The Great Empire--Bilingual Edition

by Joaquim Augusto Ferreira Barbosa De Melo

  - I can only find one explanation - “the greatest desire of all human beings is to be happy!” From the beginning of the project I had a strong belief in the success of the cities. With the application of restraint in waste it was possible to go further, but at that time, I was not able to see the limits of that horizon. Today I am convinced that we are on the threshold of a new future for humanity.

  - I am overjoyed by the hopes you place in that future, but do not forget that every Human Being lives in a (unstable) balance between two poles, which divide and complete each other!

  - Once again you had to bring up your riddles! Could you be more precise?!

  - I say this because of the many doubts I have about the future of the legislative changes you have just made to time-limited property rights. Within every human being there will always be a permanent struggle between his interests - his positive (altruistic) side and his negative (selfish) side. From this struggle between the social being and the individual being will be born...

  His mother had not yet finished the sentence and the President was already interrupting her with his dominant “one territory, two systems” thought.

  - Whoever wants to live within the new cities will have to accept its rules; otherwise all that remains is for him to choose the “other dimension” of living!

  - The problem is how to manage it in time! – Said his mother, adding a few wrinkles to her smooth, well-maintained forehead.

  For the President, that dialogue had reached a turning point, but this time his mother anticipated herself.

  - Before you find a reason to leave, I have a question for you.

  - Yes, say it!

  - When will you decide to bring your assistant to lunch? I’d like to talk to her!

  - You’re terrible, Mom, when you want something, you insist until you get it!

  - For those who only think about the future of others, it’s legitimate to take a few moments to think about yours, don’t you think?! I just said I’d like to talk to her, that’s all!

  - I have to go, Mom, we’ll talk later!

  Lunch had come to an end for the President. The matter brought up by his mother did not allow it to continue. This time, when he said goodbye, he the matter remained in his mind far more time than what he wanted, that, when he resumed his duties, he had to make a greater effort so that it did not overlap with the matters of responsibility that he had in his hands, which were inherent in his position.

  In the phenomenon of the cities the great improvement in their development was still to come.

  The Minister of Finance of a country, swamped with sovereign debt, surviving a growing spiral of development, which promised to plunge his economy into an endless black hole, had an original idea...! He argued in the Council of Ministers that the main creditor should be offered an exchange of public debt for the temporal concession (rental regime) of one or more territorial spaces. In his proposal he specified some ideas, among them, that the creditor could build one or more cities there and have total temporary sovereignty over these spaces. Once the concession period was over, the territories and all the improvements carried out there would once again belong to the country of origin, without the previous creditor being able to demand any type of indemnity. In the explanation, the Minister sought to highlight the indirect gains of his proposal, adding that it could bring regional development particularly in employment and, above all, would free the country from the financial chaos in which it was plunged. At the meeting where the proposal was presented, the Prime Minister simply listened, making a single comment at the end:

  -The matter just mentioned by the Minister of Finance will not be recorded in the minutes, nor can those present mention it to anyone outside this room.

  In the face of those words, the Minister of Finance was perplexed! His face took on several expressions, in a whirl of thoughts and looks to which he was subjected. For him it was the first time that in many years of intense professional and political activity he had received such an outcome. At that moment he felt “crushed”. He had always shown great maturity, knowledge, rigor and depth in the analysis of the subjects he dealt with in his ministry. To be ignored in his response as if he were a “fool” was a real test of fire. He looked at all those present at the meeting and, among them, no one could match him in merit and hours of work. He felt offended by that attitude. Among his peers he noticed the disapproving looks and that brought him an embarrassment difficult to bear! He had always been a person of humble and correct attitudes, perhaps for this reason he was used to being heard and respected. That reaction of the Prime Minister and his peers could not therefore be ignored; he had to make a decision. At the end of the Council of Ministers he went to his office and immediately wrote a resignation letter which he sent to the Prime Minister. His surprises, however, would not stop there. Shortly afterwards, the request was returned to him with a note in post-it note saying: ‘please wait for a meeting to be arranged’.

  Two days later...

  The Prime Minister had called the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Finance to his office to entrust them with a diplomatic mission of high importance and secrecy. Both would have to meet their counterparts in the creditor country for a first negotiating approach on the terms previously proposed by the Minister of Finance (a total surprise for him, which he would never forget). Some time later, the ministers of the debtor country set out in search of a possible agreement. When they arrived, they were received by their counterparts, who were already waiting for them after the meeting had been arranged by the diplomatic delegation. After the terms of the proposal were presented, the ministers of the creditor country informed that the matter would be referred to higher bodies for examination, and that they should await a later decision. On the same day the ministers of the debtor country returned to their country and informed the Prime Minister of the inconclusive results of the meeting.

  In the early hours of the following day, in the silence of his office, the President of the creditor country read the terms of the proposal which, in general terms, could be summarized as “an exchange of the amount due for a temporal concession of one or more territorial spaces, under particular conditions, where cities with full sovereignty could be built during the concession period”. That proposal was taken by surprise by the President and at the same time he was reminded of a conversation he had had with his mother when she referred to “possible territorial expansion and influence in the world”. For the first time, the President admitted that his mother was perhaps right, when he said that the purchase of public debt from over-indebted countries could open up promising horizons by saying: “in the past many empires were built at the expense of weapons and much bloodshed, but in the future everything could be quite different”. That same day, the President set up a meeting with the Prime Minister and a marathon of negotiations began.

  A few months later...

  The parties, after a long negotiation process, reached a pre-agreement memorandum subject to formal political negotiations in each country. Thus, in the last round of negotiations, the debtor put forward his best proposal “the public debt would be exchanged for a single territorial cession, but sufficient to build ten cities with sovereignty over five hundred years. For the President, that proposal, although much better than the previous ones, should be improved. In his opinion, it was desirable to have an option that included not one but three territorial spaces, maintaining the total area proposed. He also argued that these spaces should guarantee access by sea, and not only by air, as suggested by the debtor. However, there was an additional problem still to be solved - the proposed time of sovereignty was insufficient in view of the very high financial resources to be applied. A period of sovereignty of no less than a thousand years was imperative. After much negotiation, a compromise of political understanding between the parties was attained. When it was finally announced to the media that there was a political pre-agreement between the two countries, it was already envisaged tha
t the public debt of the debtor country would be swapped for three territorial areas with access by sea and sovereignty for a period of a thousand years. The world had awakened to a new imperial reality! That example, questioned by many, led some countries, equally over indebted, to see in that pre-agreement a way to overcome, with reciprocal benefits, their very serious financial problems.

  With the approaching of the Party’s Annual Congress, the subject of the new cities would have to be widely debated, as well as the decision on the pre-agreement on the exchange of debt for the temporal concession of territorial spaces. The country’s basic law required that, after a period of three five-year plans, an in-depth evaluation be made of the results planned and achieved. In the last development plan (drawn up for a thirty-year cycle), the construction of the new cities was already contemplated, so the evaluation of their results was expected. On these occasions the President makes an opening speech and a closing speech and for two days all national issues are discussed by a large number of congressmen and some guest speakers. This time Snu is among the congressmen, and not among the speakers. The period before the Congress represented for the President and his team additional efforts, not for the organization of the event, since this was a task of its own commission, but because the speeches would invariably focus on the analysis of what happened with the model cities and also with the strategy for possible future agreements of debt exchange for spaces of territorial sovereignty. Of all the President’s assistants, Snu was the most requested. Between frequent meetings with the President and many requests for information from various sectors of national life, Snu had almost no time left to take a breath. Among the requests that were most addressed to her were those relating to statistical data, to which she sought to answer with easy-to-read histograms. In the last decades, the country had experienced an impressive development, so the best way to express that reality was to do it by comparison between homologous periods, hence the constant appeal to statistics and histograms requested by the most varied organs of information.

  When the day of the Congress finally arrived, the country woke up to prominent news in all the media. The televisions had been authorized to broadcast the opening and closing sessions live, so that along the corridors of the building and the room where the work of the Congress would take place, the signs and movements of equipment, cables and cars from outside the various channels were evident. That event, due to its political importance, dragged the attention of most of the population, so that close to the time of its beginning, many people followed the development of the events through the screens and radio. When the session began with the President’s opening speech, a great deal of reserve was noted in his words, contrary to his usual expression of conviction that the country hoped to see the enormous national effort of recent years mirrored there. Most of the congressmen were surprised by that attitude, used to having in their opening speech an expressive reference to what had been done, leaving only for the speakers to explain the details. This time, however, the President’s few words aroused the curiosity of what was to come. After the words of the President, the speakers who followed him met these expectations, and the Congress followed with an unusual abundance of statistical data (comparing values between homologous periods), thus showing the rapid growth in the multiple national variables. As a result of that new strategy, the congressmen revealed a growing attention and enthusiasm in the course of the work, much by the abundance of data presented by the speakers. At the end of the first day, the televisions, at the time of the news, made not only summaries of the session, but also highlighted some of the main issues discussed. Broadcasting live and in parallel, they presented debates and collected the opinions of anonymous citizens, in several streets of the main cities, about what they thought about the course of the work in Congress.

  For some years now, the country has been experiencing changes in its daily life, among them a growing extension of national wealth and well-being, both in cities and in many rural areas. The people had thus come to realize that the country’s former strongholds of poverty were in rapid decline. Although only a small elite lived in the new cities and enjoyed a life of unparalleled quality, most felt that their country had become a pleasant place to live and that the problems of yesteryear were increasingly reduced and distant from the impoverished and sad past that they remembered.

  The next day, the work of the Congress resumed at the scheduled time and, once again, the congressmen were bombarded with statistics and more statistics. Despite this, the monotony did not take hold, thanks to the growing interest that the speakers aroused in addressing the issues dealt with. At the end of the Congress, the President’s speech was awaited with great anticipation. Once again, the television stations were broadcasting live and with high audience ratings. The President’s entrance to the gallery was enthusiastically applauded with a standing ovation far beyond the usual. This time the televisions added to the footnote broadcast (in real time) the words spoken by the Head of State, thereby placing greater emphasis on his speech, which we reproduce here: “I want to thank you not for your greetings, since they belong to this whole Nation, but rather for the opportunity given to me to serve my country. A country of generous, hard-working people, faithful to building human dignity and happiness. Today we have reason to smile and share those significant moments of our civilizational evolution, achieved in particular in recent years and so well reflected in the statistics presented by the previous speakers. Whenever in my duties I meet the welfare of all my fellow citizens, I have the best of their gratitude. A country is built with clairvoyance, determination and a lot of effort every day, broadening horizons and believing that it is always possible to do more and better! Thank you very much!” With these words the President finished his speech, which for being so brief and so rich (full of content), left everyone with a feeling of infinity...! In the seconds that followed, the silence was intensely heard, soon to be interrupted by the warm and long round of applause that enthusiastically greeted its President. The televisions, which were broadcasting live, momentarily interrupted the images to gather small passages of others from abroad, where the moving reactions of many spectators following the Congress were visible, through giant screens mounted in some squares of the main cities of the country, to soon resume images from inside the Congress, where the President, in his simplicity, slowly left the stage while the whole auditorium, standing, continued to greet him warmly. The speakers and commentators from the television stations were unanimous in expressing that the current President, in the simplicity of his speech, had expressed an unusual Nobility of Good Service to the Nation, being unanimous in stating that this President goes far beyond the time horizon of the present time.

  At the end of the Congress, the television stations unfolded in debates and reports on the development of the country and the importance of continuing to grow its great economy. With the approval of the exchange of public debts for territorial areas with long concessioner sovereignty rights, it was expected that the country would begin a new phase of expansion, not only territorial, but above all of commercial and political influence throughout the world.

  On her return home, Snu recalled the most significant moments of the Congress, retaining in particular many of the words of the final speech of the one for whom she worked every day and who, after all, she did not know so well. For her, the President had revealed himself, in his actions and words, to be a Great Statesman, at the same time a simple, sensitive and great Human being - however difficult it was for her to admit that he was without a shadow of a doubt the Sun of her heart! In those days Snu had a strong change in her daily routine, but she did not feel less tired. Upon arriving home, a little earlier than usual, she noticed that her mother had not yet started preparing dinner, so she went to the interior garden, where she could relax a little. The end of the afternoon invited her to a reading. It had been a long, long time since she had had this opportunity, so she grabbed a book and her armchair (which she had used s
o often in her youth) and went to sit by her favorite tree. Snu sat down willing to read a good part of the book she had in his hands, but half an hour later she could not resist the fatigue and fell asleep. A few moments later, she felt immersed in a dream...