Sweetie Letise
Sweetie Letise | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Minister without portfolio of Gylias (Responsibility for national policy) | |
| In office 2 January 1958 – 5 March 1976 | |
| Prime Minister | Darnan Cyras |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Ereşe Letise 22 April 1917 Sarra, Alscia |
| Died | 7 January 2006 (aged 88) Velouria, Nerveiík-Iárus-Daláyk, Gylias |
| Political party | Independent |
| Occupation |
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| Nickname | Sweetie |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Border Guard (1935–1939) |
| Years of service | 1935–1958 |
Ereşe Letise (22 April 1917 – 7 January 2006), better known by her nickname Sweetie (Gylic transcription: Suíti), was a Gylian revolutionary, adventurer, sharpshooter, swordfighter, businesswoman, writer, poet, lyricist, and politician. She was a minister without portfolio in the Darnan Cyras government, with responsibility for national policy.
She gained fame for her activities in the Liberation War. She claimed to have been a sharpshooter and swordfighter, and to have engaged in information gathering, espionage, sabotage, and arms trafficking. She exaggerated her exploits and successfully built herself a "wicked" reputation. By the end of the war, she was seen as an influential power broker. She was brought into the Darnan Cyras government out of expediency, to make sure she would remain on its side, and appointed minister without portfolio with responsibility for national policy.
Nicknamed "Sweetie" due to her "ostentatious charm", she was a famous political fixer for the Darnan Cyras government. She sought to disarm and co-opt any potential threat to the Golden Revolution. She had contacts with organised crime groups like the Mava Organisation, and justified it with a desire to prevent linkages between organised crime and right-wing extremism. She supported the pact of the dinner party and formed long-standing relationships with influential participants, including the Shelley family, the Grand Lodge of Gylias, and the moderate faction of the General Council of Workers' Unions and Associations.
Flamboyant and glamorous, Sweetie was a colourful presence in Gylian politics and public life. She was a talented orator, and engaged in publicity stunts during her time in office, including staging tours where she demonstrated her sharpshooting and swordfighting skills. She enjoyed public popularity for her "wicked" image, but had few allies in politics, where she was often mistrusted and seen as an unprincipled fame-seeker. After the Darnan Cyras government left office, she remained a Senator until stepping down in 1990. In retirement, she concentrated on writing and business activities, until her death in 2006.
Early life
Ereşe Letise was born on 22 April 1917 in Sarra. Her parents worked at the Salen Canal.
She attended primary and secondary school in her hometown. After finishing school, she enrolled in the Border Guard instead of being conscripted, and studied at its military academy.
Liberation War
Ereşe was serving in the Border Guard when Alscia voted to join the Free Territories. She avoided joining the People's Army and slipped out of Alscian territory.
She resurfaced in various theatres of the Liberation War, mainly concentrating on the territory contested by various Gylian factions, between the Free Territories and Nerveiík Kingdom. Historian Nina Raukan described her as "a warlord without territory". She was linked to various factions, but her allegiances were always temporary.
She sought to carefully build a "wicked" reputation. She always traveled with a sword and a pistol, and developed swordfighting and sharpshooting skills. She claimed to engage in information gathering, espionage, sabotage, and arms trafficking. She exaggerated her exploits and was fond of telling tall tales. However, biographers and historians have found some corroborating evidence for her claims, especially for her undertaking arms trafficking and information gathering.
During the second phase of the war, she sided openly with the Free Territories against the Tymzar–Nalo regime. She was a major arms trafficker, forming links with organised crime in Syara, Cacerta, the Shirvani Dominion, Acrea, and Delkora, and managing to smuggle weapons left over from the Siduri War and Great Eracuran War. She became the main private supplier of weapons to the Free Territories. In addition, her information gathering operations and personal connections made her a powerful power broker.
She gained the nickname "Sweetie" during the war, in reference to her "ostentatious charm". She enjoyed the nickname and embraced it, using it for the rest of her life. In public life and in her writing career, she was introduced as "Sweetie Letise" instead of her legal name.
Minister without portfolio
Although Sweetie had kept her distance from most of the factions in the Liberation War, she was recognised as a major benefactor for the Free Territories. Darnan Cyras reluctantly invited her to join the Executive Committee, but without a specific portfolio. Darnan feared that Sweetie would use her power against the government, and sought to make sure they were on the same side. He told one of his biographers: "I felt safer with her inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in."
Sweetie took office with the rest of the Executive Committee on 2 January 1958. Her post was retroactively renamed minister without portfolio when the Constitution was adopted in 1961, and it was assigned the specific responsibility for "national policy".
Elections
Sweetie ran for the Popular Assembly as an independent in 1958, and was elected. After adoption of the Constitution, she was elected to the Senate in 1962, 1969, 1976, 1980, and 1985, representing Arsad.
Cabinet
Sweetie and public sector minister Julie Legrand, a close ally, controlled the agenda of cabinet meetings, and were thus described by many commentators as the real centre of government.
Political fixer
Sweetie served as the political fixer for the Darnan Cyras government, and was described by the media as the "quintessential fixer". She reveled in the image, boasting: "I get my hands dirty to keep theirs clean!". During one cabinet meeting, she uttered the following quote, summarising her cynical view of politics:
"You can be as pure as you want, but if you play by your rules and your enemies don't, you'll just get butchered like the Ruvelkan anarchists or the Delkoran republicans … Face it, you need a bastard on your side. Someone who's got the stomach to do things you don't. Well, I think you oughta thank Hacak everyday that I'm your bastard instead of someone worse."
She sought to disarm and co-opt any potential threat to the Golden Revolution. She worked closely with various vanguard groups, including Marguerite Tailler's Revolutionary Communications Office, the Committees for the Advance of the Revolution, and the Revolutionary Youth Union. She supported the "constructive" current of Gylian conservatism in its successful struggle for supremacy over the centre-right, and used her influence to interfere in populist movements. She boastfully expressed her ambition: "Some day, we will have succeeded in taming the Centre Group and National Bloc, and assimilating them into our coalition. Then, we will have succeeded in creating a red, yellow, orange, and blue natural governing coalition!".
At the local level, she sought to build close relationships with the Non-inscrits, regionalist parties, and localist parties that predominated, ensuring that they were accommodating and did not challenge the government's predominance.
She had contacts with organised crime groups like the Mava Organisation and drug smuggler Kaþi Mofat. This provoked controversy, but her justification was to prevent linkages between organised crime and right-wing extremism, as had happened elsewhere in Tyran. She felt that Maria Vaseva and Valeria Maneva should be supported out of expediency, as they imposed a strict code of non-violent conduct on the Mava Organisation and were cooperating with the Gylian Police to suppress more violent rivals.
She supported the pact of the dinner party and formed long-standing relationships with influential participants, including the Shelley family, the Grand Lodge of Gylias, Julie Legrand's faction within the Democratic Communist Party, and the moderate faction of the General Council of Workers' Unions and Associations, led by Ilaria Marchese. She supported Beatrice Shelley's strategy of using Freemasonry to "sophisticate the revolution" by promoting moderation and self-restraint through the Committees for the Advance of the Revolution.
She opposed the "anarchaos" protests of 1968 and took personal credit for "squashing" them in her memoirs. In a high-profile moment, she strutted in front of protesters on the street and flamboyantly demanded to know their grievances, which flustered them. She also filmed a PPB attacking the "anarchaotics", which The People's Voice described as "sharp, nasty – and effective". She was pleased with the description, considering it a compliment, and later used it for the title of a volume of memoirs.
Public image
Sweetie was easily recognisable by her dark red hair, green eyes, and distinctive maroon outfits. She wore two main outfits in public: a maroon business suit with long pants and a black shirt, and an Alscian-inspired maroon dress with white shirt, a bow, and a feathered hat.
Flamboyant and glamorous, Sweetie enjoyed a high profile in public life, and was a colourful presence in politics. Interior minister Akane Tsunemori described her in her diary as follows:
"She swaggers into any room, puffs out her chest, wears this permanent self-satisfied smile, talks big and boastful — in short, an incurable attention hound. I swear it's like she tries to provoke envy. I think she wants whoever she's talking with to first secretly want to burst her bubble, then realise they actually like her for some impenetrable reason and want to curry favour. She's remarkably good at getting people to suck up to her and sweet-talking her way out of trouble."
Sweetie always carried a sword in a scabbard in public, using it like a walking stick, which provoked amusement. She was strongly critical of Gylias' restrictive gun laws, citing Karl Marx's quote "Any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." She supported the formation of a "socialist popular militia", which would complement the Gylian Self-Defense Forces. Her proposal included fostering a leftist gun culture, making it easier to purchase firearms, while maintaining strict background checks, inspections, gun safety classes, and bans on possession of fully automatic weapons and concealed carry.
Despite her "loudmouth" reputation, the first Speaker of the Senate, Seisa Neve, described Sweetie in Nation Building as "a very well-behaved Senator who followed the rules flawlessly and never caused any trouble. She always addressed everyone very respectfully, would preface it with 'the Right Honourable Senator', or 'the Right Honourable Speaker' for me."
During her term in office, she engaged in entertainment activities in her free time. She continued her writing career, and staged tours where she demonstrated her sharpshooting and swordfighting skills.
Besides her standard nickname, Sweetie was bestowed various colourful sobriquets by the Gylian media. These included: "Minister of Fun" and "Minister of Anything" (lampooning her ambiguous responsibility for "national policy"); "Crime Minister" (lampooning her contacts with organised crime); "the Right Honourable" (lampooning her ostentatious politeness in the Senate and her "wicked" reputation); "Senator Bushido" (lampooning her habit of carrying a sword in public); "Senator Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" (lampooning her advocacy of a leftist gun culture); and "Senator Circus Act" (lampooning her tours and exhibitions).
Many writers and comedians made a pun on her surname, rendering her name as "Sweetie LeTease".
Her talent for ingratiating herself with the media and disarming friends and critics with humour inspired Lerse Peliḑ's humorous Silhouette piece "25 signs you're sucking up to Sweetie Letise".
She was a good friend of columnist Esua Nadel, who was enamoured with Sweetie's "wicked" reputation and "maverick" image.
Throughout her life, Sweetie carried out a light-hearted rivalry with Emilia Malandrino. She delighted in lambasting Emilia's writing and boasting that she was the superior writer, pointing to her better critical and commercial reception. When Emilia died, Sweetie quipped that this was final proof of her superiority as a writer.
Later life
Sweetie remained in the Senate after the Darnan Cyras government's term ended, but without a cabinet post, her influence diminished.
She continued to write and undertake tours and exhibitions. She occasionally acted in movies, and worked as a trained weapons specialist for film productions.
She retired from the Senate in 1990. She told the press: "The great thing about retirement is I'll have more time to practice shooting."
She was interviewed for Rasa Ḑeşéy's 1999 documentary Nation Building, and her appearance was a highlight of the series. She was interviewed at home, surrounded by her collection of firearms, and Rasa said "her lust for life, legendary ego, and side-splitting wit were all mercifully undimmed".
One of her last media appearances was in a 2002 documentary for GTV3, filmed after her 85th birthday. She is shown relaxing at home, writing, visiting a shooting range, demonstrating sword techniques, and enjoying the company of her family and pets.
Writing
Sweetie began writing during the Liberation War, and her career as an author developed in parallel with her wartime activities and political career.
She wrote prose, both fiction and non-fiction, and poetry. Her poetry style was firmly traditionalist, as she admitted herself: "It has to scan, it has to rhyme, it has to be about something."
Sweetie's fiction work was characterised by a "swaggering, cocky, lively" writing style. She usually wrote adventure stories of confident and charming protagonists facing great odds but winning the day through their superior talents and skills. Most of her fiction was published through Imperial SA, and some of her stories were adapted for film and television.
Sweetie wrote several volumes of memoirs, which sold well but had a mixed critical reception. Reviewers questioned the accuracy of her tales of wartime derring-do while praising her clear and entertaining writing style. The later volumes dealing with her political career were better-received, and earned her comparisons to Valentina Potenza. She wrote many instruction manuals and guides for gun safety and sword maintenance, which are considered foundational in Gylias.
She began writing song lyrics in the 1960s. Her standard technique was to simply write them by herself, like poetry, and to send them to other songwriters to set them to music. She proved very successful in the field, and was considered one of Gylias' best professional lyricists, mentioned in the same breath as Evelin Tanli and Ludmila Canaşvili.
Death
Sweetie died in her sleep of a stroke on 7 January 2006, aged 88, while visiting friends in Velouria.
Personal life
Sweetie married Teri Sua in 1945. They had a happy marriage, which lasted until her death. Teri was her lifelong assistant, helping research and prepare her speeches, organise her exhibitions, and handling her publishing contracts.
Sweetie and Teri had no children. She said in interviews that she felt she wasn't cut out for parenthood, and focused on her career instead. The couple adopted many pets, and in her last years, friends joked that their house resembled an animal shelter.
She was teetotal and vegetarian. She sought to make the latter part of her swaggering personality. During a visit to a secondary school, she quipped, "Boys, take it from me. The manliest thing you can do is look after yourself and others. There's nothing more manly than taking care of yourself, doing good to others, and taking care of animals."