Charnea

Charnean Confederation Charnea
Flag
Motto: Under the Sun and our Banner
Anthem: Song of Eight Nations
Capital	Agnannet
Largest city	Koros
Official languages	Tuareg language
Recognised regional languages	Zaghawa language Kanuri language
Ethnic groups (2019)	See Ethnicity
Demonym(s)	Charnean
Government	Elective Tribal Federation
• Amenukal	Martuf ag Lamine
• Executor	Kubra ult Lamine
Legislature	Confederate Convocation
• Upper house	Council of Eight
• Lower house	General Assembly
Establishment
• Charnean Empire	14 August 903 CE
• Second Foundation	25 February 1816
Population
• 2020 estimate	33,023,983
• 2019 census	33,010,572
GDP (PPP)	estimate
• Total	$101 billion
• Per capita	$5779.45
Gini	25.9 low
HDI	0.701 high
Currency	Charnean Dinar (CDR)
Date format	mm.dd.yyyy
Driving side	right

Charnea, formally the Charnean Confederation (Tamashek: ⴾⴻⵍ ⴾⴰⵂⴰⵕⵏⴰ, Kel Kaharna), is a tribal confederation governed by elective monarchy located in central Scipia, bordering the Messidor Union to the north and Fahran to the east. The eight national and ethnic affiliations recognized as constituent parties of the confederation, known as the Eight Nations, correspond to the eight States which act as the mid level political and geographic subdivisions of Charnea, in addition to the three federally governed territories corresponding to none of the recognized nations. Charnea is ruled by the Amenukal, an elected monarch selected by the Eight Nations Council, who is endowed with the delegated authority of the various devolved tribes and national organizations party to the confederation, and is the direct commander in chief of the Inter-Charnean Army, the confederated military forces of all Charnean nations. Day to day government of the large nation is split between the devolved authorities of the Eight Nations and the Executor, a first minister position serving for life at the pleasure of the sitting Amenukal.

The Charnean people are largely affiliated with the historically nomadic Tamashek speaking peoples of the Zahra desert which stretches' across nearly 70% of the confederation's land area. Five of the Eight Nations are ethnically Tamashek, and many Charneans practice aspects of the Tamashek culture including speaking the language both as settled residents of cities and towns within and without ancestral tribal lands. Many native speakers of Zaghawa language and Kanuri language speak Tamashek as a second language. The traditional beliefs of the Tamashek peoples are codified into the ancient traditional religious practice of Kaharnism focusing on the mythical Mother Kaharna, a goddess said to be the ancestor of all humankind and for whom the Charnean confederation is named. The majority of Kaharnist practitioners today identify as White Path adherents, although a significant minority reject White Path teachings and retain the sole spiritual practice of Kaharnism.

Economic activity across the Charnean confederation falls almost entirely within the primary sector. By far the most prolific economic activity across the confederation is mining, particularly of gold, copper and nickel. Cobalt is also present in deposits across western Charnea, alongside a particular site with an unusually high prevalence of the rare element iridium. Charnean oil reserves, found in central and eastern Charnea are significant and the petroleum industry nationalized under COPEC is highly valuable to the Charnean budget, however it is of much lesser value to the overall economy compared to mining activities. Notable secondary industries of the Charnean confederation are a rice-based agricultural sector alongside resource reclamation through a strong recycling industry fed by imported waste products. The current Lamine regime has expressed a desire to industrialize the Charnean confederation for the benefit of all peoples of the Eight Nations by developing industrial capabilities to refine Charnea's exported resources into products of higher value, although such programs are yet in their infancy.

Etymology

Charnea derives its name from the central figure of Kaharnism and the patron goddess of many Tamashek tribes, Mother Kaharna. Charnea's Tamashek name Kel Kaharna translates roughly to "People of Kaharna". This nomenclature follows the ancient Tamashek traditions of a confederation across tribal lines, belying Charnea's origin as a universal confederation of numerous pre-existing nomadic confederations of the Zahra desert. It is uncertain when or how Kel Kaharna came to be latinized into the word Charnea, but its believed to have occurred at some point in the 10th century following northward incursions of the Charnean Empire towards the Periclean.

History

Classical period

Both the ancestors of the Amazigh Tamashek peoples as well as their Kanuri and Zaghawa counterparts are known to have inhabited what is now Charnea since prehistory, leading up to the advent of the written word and settled agrarian society in the south of Charnea in what is referred to as the Obulite Civilization in the third millennium BCE. The Obulite culture is strongly believed to be the antecedent of modern Kanuri and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Charnea, although the early Obulite kingdoms were not alone in this era. Roughly concurrent to the emergence of an agrarian culture in the south of Charnea, the legendary Queen Kaharna is said to have unified the disparate ancient Amazighs of the Zahra, at this time significantly less arid than the desert of the modern day. Although Kaharna is deified as the goddess Mother Kaharna by the Charnean Tamasheks, the ancient Queen is also recognized and remembered by other Amazigh groups outside of Charnea, such as the Aghmatians of the Messidor Union.

Much of the ensuring Charnean classical era was marked by the increasing shift away from a hunter gatherer lifestyle across the different ethnic groups of ancient Charnea, as the southern cultures transitioned into a settled agrarian lifestyle under the expanding influence of the Obulite kingdoms, and the the northern Amazigh tribes gradually evolved into the nomadic pastoralist Tamashek culture as the steppe and scrublands of the northern hinterland underwent desertification and became the almost completely arid landscape of the Zahra desert. Although the nomadic northerners and agrarian southerners did enjoy relatively frequent contact with one another, both friendly contact in the form of trading and exchange and hostile contact in the form of raiding and military forays, their distinct ways of life left the Obulites and the ancient Tamashek relatively alienated from one another for millennia during the classical era.

Medieval period

The end of the Charnean classical era was marked by sudden and radical change for the peoples of Charnea, particularly relating to the rise of what would come to be known as the Charnean Empire. In 819 CE, at the Battle of the Red Hills, a man known as Agnan of the Tree rose to prominence. So named because his adoptive father, the Amenukal of the Kel Awakar confederation, had found him under the branches of the sacred Tree of Awakar, Agnan had long been known as a reformer figure among the Kel Awakar for his openly expressed desire to radically alter many of the long standing institutions of Tamashek society. Having emerged victorious over his rivals, Agnan now had the power to carry out those changes. The first to come under his attention was the Tamashek caste system, which had been in place since 200 BCE, along with the practice of slavery. Although Agnan's campaign of reformation earned the ire of many aristocratic leaders of major tribes and noble bloodlines, his meritocratic reforms were well loved by the common people and Agnan would become one of the most influential and powerful figures alive at the time among the Tamashek tribes. He would serve as a unifying figure of many of the nomadic confederations, which would merge under his leadership into the Kel Kaharna, the precursor of modern day Charnea, in 844 CE. Agnan would not live to see his ambitions of a great Tamashek empire fulfilled, as he would soon die in 853 and be succeeded not by any of his natural sons, but by his protégé and adopted son who is known to history as Ihemod the Inheritor.

Amenukal Ihemod posthumously carried out Agnan's will and led the nomads of the Zahra desert in a campaign of militarization and conquest, quickly leading to all out conflict with the Obulite kingdoms to the south. Although numerically inferior, mounted Tamashek warriors skilled with the bow and spear repeatedly proved more than a match for larger Obulite armies based on peasant levies and large quantities of poorly trained footmen with low morale, led by relatively small bodies of mounted warrior aristocrats. Ihemod's destruction of the Obulites did not stop on the battlefield, and recorded Tamashek atrocities against the Obulites are as well documented as they are numerous. By 861, the overall population of the Obulite territories had been reduced from an estimated 1.5 million to just over 400,000 by conservative estimates. Although the majority of the Tamashek tribes remained nomadic, many began to transition to a sedentary lifestyle in the now depopulated lands north of the Obul river. Part of this process included the foundation of a new imperial capital of Agnannet on the north bank of the Obul, and the subjugation of the remaining Obulites into a vassal kingdom south of the Obul river. Although the Kel Kaharna was decades old by this time, it is not until this point that historians consider it to have truly transformed into the Charnean Empire.

Amenukal Ihemod's campaigns of expansion would not end with the fall of the Obulites however, as he and his successors would continue to launch incursions into neighboring lands. Such campaigns included expeditions towards the Periclean and the Ozeros coasts of northern and eastern Scipia. Although ultimately unsuccessful in their ambitions to subjugate the entire continent, the wide reaching turmoil and unprecedented unification brought about by the early Charnean Amenukals shaped the future of central Scipia nonetheless. Many groups across the continent found themselves displaced, assimilated or driven to extinction by the advancing Tamashek Charnean forces and their various vassal auxiliary forces. More importantly, the advent of the Charnean Empire breathed new life into overland trade routes crossing the Zahra desert, which began to reconnect distant regions of the Scipian continent through commerce. Although the imperial authorities and the original five Tamashek nations of the empire demanded tribute from conquered communities, some prospered nonetheless as they benefited from the opening of trade with the rest of the continent and the sharp decline in banditry that followed the rise of the Kel Kaharna.

It is also in this period that a recognizable form of Charnean religion came about, thanks to the forcible merging of many cultures together under Charnean banners. Although Mother Kaharna had been deified since ancient times by the Tamashek, the formalization of Kaharnism centering around the worship of that figure came about in the year 999, along with the integration of Obulite heliolatry as a syncretic element of the Tamashek faith. Concurrently, the focus of power in Agnannet shifted from the Kel Kaharna's original nature as a confederation of nomadic tribes. The Amenukal and the council of tribal elders continued to preside over the nomadic subjects of Charnea, which still formed the backbone of the Imperial military, while a hand picked administrator known as the Amenukal's Executor would form a circle of ministers and establish a government to oversee the settled peoples and occupied communities existing outside of the traditional structure of the Kel Kaharna's tribes.

Government and Politics

Agnannet City Hall

The structure of the Charnean government, although featuring many alterations and adaptations, remains rooted in the government model of the old Charnean empire, the current confederation's predecessor state. In this model, executive power is split between the separate heads of state and government, these being the royal Amenukal and the bureaucratically appointed Executor. Legislative power is similarly devolved between the Council of Eight representing the leadership interests of each particular party to the Charnean confederation alongside the General Assembly which more directly represents popular will, both of which belong to the overall Confederate Convocation serving as the total legislative body at the upper level of Charnean government. The Confederate Convocation is housed in a complex known as the Water Palace, a former leisure palace located adjacent to the Red Palace which in turn houses the Amenukal's apartments and the Executorial complex. Both of these buildings originally date to the medieval period and are found in the similarly aged walled Old City district of the Charnean capital of Agnannet. Power held in Agnannet is typically weaker than the devolved power vested in the national governments which make up the confederation, although there are certain exceptions.

Legislative Assemblies

The Confederate Convocation itself is unusual in its structure and daily function in a number of ways. Most striking is the general lack of permanent standing political parties which extends not only to confederal level politics but also to its sub-nations to a degree. While political blocs do exist, they are typically transient alliances between representatives or sections of the electorate based on common cause over a particular dispute, and broad partisan alliances running elections for numerous offices generally do not enter into existence long term. Representatives are grouped together much more as a function of the regions and ethnic groups they represent as opposed to particular alliances and ties within Agnannet. Additionally, the Convocation itself is bicameral as it contains two distinct representative bodies, however both bodies do not work together or interact to produce legislation and instead each body of the Convocation has a specific purpose that it fulfills exclusively and with little interaction with its counterpart.

The smaller of the two Convocation bodies is the Council of Eight, which is composed of eight parties made up of nine delegates each collectively representing one of the eight national subdivisions across Charnea. Consequently, extra-national territories such as East Charnea Territory have no representation in the Council. The role of the Council is to check executive power, particularly to ensure the rule of Confederation executives is generally aligned with the desires of subordinated national groups and their leadership. Many Executorial actions can be vetoed or upheld by a vote of the Council, and certain executive actions and indeed be initiated by Council vote. Each of the eight delegations is split into three trios of delegates, which individually vote on an issue. If at least two of the delegates vote a certain way, the trio will assume that vote. In turn, a minimum of two of the three trios in the delegation must agree in order to proceed and have the delegation declare its position according to the consensus. A full five of the eight delegations in the Council must reach consensus for the Council to conclude its voting, with debate and discussion between delegates permitted at every stage for the purposes of reaching consensus. If at any point a consensus among the delegates cannot be reached, be it by abstaining delegates or a simple tie at the final phase, the motion is tabled and the process must start over from the beginning.

Much larger than the Council of Eight, the General Assembly is the central body of the legislature and carries out the heavy lifting of writing, revising and passing bills into law through a vote of representatives. There are in the present day 441 seats in the General Assembly of the Convocation, and the number of seats is linked to the population of regions, and so can increase or fluctuate according to the recorded population in the most recent census. Voting in the General Assembly is carried out in a much more straightforward simple majority or supermajority wins, depending on the matter being legislated. Unlike Council delegates, which are selected by the leadership bodies of their respective national groups, Assembly representatives are elected by popular vote within their respective legislative districts, and so are intended to represent the popular will. The majority of laws put in place at the confederal level by this General Assembly are optionally enforced across Charnea, with individual states within the confederation being able to locally uphold or overrule laws. However, with a motion to ratify, the General Assembly can call the Council of Eight to vote on a law that has already been passed in one of the rare interactions between the bodies. If the Council upholds the law, no lower national government may further overrule that piece of legislation and all parties will be bound to enforce the law.

Executive Power

In formal terms, the Amenukal of Charnea as elected and enthroned by the tribes of the confederation holds an absolute degree of power over Charnea and her government, empowered with the full authority of the tribes that raised them to the throne. In practical terms, however, the Edict of Agnannet which serves as the informal Charnean constitution defines the role of the monarch as the head of state and the commander in chief of the combined forces of the confederated tribes, while the majority of the civic executive responsibilities and powers are vested in a separate Executor office which in turn serves as the head of government. An Amenukal is theoretically the superior of the Executor, as they personally select their preferred candidate to fill the position, and may indeed throw out and replace their Executor at any time with full authorization to use their position as commander in chief to force them out if need be. However, despite this clear senior-junior relationship between the two Charnean chief executives, the Amenukal is not empowered to assume the role of their Executor and may not infringe on Executorial powers. The only way the Amenukal may control Executorial actions is simply by choosing or replacing the Executor of the confederation.

While the Amenukal commands the military and paramilitary elements of the confederation and serves as the conduit for symbolic authority from the confederation's member parties to the confederal government, it is the Executor's role to function as a general executive and administrator for the confederation. Nations within Charnea may enjoy varying degrees of autonomy, particularly the nomadic Tamashek nations which are almost entirely self-governing, yet a majority of the Charnean population resides in settled areas with far less autonomous governments, and so a wide array of government programs and departments come in to play, not only enforcing criminal and civil laws put in place by the Convocation, but also providing services to the people in the name of the Amenukal and the combined nations of Charnea. Provision of public education, healthcare, and transportation, as well as housing, infrastructure, and the administration of civil justice all fall under the Executorial purview. To fulfill these various duties, the Executor has a cabinet of ministers and advisors at their disposal known as the Circle of Ministers, or simply the Circle, which not only individually manage particular duties and regions of executive management but may also collectively carry out more complex executive tasks at the direction of their Executor. Executors do not have terms or term limits, and serve for as long as their Amenukal allows, which may vary from a few years to a lifetime appointment. Likewise, the scope of their authority can be fairly broad, restricted only by the enshrined autonomy of particular subordinate bodies. To check this power, not only can the Executor be replaced by the Amenukal, an elected monarch representing the combined nations of Charnea, but may also have particular executive actions taken by them or by their Circle overturned by the legislative Council of Eight, which likewise represents the combined nations of Charnea. Therefore, Executorial power may be extensive but it may not supersede the collective authority of the Charnean national governments, a restriction enforced by two entirely distinct entities.

Law

The Charnea legal code is build on the basis of the medieval Imperial Charnean code of laws, which itself was based on the traditional legal systems of the Tamashek desert nomads, although entire sections of the modern code have been entirely rewritten or rationalized either by the Founders of the new confederation in the early 19th century or by subsequent leaders and assemblies of the legislature. The legal code is based on civil law practices with a central cohesive code of law established by legislative authorities and applied by executive power, which are universal except where they contradict the legal codes of constituent nations, which are similarly based on a civil law code with the exception of certain nomadic groups which internally apply Template:Wp:common law practices. The confederal level courts along with the majority of subordinate courts additionally adhere to an Inquisitorial system, wherein agents of the Court as opposed to separate police elements are responsible for investigating and gathering evidence to prosecute the case. This is intended to reduce instances of police bias and increase the legal accountability of policing elements, as the Court agents investigating alleged wrongdoing are entirely distinct from rank and file law enforcement personnel in most jurisdictions. Those exceptional constituent groups that practice common law lack this Inquisitorial system and instead follow an adversarial system wherein defendants and plaintiffs both present their arguments and independently collected evidence before an impartial tribal Arbiter who then adjudicates the case.

All jurisdictions of Charnea employ capital punishment for criminal cases, and many additionally make use of imprisonment and penal servitude, which is functionally a form of prison labor. Although redemption and correction of a convicted person's character are typically pursued, the general aim of incarceration in Charnea is repayment of moral and material wrongs through service, typically taking the form of menial labor. Nomadic jurisdictions do not practice imprisonment and generally sentence convicted persons with banishment or the death penalty, with certain cases being voluntarily handed over to Confederate authorities by the local Arbiters to be tried and sentenced through the confederal system. In some jurisdictions, a practice known as Retaliatory Justice exists wherein certain offenses are excused and annulled by the court if they are found to be justified or proportional to wrongs inflicted on the perpetrator of the retaliatory action by the victim, although recent legislation has restricted the extent of this practice with the intent of curbing vigilantism.

Military

Main article: Inter-Charnean Army

The Charnean military follows the devolved political structure of Charnea as a confederated military force made up of the specific armed forces of the constituent nations operating under a unified confederate command structure known as the Inter-Charnean Army or ICA. The ICA includes paramilitary and irregular forces operating under constituent armed forces. However, the Charnean military had previously deviated from this structure under the 1899 Armed Forces Reform which disarmed the constituent nations and centralized the Confederate military, a status quo that was effectively undone in the turmoil of the East Scipian Wars and formally repealed under the Lamine regime in 2002, which saw the restoration of a confederal mode of national defense. Component forces are typically trained and specialized by their respective nations to operate in their varied local environments, leading to a high degree of variation in equipment and tactics across the ICA, ranging from combined arms urban warfare doctrines utilized in the developed and densely populated southern regions to the highly irregular, mobility based insurgent warfare endemic to the Zahra desert commonly employed by militias of nomadic populations. The ICA is primarily a ground based organization, although it does feature a subordinate army air-force known as the ICAA (Inter-Charnean Army Airforce). Maritime operations conducted off of Charnea's small coastline are relatively insignificant and have few resources allocated to them which makes them strategically insignificant enough to lack a dedicated subordinate force, instead placing these light maritime duties in the charge of local constituent army units.

Economy

The Economy of Charnea is a strong primary sector economy, primarily exporting mineral resources and petroleum and importing most manufactured goods and a measured amount of agricultural products. Industrialization is a high priority for the current Lamine regime, and is planned to be carried out through Template:Wp:Import substitution industrialization specifically of manufactured or processed products based on resources exported by Charnea, for example the refining and manufacture of petroleum products such as kerosene, gasoline, and petroleum derived manufactured products such as plastics. Laminid economic plans of this nature are typically focused on industrial products wholly or mostly derived from materials already exploited by the Charnean mining and petroleum industries, and generally do not apply to goods that are either several levels of complexity removed from current Charnean manufacturing ambitions, or are manufactured using a majority of materials not readily available to the Charnean domestic market without importation of materials. The primary sector also features a rice-based agricultural sector, which has enabled Charnea to be largely self-sufficient on foodstuffs, with importations for the most part being limited to products that cannot grow in Charnea and are not basic staples. The Charnean economy currently depends on its exported mineral wealth, which is directed primarily to Oxidentale and trading partners such as Sante Reze, Yisrael, and Mutul, in addition to developed Belisarian and Ochrani markets. The Charnean currency, the Dinar, has suffered fluctuations historically but is relatively stable in the present day with inflation under control.

Energy

The energy sector is of particular concern to the Charnean confederation, as profits generated by the state owned petroleum and energy infrastructure firm COPEC nearly supersede taxation as the confederate government's source of income. Oil rich regions are located in the northwest and far east of Charnea, around the frontiers of the Zahra desert, and are exclusively exploited by COPEC since the 1979 Petroleum Nationalization Law. Refining and petrochemical manufacture were previously contracted out to foreign companies by COPEC or else simply done overseas after the exportation of crude oil from Charnean ports, although this has largely transitioned to domestic operations wholly owned and operated by COPEC under the Laminid industrialization plan. Additionally, electrical generation is run by the state corporation and is largely specialized in solar generation, replacing older coal and oil fired fossil fuel generation plants. Wind energy is secondarily perused, to a more limited extent. Unlike the petroleum industry, COPEC does not have a national monopoly on power generation although it does control a large portion of the market as the primary investor and developer of new energy infrastructure.

Recycling

Charnea is well known for its recycling industry, which is locally referred to as the reclamation industry. This sector of the Charnean economy, widely practiced in southern regions of the country, is based on the importation of foreign industrial and consumer waste products typically by rail or by sea to be processed by comparatively cheap Charnean labor. Reclamation firms in Charnea draw their profits from selling salvaged materials back onto the market as cheaper alternatives to what are called first generation materials, such as plastic pellets made from recycled plastic waste as opposed to being produced directly from petroleum products. Ship breaking is also a hallmark activity of the Charnean reclamation industry, making the Charnean coast and particularly the port of Koros international hotspots for the disposal of commercial ships, where the vessels are cheaply demolished and taken apart for the purposes of extracting raw materials and metal scrap.