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| Muhallabiyya; Nation description | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 3 2005, 05:24 AM (258 Views) | |
| Muhallabiyya | Mar 3 2005, 05:24 AM Post #1 |
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Unregistered
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Name: the Oppressed peoples of Muhallabiyya Location: the Middle East Capital: Jabal al-Nar Regime: consociational socialistic democracy Surface: 15 050 km2. Geography: The Muhallabiyyan territory is bordered North and South by two jabals, or mountainous chains, Jabal Jarizim and Jabal Eibal, while the Eastern border is the magnificent and meandering Wadi al-Nar. The coast of the White Sea, to the West, is in fact the longest of these natural borders. Most of the cities are to be found there, including the capital in the centre of the coastal line. The interior part of the country is divided betweeen the Eastern chain, where landscapes of Alpine mountains, forests and breathtaking canyons attract many ski-fanatics and nature-lovers, a hilly area where most of the wine-making is done, and a 30-km deep coastal plain. History: The Oppressed peoples of Muhallabiyya is young as a nation, yet it claims glorious ancestry, and several references in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Song of songs. It was part of a succession of Califates in the days of classical islam, even though sunni or imami-chiite islam was practically unheard of among its population until very recently. It repelled both the Crusaders and the Mongols, yet welcomed the jesuits and bahai missionaries, who thronged there in the 19th century, changing the whole religious make-up of its largely religion-wary population. Those missionaries introduced such staples as grapes (of which is made the delicious and renouned "Vin de Messe" cru) and marijuana. It is now customary in Muhallabiyya, among most denominations, to perfume the prayer-rooms with a mixture of incense and pot. By the 1860-1880s, immigrants from Lusophonia and Rio de Janeiro came en masse to Muhallabiyya, bringing with them several customs and a specific food culture. Muhallabiyya largely owes to them its extreme sexual liberation and its fine cachaça. The State itself was founded as a result of the collapse of a project for a greater united Bilad al-Sham, which had been de facto in tatters ever since the collapse of the Ottoman Terror State in 1915. By that date, it welcomed numerous Armenian refugees, whose educational skills were mobilized to create the first Muhallabiyyan universities. Politics and society: The oppressed peoples of Muhallabiyya are a nation devoted to peace, democracy, social equality and cultural exchanges. In terms of international relations, it means to be in good terms with its neighbours and is keen to defend such issues as gender equality, tolerance of all creeds, races and sexual orientations. Its constitutional make-up is that of a consociational democracy. As a result of a division of politics along religious lines going back to the days of the Ottoman Terror State, communities have official recognition as long as their leaders deter their members from forming armed militias. The official breakdown used to allocate offices relies on the following demographic distribution: - Syrian Catholic christians: 21 % - Armenian orthodox christians: 5 % - Nestorian christians: 4% - Samaritan jews: 16 % - Caraite jews: 12 % - Sephardim jews: 4 % - Bahais: 26% - Ismaili chiites: 3 % - Candomblé faithful: 9% The president of the Union of the oppressed peoples of Muhallabya has been, by a 90-year old tradition, a bahai , while the High priest of the Samaritans is, ex officio, president of the Supreme Court. This breakdown, however, has become ficitonal with the population growth and active missionary policies of the Samaritans and the Syrians, who may both have doubled their share of the population by now. Furthermore, a recent influx of refugees from all over the Middle East, the Levant, Palestine and the American Confederation has brought an important yet vulnerable population, equally divided between evangelical christians and sunni muslim. The general mood is not welcoming these refugees, viewed as poor, backwards and "not nice". Many of them are lured by the sirens of the overly efficient syrians or samaritan missiologies; both communities have made deep in-roads into refugee population, in spite of some inital reluctance to actual conversions. It is now most common to see bearded sunni sheykhs reciting prayers in Aramaic. 5% of young evangelicals even express the desire to study the Samaritan torah, become a Samaritan priest, and wear the silk peignoir and the respected tarbouch circled with coloured cloth. According to most refugees, neither syrian nor samaritan belief actually clash with theirs. Yet this new population is seen as a threat by other communities as a threat, prominently by Bahais and Caraites, who especially fear that the development of the Syrian faith and the successful missions might entail exclusion from the rest of the - prominently sunni - Middle East. This stance mingles with a strong Muhallabiyyan nationalism, expressed in the words of the late Bahai leader of the Steel Legion, Emir Baha'ullah Abbas: "We are Muhallabiyyans, and so will remain!" Abbas's murder ten years ago caused deep consternation among the body politic, yet it is generally assumed that his disappearance from the public stage rather strengthened national cohesion and warded off fears of civil war. In fact, the government has spent a lot of money in the last five years, promoting the image of "A home to the stateless in a nation of returnees", meaning that the numerous immigrants and refugees had made of Muhallabiyya a home to every homeless, apatrid, etc. Political tensions remain high on the subject of immigration, though. It is often urged upon the government to defend the present constitutional consensus through denominational legislation; however, ministers have stated over and over again that they would refrain from any incursion into the religious realm. The government is in fact as staunch in its keeping away from religion, as it is in promoting a culture of openness, by setting up festivals of all kind in the coastal cities as well as the stunning palaces in Moorish-Venetian style that stud the mountain area. It also funds academic institutions such as the huge Department of cultural and psychotropic studies of the National University of Jabal Al-Nar, with definite scientific breakthroughs in the conception of high-stimulation conscience and Congenial Pot Experience (usually referred to as CPE). Low-stimulation conscience models have been brilliantly used to deconstruct now defunct theories such as micro-economics and power relation theories. This hardly translates into higher productivity, as the priorities of the government as well as those of academic institutions invests 95 % of the higher education budget in fundamental research. Society is not so much split about drug-and-beach-combing culture as it is about immigration. It is customary for flocks of families and especially youngsters to sunbathe in the gorgeous beaches south of Jabal Al-Nar during the weekend, doing sea-diving or drinking space-caipirina and vin de messe whle playing schech-bech (backgammon) and belotte quinchée, the national games of Muhallabiyya. As the collective transportation system (trains, tube and busses) is extensive and comfortable and jesuit missionaries devoutly teach every child a sense of responsibility about drug use, these parties very seldom end up causing accidents. It is usually said that Muhallabiyyans produce BMW to let other Middle-Easterners crash in them. Economy: The huge factories of the three main automobile concerns present in Muhallabiyya (BMW, Zil and Oldsmobile) are to be found in the north-eastern coastal plain, 15 km south of the northern chain. Zil, as ever a profit-minded firm, is thinking of relocating in a more pro-business, low-taxes country. The government used to complain about the consequences on the workforce of this "irresponsible" decision, but since the Green party entered government last fall, both the government and the population seem to get used to the idea. The government is now trying to promote "green" sectors, such as wine, pot, and their derived products (the Muhallabiyyan "Blessed Wine of the Holy Land" is now the number one drink in the many gay-friendly bars of the Vatican). Languages: Arabic, Armenian and Aramaic are the official languages, though what is actually spoken is a lingu franca composed mostly of Arabic. Evangelical refugees have been lobbying to get recognition for a language that they could understand and "at least pronounce", but the government answer was that its policy is one of integration through education, and it launched a vast campaign called "the three A's" (Arabic, Armenian, Aramaic) to close the nascent cultural gap. 10 years after its inception, the program is a magnificent success: evangelicals academics are now translating Bunyan and Milton into Armenian, after their translation of Cotton Mather into Arabic became the biggest best-seller of last year. (However, a poll tends to relativise this success: 85 % of buyers claimed that they "certainly had a good laugh at it", and wondered why such a comic genius as Cotton Mather had not been turned into Hollywood screwball comedies). Culture: Muhallabiyya is well-known for its many festivals during the summer (which, thanks to its pleasant climate, lasts from early April to mid-November): the old and "posh" Festival of Popular theater in Jabal Al-Nar, the street-music festival of Beit al-Adyan, the sacred-music festival of Khalil al-Rahman, the celebrated International Cinema Festival of Al-Nasrah al-Jdideh are the main venues. This makes for expensive culture, however it also means that the teaming bands and theater groups of Muhallabiyya easily find places to play and state funding for their performances. Nightlife is active, however the numerous nightclubs tend to be somewhat prudish due to social pressure; the actual meeting and dating place is the many beaches which often transform into dance-floors at 10 or 11 pm and until no earlier than 5 am. Muhallabiyyan literature is somewhat lagging behind, perhaps due to the absence of a single national idiom: most people are perfectly fluent in at least three languages, and usually five of them, yet they often do not master a single one of them well enough to write books. The beloved art form of Muhallabiyyans is marquetterie, as is shown by the nice shech-bech games and religious objects that any educated Muhallabiyyan produces during their free time. It is fashionable to produce syncretic objects, such as Quran reading-steads ornamented with verses in Armenian from the Bible. This usually shocks or irritates most pious visitors of the country, yet reflects the deeply ironical religious culture shared by Muhallabiyyans of all creeds. |
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| Catholic Europe | Mar 3 2005, 05:53 AM Post #2 |
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Spammer
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Welcome to the Middle East! Just wondering, do the Syrian Catholics recognise the authority of the Pope? Are they in communion with the Roman Catholic Church? |
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| Rhadamanthus | Mar 3 2005, 01:40 PM Post #3 |
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Legitimist
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Welcome to the region! CE: Aren't Syrian Catholics the Eastern Catholic version of Syrian Orthodox? |
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| Muhallabiyya | Mar 3 2005, 02:52 PM Post #4 |
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Unregistered
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Syrian catholics (aka Syriac catholics) were in communion with the Syrian orthodox (aka Jacobites, after Jacobus Baradeus, i.e. Jack-of-Rags) until the 16th century. Officially, capuchin monks came to them and progressively, the mission became a fully-fledged community. As happened with other uniate churches such as the copt-catholics, bottom-up institutions came into being - with priests and parishes, then in 1662 a patriarchate linked to Antioch but actually placed in Lebanon, and finally actually recognition of the Syrian catholic church by Rome in 1783. They have a small patriarchate in Jerusalem, with its vade-mecum (convent, hotel, church, and I believe their own team of boy-scouts). In Maaloula (a stunning village in South-West Syria, consisting of a gorge that runs into the Anti-Lebanon range) and a few places round about, Syrian catholics and Jacobites live side by side, and still understand Aramaic, though it tends to disappear as a spoken language among them. In other words, they are an Eastern catholic church recognised by Rome, and their actual relationships with Jacobite have improved over the centuries (historians have shown that departure from the Jacobite church towards Rome usually came after clashes between clans, though that hardly satisfies the need of an explanation for the emergence of a specific Syrian catholic spirituality). ... And Muhallabiyya claims the biggest Syrian catholic community of all. |
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| Catholic Europe | Mar 3 2005, 03:32 PM Post #5 |
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Spammer
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Erm....I have no idea. :ph43r: |
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| Catholic Europe | Mar 3 2005, 03:34 PM Post #6 |
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Spammer
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Erm, don't mean to be rude but that doesn't really answer my question......or did I get lost? |
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| Rhadamanthus | Mar 3 2005, 04:09 PM Post #7 |
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Legitimist
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CE: this is Muhallabiyya's answer to your question: "In other words, they are an Eastern catholic church recognised by Rome," They are one of the churches in the Catholic Communion who recognize the Pope of Rome as Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church. Their relation to Syrian Orthodox (non-Chalcedonians/Jacobites) is exactly the relation of Coptic Catholics to Coptic Orthodox or the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to Ukranian Orthodox. Muhallabiyya: My nation includes various parts of Syria, and its capital is the ancient patriarchal see of Antioch. I thought I should mention that in my nation Syrian (Jacobite) Orthodox and Rum (Melkite/Roman/Greek) Orthodox have reformed one Church. Similarly the Melkite Catholic Church and Syrian Catholic Church are integrated into one Catholic Church in communion with Rome in my nation. So, if I refer to Melkite Catholics or Syrian Catholics than I am actually including both. |
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| Catholic Europe | Mar 3 2005, 04:14 PM Post #8 |
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Spammer
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Lol, kk! Alright, that's good to know. Another nation who has a large Catholic population and will be influenced by me!! *evil sinister laugh* :lol: ;) :lol: |
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1:51 PM Jul 11