“Friends and colleagues,” Dardanus said, his voice only slightly betraying his impatience, “we should not forget that we represent many different nations and peoples, that we have all come here in the spirit of solidarity and that we should do our best to recognise and respect that we all have cultural and social differences which sometimes can be misinterpreted. Having patience with those around us, whilst we still learn to understand each other better, is going to be important if META is to succeed.”
Dardanus paused and cleared his throat, deciding it was best to try and get back on subject.
“Sinjorin Kayode, I think you mistook our position regarding McMasterdonia – we make no assumptions, what we seek to achieve and agree here today, is a common META negotiating position. It would be absolute folly to open negotiations with McMasterdonia without a clear understanding of what is acceptable or not to the existing membership of META. If we are to prosper as an organisation, we must be able to act from a position of unity.
What I have done, I believe, is make clear our position, which is that the most we could support would be accession with a temporary stay on the treaty terms regarding the province of Sutherland, as also supported by Mr Barre. I should also like to say, we wholeheartedly understand and respect the view of the Lancerian Empire, and it is not our intent to be fair-weather friends, we see there is a clear difference between matters that arise within a member nation in the future and matters such as this, in a nation currently outside META. And we would support McMasterdonia fully, if we did not perceive there to be significant risks to the future of META in doing so.
Furthermore, Governor Koizumi, I appreciate that there are businesses in all of our countries which would benefit from McMasterdonia joining META as a full member. Indeed, the Xi Char stock exchange is home to some of the largest industrial conglomerates in the world, who would love to have McMasterdonia inside META as soon as possible, but I am not here to just represent them but to represent the interests of all of Haor Chall. And, of course, the economic benefits go beyond those large companies and would benefit all of our citizens. Of course. But META is more than an economic arrangement. It has a mutual defence clause and this is important, because the risks of the Sutherland crisis are significant.
I appreciate that our nations all have their own intelligence services and they will all have, doubtlessly, different interpretations of the situation but our view is that the risks of open conflict remain significant. Considering the other nations beyond Meterra that have an interest here, there is the potential for this to be a serious conflagration not simply some internal civil war. If Goyanes was to side with Sutherland against McMasterdonia in an open war, and McMasterdonia were a full member of META without caveat, then ALL of us would be required to come to their defence – against Sutherland and its foreign allies. Regardless of your nations views of Sutherlandian independence.
Now, your intelligence assessments may feel that this is unlikely. Indeed, we believe it is unlikely. But there is a risk, and a significant risk this could happen. We all here should well know the law of unintended consequences and that even if the parties to this crisis do not seek armed conflict, it can still explode unexpectedly when actions are misunderstood or mistakes are made. I should add, we would have no issue ourselves with supporting McMasterdonia militarily against the terrorists in Sutherland.
But our concern is this; there are other nations around this table with starkly different views on Sutherland. And whilst that isn’t a serious problem today, in the scenario I have described these differences could well destroy META. It would take less than you think for our young organisation to split and fracture when faced with such a grave situation. Some form of caveat, to prevent this from occurring, is the least that we could support.
As this is our primary fear. Yes, we think it is unlikely to occur, but it is plausible and the impact it would have should give us all pause. I said earlier about the cultural differences we all have, and I am self-aware enough to recognise that Charrians have a deeply ingrained dread of chaos and disorder. It is one of the reasons I suppose for our different conception of government from many others. And, perhaps, it is this which drives us to view such risks with much greater concern that some other nations, but you can judge that for yourselves.
Fundamentally, we believe that META is important – important for all on Meterra – and we seek to protect it from what we perceive as a serious and real risk to it’s future. We take the long term view on this, that short term profit is not a good argument for taking risks which could end this organisation.”
Dardanus sat back down and gestured to Kayode as he leant back in his chair. “To save us going round in circles, if I cannot convince you of our position, perhaps we should vote on some of the options before us and reach a consensus on our negotiating position that way…?”
