The Istkalenic people themselves, where it was still possible for them to, voiced their desire for peace and republican order at all cost, decisively rejecting, in the local and regional elections of 1 November, the political forces whose negligence had led to this extraordinary civil collapse in favor of those with the will to restore the authority of the state and its law by any means necessary.
Yet Prime Minister Elizabeth Íkrat looks upon at all this carnage, all this suffering, and proclaims - even as the people she represents practically demand her removal and the armed forces begin to act of their own accord to control the escalating chaos - that her hands are tied.
It is not often that the editorial board of Republic makes endorsements. We have sought, throughout the years, to keep our public image as neutral as possible in order to ensure the continued survival of both the extraordinary project we have the honor of directing and of the Republic from which it takes its name. But the current situation is untenable and inexcusable to such an extreme degree that neutrality - and the silence it implies - has become impossible. The continued survival of both state and civil society in question, action - action with all tools at hand, action with all possible force, action through all avenues possible - is now absolute exigence, one it would be not merely treason but also absolute self-destruction to ignore.
We therefore call upon Elizabeth Íkrat and her government to resign and give way to a government of experts, led by the country's security forces. We see no other possible solution to the crisis: the current cabinet has lost all credibility and, even in the highly unlikely case of a change in course, has no hope of regaining control over the situation, while no other civilian force, whether it be party or union, commands enough support to be able to rise to the immense task of re-establishing any semblance of order.
We further demand the complete neutralization of anti-democratic forces in the country. Religious traditionalists, whether they be the Lirisians of the Censorate or the Christians of the "Arian" Church, must no longer be allowed any space in public life; the state must make a concerted attempt to completely and permanently destroy their ability to organize and perpetuate their message by any means necessary. Those who agitate against the Republic and the concord of nationalities, too, must no longer be allowed free reign; the state and civil society must be lustrated of their presence. The preservation of basic rights, virtue, and peace must take absolute precedence, now and in the future, over the liberal concerns that lead too often to illiberalism.
We nevertheless insist upon the preservation of constitutional order. It is in no one's interest to see a repeat of the disastrous NSC model; not merely would it delay a return to normalcy, it also would almost certainly provoke further conflict, including within the ranks of the armed forces themselves, and risk outright civil war. Civilian authority, as represented by the National Assembly and, above all, acting Head of State Ursula Korhonen, must continue to hold ultimate control over state throughout the entirety of this extraordinary period. It is of the utmost importance, if a peaceful, just, and democratic settlement is ever to be reached, that the continuity of state be preserved and institutions remain as intact and undisturbed as possible.
Our project was founded with and for the Republic, and as journalists we are bound to both their defenses; it is for this purpose and no other that we make our appeal. Our record is clear: we are not the type to our own personal convictions and biases motivate us to such drastic action. Our entreaties and demands, radical as we know them to be, come solely out of our concern for our country.
We hope, above all, that we will be heard, and action taken, before it is too late.
