Deliberationization
Deliberationization (Namorese: Коджикха tr. Kojikha, Katranjian: Деосвобождения, Deosvobozhdeniya) is the process of dismantling the legacy of Liberationism in post-Liberationist societies.
Deliberationization occurred in both Namor and Katranjiev, the only two countries in Esquarium that were formally Liberationist before liberalizing. The term was first widely used in the aftermath of the restoration of the Katranjian monarchy, when the government tried to erase the legacy of Huankun Chen's regime. In Namor, a formal deliberationization process was launched by Lan Xuân Hường, the country's first non-Liberationist leader since the founding of the PRN, but was met with resistance from the Liberationist Party of Namor and enjoyed limited success. A less aggressive attempt at deliberationization was pursued by President-General Fu Wen.
Deliberationization in Namor
Deliberationization under Liberationist rule
Under Liberationist rule, many buildings, parks, streets, squares and other public places were named after Liberationist ideals and prominent figures associated with the Liberationist Party. The personality cult of Antelope Yunglang developed during this period as portraits and statues of the chairman were erected across Namor.
The Minjuha era of the 1950s and 60s saw attempts at "unofficial deliberationization" as officials worked to reduce Antelope's cult of personality. However, the government continued to recognize Liberationism as the state ideology and no attempts were made to disavow Liberationism. At the same time, the Democratic Socialist Party, the first genuine opposition party on mainland Namor since the conclusion of the civil war, publicly advocated for deliberationization; it called for the replacement of the current constitution, which makes several references to Liberationism, with a new "post-Liberationist" constitution. It also supported the replacement of the Namorese flag, which contains Liberationist symbolism.
In the 1970s, some Democratic Socialist leaders designed a deliberationized flag with a red plum blossom (the symbol of the Plum Blossom Revolution) in its center as opposed to the red star that appears in the official flag. The flag was never officially adopted by the DemSocs but became a popular symbol of the Namorese democracy movement. The government reacted by passing the Flag Act, which banned the flag from public display. In response, DemSoc supporters flew the Aininian tricolor, whose design is similar to that of the national flag.
Meanwhile, the DemSocs began deliberationization at the local level, removing statues of Liberationist leaders and implementing "name rectification programs" in localities controlled by DemSocs. The Liberationist-controlled Central Council responded to this by passing legislation that placed all statues of Liberationists under the protection of the central government and took away local governments' power to rename public places.
Official deliberationization
Official efforts to stop deliberationization ended in 1990 with the election of Lan Xuân Hường, the PRN's first non-Liberationist President-General. After taking office, Lan announced that Namor was ready to depart from its "authoritarian past," signaling her willingness to make deliberationization a part of government policy.
With support from the President-General, the DemSoc-controlled Central Council passed the Deliberationization Acts, a series of acts that made deliberationization official. The Acts established the Jenyikan Commission (Investigation and Truth Commission) which was tasked with investigating human rights violations under Liberationist rule and overseeing the national deliberationization process, repealed parts of the Flag Act and removed portraits and statues of Liberationist leaders from central government protection.
National name rectification campaign
Shortly after its establishment, the Jenyikan Commission announced the "National Name Rectification Campaign" (Кангук Дженхуянтун tr. Kanguk Jenhuyantun) with the aim of renaming public places that had been named after Liberationist concepts and leaders.
During its existence, the Commission renamed 8,397 public places, including 49 squares, 325 towns and villages, 1,935 buildings and 6,088 streets. Public places that had existed before the establishment of the People's Republic had their pre-Liberationist names restored, while places that were built and named during Liberationist rule were assigned new names, which usually consisted of the words "democracy" (minju), "freedom" (jiyu), "human rights" (inkan), "progress" (chinbu) or "prosperity" (fanrung). Other places were renamed after Namorese victims of Liberationist rule or participants in the democracy movement.
The name rectification campaign quickly ran into controversy due to criticism of the criteria used by the Commission to determine which place names were "Liberationist" and needed to be renamed. For example, some place names with the words "revolution" and "liberation," as well as places that were named after Antelope Gelai were renamed. After the Commission ordered the renaming of Liberation Square - one of the most famous landmarks in Namo - to Democracy Square, the Liberationist Party sued the Commission on the grounds that its activities undermined the Constitution. The case reached the Supreme People's Court, which ruled that Liberation Square is a "significant cultural symbol" protected under Article 35 of the Constitution, and thus cannot be renamed. Following the ruling, name rectification continued at a slower pace.
Investigation of human rights abuses
In addition to launching the national name rectification campaign, the Jenyikan Commission investigated human rights abuses between 1925 and 1990. The Commission set up public hearings across the country for perpetrators and victims of human rights abuses to testify their experiences. Perpetrators of human rights abuses could request amnesty from the Commission provided that their crimes were politically motivated and they cooperated with authorities to uncover the truth.
The final report of the Jenyikan Commission was published in 1997. In the report, the Commission concluded that over 31 million people had been killed, jailed or persecuted for political reasons in the years of Liberationist rule. It also put the number of persons killed, jailed or persecuted during the Green Fever at 4 million - higher than the figure of 2.5 million put forward by the Green Fever Commission of the Gelai era. However, the Commission acknowledged that "the exact number of persons persecuted by the Liberationist dictatorship will never be known in its entirety as a consequence of the deficiency in records during the time of the abuses, as well as the systematic destruction of documents by the regime." It recommended that the government grant P20,000 (US$2,850) in reparations to each identified victim of political persecution each year for five years, with the exception of those who had already received reparations from the Green Fever Commission.
The Liberationist Party questioned the validity of the Jenyikan Commission's findings and called for a "multi-partisan" review of political persecution in Namor. It also alleged that the DemSocs were using the report for political gain.
Memorials
As part of its official deliberationization policy, the Namorese government sponsored memorials honoring victims of Liberationist rule. Although there were calls from DemSocs to commemorate all abuses that had occurred under the Liberationists, most memorials focused on commemorating victims of the Green Fever in order to appear less partisan, since the Liberationists had also denounced the Green Fever after it ended in 1950.
The government held various activities on the 55th anniversary of the start of the Green Fever in 1995. The Central Council designated May 20 as Human Rights Day. The Green Fever Victims Memorial, along with the Namorese Democracy Museum, were inaugurated in Namo.
The Ministry of Education included human rights education into its curriculum with the goal of "educating students about the dangers of authoritarianism, the history of authoritarianism in Namor and the importance of democracy and human rights."
Decline
Upon taking office in 2000, President-General Kaitlyn Kan disbanded the Jenyikan Commission and replaced it with the Namorese Institute of Democracy, a non-governmental think tank whose stated aim is to solidify Namor's democratic development and promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law in the developing world.
Public perception
Contrary to what the Lan administration had expected, deliberationization became a controversial issue. The Liberationists viewed deliberationization as a form of political repression and accused the DemSocs of trying to stifle their opponents in the name of transitional justice. The party was also critical of what it perceived as DemSoc attempts to associate repudiation of the Green Fever with the repudiation of Liberationism, using its own denunciations of the Fever as proof that commemorating victims of the Green Fever is not an anti-Liberationist act. The center-rightist New Democrats, which broke away from the DemSocs over ideological differences, strongly supported deliberationization and sometimes criticized the Lan and Kan administrations for not carrying out deliberationization enough.
Public perception of official deliberationization was divided at first, but eventually turned negative. A Tesong poll conducted on the second anniversary of the Jenyikan Commission's establishment found that only 30 percent of Namorese believed the policy was helpful, although 69 percent agreed that past human rights abuses needed to be addressed.
Deliberationization in Katranjiev
Under Liberationist rule
After the political crisis concluded in 1972, the new President, Baikun Qing sought to reduce the cult of personality imposed by Huankun Chen around himself and Antelope Yunglang. While Qing still recognized Liberationism as the state ideology of the People's Republic, he placed his efforts more on reopening Katranjiev to the outside world and to improve its economic situation.
However, from 1973 on, many communes, especially outside of major population centers and who had Slavic majorities began to remove statues of Huankun Chen and Antelope Yunglang. This process continued through the end of the People's Republic.
Official deliberationization
When Blazhe Hristov became the first Prime Minister since the restoration of the Katranjian monarchy in 1976, he sought to deliberationize the country. Thus, he co-operated with the opposition Liberals to establish a cordon sanitaire against the Liberationist Party of Katranjiev, as well as introduced the Seventh Amendment to the Katranjian constitution in order to prevent a repeat of the coup d'etat that established the People's Republic of Katranjiev.
Under Hristov's administration, he encouraged municipalities to undergo deliberationization: statues of Liberationist figures outside of southern Katranjiev were torn down, street names that were named after Liberationist figures in many areas were renamed to their original names, or to names honoring victims of Liberationist tyranny. In Krasimir, the Deveti Dekemvri Fora was renamed back to the Kralski Fora. At the same time, a royal commission was organized to investigate human rights abuses under the Liberationist regime.
However, despite pressure from many to ban the Liberationist Party outright and to remove all "glorification of Liberationism," Hristov refused out of fear of alienating the Namorese population in the southern duchies. However, this did not stop Huankun Chen's body from being moved to Chunov in 1977, and the mausoleum itself from being torn down in 1984.
These policies continued unabated under Andrei Karavelov, although it began to slow down. While the Royal Commission released their reports in 1989, and the government began paying compensation (as well as apologized), the report was otherwise largely ignored.
By 1993, around 14,500 places were renamed from Liberationist names to either their original names or to new names. However, in present-day region of Riro, southern Talnakh, and Trifonov, only 300 places were renamed, mostly in towns with Slavic majorities.
Decline
After the election of Paul Grigoryev in 1995, deliberationization ceased being a major priority, as the Liberals were not as enthusiastic about deliberationization as the Conservatives. This, combined with the rapid economic growth in the 1980s through the 2000s meant that the legacy of the People's Republic of Katranjiev would not be as visible.
While Grigoryev initially maintained the cordon sanitaire against the Liberationist Party of Katranjiev, he was forced to form a coalition in 2005 to avoid a minority government. The "Red-Green coalition" was seen as the final death knell for deliberationization within Katranjiev.
To this day, around 35% of the population supports "mandatory deliberationization" in Katranjiev, where places that have not voluntarily deliberationized be forced to undergo the process, although this percentage has been declining as it is mostly supported by ethnic Luziycans and Katranjians over the age of 65.