Ser Şanorin
Ser Şanorin | |
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| Born | 7 February 1927 Valona, Alscia |
| Died | 18 December 2007 (aged 80) |
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Ser Şanorin (7 February 1927 – 18 December 2007) was a Gylian businesswoman, writer, activist, and politician. She is considered the co-founder of aristerokratia together with Sima Daián, providing much of its theoretical underpinning. She helped aristerokratia establish a distinctive niche in the Golden Revolution, and enjoyed a long career as a warmly-regarded public figure, including a long term as Senator for Tomes and a presidential run in 1967.
Early life
Ser Şanorin was born on 7 February 1927 in Valona, Alscia. She came from a modestly well-off family: her father was a banker and her mother was an art dealer. In her childhood, she also used an Italianised spelling of her name, Sera Scianorina, in deference to the strong Italophilia of Alscian society.
She grew up learning Italian and Zineran as her native languages. This gave her a marked Italian accent and sing-song lilt when speaking Zineran or other languages, a trait that would become her trademark in politics.
She attended school in Alscia until it joined the Free Territories, at which point she continued with volunteer classes. During the Liberation War, she started an apprenticeship, which led to her establishing a successful cooperative for repairs.
By the end of the war, she had settled in Tomes and had founded a successful regional chain of maintenance and repair establishments called Sereparatio.
Career
Ser developed an interest in politics during the war. She was repulsed by the statist communists and harked back to what she considered the more genteel politics of Alscia in her youth. She developed her beliefs by synthesis of several traditions, including Mary Grant's humanism, Phaedra Metaxa's mousaikratia, and Hannaism, but struggled to find an outlet that would match them.
The spread of the ethos of socialised luxury during the Golden Revolution provided an ideal environment for Ser's ideas to flourish. The final catalyst was a meeting with Sima Daián; the two found that they were kindred spirits politically and decided to work together as a team. They published the first aristerokratia manifesto in 1960 and set out to promote the idea, becoming contributors to The Travelling Companion, and entering politics.
Within the team, Ser provided the main theoretical underpinning of aristerokratia, while Sima by her own admission worked mainly to polish its language and conceive an appealing image. In line with Ser's intentions, aristerokratia became a form of social democracy centred around socialised luxury and the Hannaist notion of "rescuing nobility from the nobility", which coupled the ideal of a classless society with preserving the ideal of elegance and refinement as an inspiration to others.
Senate
Ser ran for the newly-established Senate in the 1962 federal election. She was elected as an independent candidate for Tomes. She won re-election in 1969, 1976, 1980, 1985, 1990, and 1995, and served in the Senate until it was reformed to a sortition-based body in 2000.
In the Senate, she served on the Permanent Committee on Culture, Arts and Leisure and Permanent Committee on Public Standards and Integrity. She proved an especially colourful and popular Senator, cultivating close friendships with colleagues Phaedra Metaxa and Teisa Rede. Ser and Teisa were nicknamed the "trench coat caucus" due to their similar appearances and their habit of sitting next to each other in the Non-inscrits area.
Public image
The aristerokratia project demanded appropriate supporters, and Ser and Sima duly transformed themselves into appealing and elegant figures to match. Ser adopted a trademark appearance consisting of a Levystile skirt suit with a cloche hat and a trench coat. She hired a personal assistant who accompanied her virtually everywhere, especially holding up umbrellas to shield her from the elements, giving her an image of aristocratic eccentricity.
Ser purposefully cultivated and emphasised the aspects of her personality that matched the aristerokratia ideal, joking with Sima that they would be "cartoon characters in the service of beautifying Gylian life". She played up her Italian accent as a reminder of her Alscian origin, and was nicknamed "the Italian from Tomes" (l'italiana di Tomes).
Upon election to the Senate, Ser resigned from her roles on the Sereparatio cooperatives. While her rhetoric focused on her aristerokratia ideals, she did speak with pride about her business career. She entered politics with considerable financial comfort, but never earned enough to participate in the Social Partnership Program. However, she did encourage the perception of herself as rich since it helped her better represent the ideals she advocated.
Ser ran for the presidency in 1967, placing third with 13,9% of first preference votes. As they had planned beforehand, Sima took her place in the next election, finishing fifth with 12% of first preference votes.
Later life
After leaving the Senate, Ser spent the rest of her life in quiet retirement with her family. She still went out of her way to go to Sereparatio cooperatives for repairs or maintenance needs, showing her pride and support of the chain that had become a well-established institution in Tomes.
Death
Ser died of natural causes on 18 December 2007 in a Kaşa hospital.
Private life
Ser was married to an Italian husband. The couple created a large family through adoption, ultimately adopting 10 children.
Legacy
Ser and Sima played a great role in popularising aristerokratia as a quirky presence in Gylian politics and public life.
Ser was a highly influential model for many social democratic politicians, who cultivated similar public images and adopted aristerokratia as part of their ideology. Ser was greatly pleased by this, joking that she "taught others how to be soft in politics". She was fond of observing that social democracy, despite or due to its "milder" and reformist nature, relied on flamboyant public figures like herself or Lilja Kjellberg in order to keep up with the more radical wings of socialism and communism.