Pillarisation in Alsland
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| This article is part of a series on the politics and government of Alsland |
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Pillarisation in Alsland, commonly known as (Dellish: Ferdielingisme lit. 'Divisionism') is a long-standing system of political, ethnic and religious separation and division of Alslandic society that became widely used during the early years of the Republic of Delland and was formalised by the Transitional Authority of Alsland and subsequent authorities in Alsland. The system describes the division of Alslandic society into several different 'divisions' purposely designed to maintain stability and unity whilst also allowing the various different groups in the country to maintain their own autonomy and institutions. The system has been described as a "two-tier" system as two levels of division are generally considered to exist: divisions based on ethnicity, culture and community and divisions based on political ideology and religious denomination.
The system of Divisionism in Alsland, unlike other systems of pillarisation in Euclea such as Hennehouwe, has survived and continues to exist and play a major role in Alsland. It has also unintentionally led to widespread apathy between members of different divisions, many of whom usually only interact with members of their own division. The federal system of Scovern was also directly inspired by the different community divisions in Alsland.
Background
The Republic of Delland had gained independence in 1919, the newfound independence for the region triggered a series of inter-community clashes and the creation of extremist political and paramilitary groups which espoused violent rhetoric towards other groups in the country. The crisis was worsened by the divisive 1920 election which saw street-fighting between liberals, termed Radicals, and members of the Solarian Catholic Church in Delland who opposed the liberals policies of secularism and anti-clericalism. The political violence between the groups caused the newly elected liberal government to declare a state of emergency to deal with riots in Yndyk and Werdau.
The newly elected Senate with a liberal majority recognised that the state of emergency was only a temporary measure and would lead to increased violence in the future if the situation was not dealt with, the Senate appointed Erlend Peetre and Loof Schaafsma as President and Premier respectively. The liberal control over the government allowed them in theory to govern alone although the Free Radical Union (FRU) instead formed a big-tent coalition with the moderate socialist Socialist Party (SP) as well as the secular conservative Moderate Union (MU), together giving them a 2/3rds majority in the Senate and control over every regional government bar Yndyk which was governed by the Catholic Peoples' Party (KFP). The new coalition agreement between the parties set out to stabilise the situation to the best of their ability.
Schaafsma as well as other Radicals and Socialists believed that without immediate action the country would fall into civil war and began to introduce a series of policies popularly termed within the press as 'divisionism'. The policies included splitting all state-run organisations into 5 organisations for each corresponding groups: 'socialists', 'radicals', 'moderates', 'catholics' and 'amendists' were the terms used by the government to originally divide the organisations. Simultaneously the government was able to amend the constitution and increase the amount of power held by regional governments which were seen as more stable than the national government, this in effect also created the modern communities of Alsland which were created from merging various regional governments. It also created the Federal Council made of representatives from each community as well as unelected representatives from each individual division.
In 1924 the three parties that made up the coalition formally merged into the National Bloc in response to the victory of the KFP as well as the Alslandic Section of the Workers' International (ASAY) at the 1924 election. The creation of the National Bloc marked the beginning of a period of 66 years of unbroken Bloc rule during which the Bloc strengthened and championed Divisionism. The system was formalised under the Transitional Authority of Alsland which had the task of rebuilding and restructuring the country from the ground up following the Great War. The system of divisionism became linked to the Alslandic identity afterwards. Modern research from the University of Yndyk has shown that divisionism helped maintain stability in Alsland following the devastation it had experienced during the country's liberation.
Divisions
The following list includes some major institutions that are divided under the divisionism system:
Attempts at reform
Divisionism came close to collapse in 1990 with the election of the first non-bloc national government led by the Humanist Sotirian Union (HSU) who were the indirect successor party of the KFP and the amendist New Sotirian People's Party (NSFP). The party opposed divisionism and ran on a platform of massive reforms to Alslandic society and modernising the state, the party was persuaded otherwise when presented with then confidential research conducted by the government which claimed any attempts to move away from divisionism could potentially lead to massive social unrest and put unnecessary stress on state institutions. The party then dropped it's support for ending divisionism, a policy which was later championed by Jan Harnisch of the democratic socialist Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP). Harnisch however needed the support of the National Bloc to maintain a majority in the Folkssenaat and was pressured into dropping the policy, his successor Bonne Zijlstra reaffirmed the policy in his first speech as Premier. In the 2022 election, anti-divisionism parties won a majority of seats in the Senate.
Currently several different political parties support abolishing the divisionism system: Liveable Alsland, Progressive Alliance, Together for Alsland, Humanist Sotirian Union and the Orange Party. Despite parties having differing views on divisionism there is an unofficial consensus between parties that attempting to fundamentally change the system should be avoided and could lead to societal unrest.
Criticism
ODRE criticisms
The system of divisionism was targeted by members of the ODRE movement. During the autumn of 1942 members of the movement began a widespread and sustained attempt to break the system in a period known as 'the big coming together' during the movement. The attempt to break the system was criticised both within the movement and from outside the movement as too radical and potentially dangerous as the system had in the past been a safeguard against extremism and separatism and was noted as a key factor in the eventual failure of the movement as according to research conducted after the fact, people were generally comfortable with the system and credited it with helping create part of the Alslandic national identity. Despite ODRE's ties with ASAY the party continued to support divisionism but endorsed reforming it in December 1942.
The failure of ODRE was ultimately credited to the system of divisionism and widespread opposition towards ending the system. ODRE's failure also helped strengthen the system as it helped to provide stability in the post-ODRE months and years according to student-leader Gweitske Tichelaar.
Apathetic society
Divisionism has also been responsible to high levels of apathy in Alsland to other communities. In a poll conducted in 2019, most Alslanders said they had little or no interest in events that did not effect their division or community. Similarly, most respondents said that they had no opinion on other communities or divisions in the country. The high levels of apathy demonstrated amongst the public to other communities and division has been a source of concern for successive governments which has sparked the creation of many initiatives designed to get people to broaden their understanding of other communities, according to a government paper published in 2006 most of these initiatives have been failures after it was discovered the vast majority of participants still said that they already had a significant amount of knowledge about other communities but they believed that matters effecting their own community are more important than issues within other communities.
These findings have led to analysts describing Alsland as the worlds "most apathetic society". Several research papers have found the extensiveness and strength of divisionism in Alslandic society has contributed to the high levels of apathy amongst Alslanders and have called it a unique case. Research has also shown that most people also generally tend to only regularly communicate with people within their own division which may also contribute to widespread apathy of other divisions. Despite this research has also shown that the high levels of apathy shown in Alslandic society has not led to a widespread feeling of distrust for other divisions. The Alslandic government has also refuted claims that the system of divisionism has caused people to ignore their close neighbours problems.
Impact
Government
Divisionism is widely accredited with enabling the National Bloc to hold onto power for close to 70 years in the 20th century. As one National Bloc source described in 1970, voters routinely backed the Bloc and bloc-aligned parties because they knew their views were going to be represented and divisionism would remain stable. The Bloc's sudden and unexpected shift towards the right and away from it's historical big-tent status has been widely credited for it's subsequent decline in popularity and the emergence of new political movements.
Attempts to rebuild the so called 'Bloc coalition' of voters has been attempted in the past; the founding goal of the Humanist Sotirian Union was to bring the various divisions together so reforms to the system would be easier and Liveable Alsland was originally founded as an inter-division party to unite various divisions in a big-tent coalition. Following on from 2018 it abandoned these goals and instead now identify as a member of the radical division. The Progressive Alliance is currently the only example of a successful inter-division party as it identifies as both a radical and socialist party, recently the party has been making overtures towards the radical division and now mostly identifies within the radical division.
Non-divisional parties have struggled to gain traction in Alslandic politics, no government has even been formed by parties who do not represent a specific division and these parties have also generally remained marginalised. The most prominent exception to this is the Green - Alternative Choice and the Orange Party. The Greens refuse to identify with a specific division as they oppose the system but have been a major presence at the local level in Alsland since 2007 when it emerged as the largest political group in a plurality of municipal governments. The Orange Party also refuses to identify with a single division but claims to represent views from all 5 divisions.
Society
Percentage of people who identify with each division (2019)
Divisionism is heavily ingrained into Alslandic society and remains an important part of the country's national identity according to researchers. For most of the country's history people have used divisions just as much as their community to identify themselves. The government also recognises people identifying themselves using the various divisions and since 1969 the official census has recorded division identification. According to these records Radicals have always been the largest division by identification although the number of people identifying as moderates has declined sharply since 1969 when they were the second largest division.
In a study conducted in 1995 by researchers from the University of Euclea, Alslanders chose to consistently to attend venues which were part of their division over other venues even when the other venue may be closer or more accessible to them. The study also noted how little inter-divisional communication there was and noted only one example of inter-divisional action by trade unions during the Gaullican occupation of Alsland. The research paper also noted how people who identified as no community were mostly non-euclean immigrants or university students. A later study in 2015 found that the number of people identifying as no division had decreased since 1995 as divisions made attempts to become more open towards immigrants in particular, it noted how the largest increase in division membership for immigrants was in the catholic division which runs extensive aid programs for new immigrants as well as refugees. The 2015 study also reaffirmed the trend of a decline in support for the moderate division which had the highest average age of any of the divisions and generally did the least outreach. Discussions about reforming or being against divisionism remain taboo in Alsland but research has noted a growing number of young people identifying as none, especially amongst Generation Z who are disproportionately more likely to identify as 'none'.
A study into the negative impacts of divisionism in Alsland by ANS has shown it disproportionally negatively effects young people especially in terms of education and employment ability which leads to some younger people becoming disillusioned with the system. It also points out relationships between different divisions is low and only a small minority of people claim to be married to or in a committed relationship with someone outside of their own division.
Divisionism has also had an effect on popular culture in Alsland and has been the source of several films and tv shows analysing the effects of the system, most notably Watercolour Birds which depicts the relationship of several characters from different divisions trying to form relationships. The book and it's subsequent movie adaptation made the system in Alsland more widely known internationally. The system has also been parodied including in a popular comedy sketch involving two flatmates in a 1998 ANS comedy tv show who had never communicated before because one claims to be 'normal' and describes the other as 'basically an alien'.
Federalism in Scovern was also directly inspired by the different communities that exist within Alsland which then Premier of Scovern Frank Sandberg drew certain ideas about Scovernois federalism from the system in Alsland.