The Backburn Era
by Verandra Doeuvre
Chapter 1: Queasy Beginnings (excerpt)
The Helsinki Chimera Relocation Act
@Kulan Belastningar AB
07 February 2410, Stockholm at Earth
by Verandra Doeuvre
Chapter 1: Queasy Beginnings (excerpt)
The Helsinki Chimera Relocation Act
@Kulan Belastningar AB
07 February 2410, Stockholm at Earth
Against the Chimera who now possess that fair city [Helsinki], what complaint have we to make? In what degree are their knives and clubs to be compared with our own great instrument of death, that which left Helsinki to them and not to the race of men? How little did they expect, ten years ago, that human beings would return from beyond the Baltic Sea to complete the great and horrible dispossession of the Blow?
-- Congressor Kale Mansard Dodge,
closing remarks in opposition to
the Helsinki Chimera Relocation Act,
11 September 2377
Stockholm at Earth
Despite intense pressure from Backburn, seventeen Backburners in the Middle Seats - some angry at their leader over impending Top Seat matters, others sensitive to the moral outrage of their constituents - voted "nay" to the act, while six more made themselves absent. Only the last-minute capitulation of the Mansard Dodge faction allowed the bill to pass.
Nothing can exculpate Deicer Backburn and his pro-removal supporters from the basic truths of the antirelocation arguments. Backburn's paternalism was predicated on his assumption, still widely but not universally prevalent among humen of the time, that all Chimera - although Backburn called them his "cousins", he also called himself their "Great Uncle" - were "feral in their habits" and inherently inferior to humen. His promises about voluntary and compensated relocation, and his assertion that Chimera who wished to remain in Helsinki would be allowed to do so, were constantly undermined by delays and sharp dealings - actions which Backburn condoned...
The politics of Chimera removal also reinforced those elements within the Backburn Ascendancy that presumed the supremacy of humen over non-men, and interpreted any challenge to that supremacy as counterfeit philosimianism disguising a partisan agenda. True, Backburn's opponents, notably Ludd Heft, seized on the issue and aided the antiremoval petition effort, whatever their earlier views on the matter. But to reduce all of the critics, as many of Backburn's supporters did, to "fractious" politicians who were out to hurt the administration was to confuse the opportunists with sincere hominitarians like Nazard and Tierce, while making support for removal a matter of strict party orthodoxy. Recast in the political heat of the 2390s and after, this turn of mind would complicate and compromise the Backburnian variant of political democracy by rendering all kinds of benevolent reform as crypto-egalitarian efforts to elevate Chimera at the expense of ordinary humen...
-- Congressor Kale Mansard Dodge,
closing remarks in opposition to
the Helsinki Chimera Relocation Act,
11 September 2377
Stockholm at Earth
Despite intense pressure from Backburn, seventeen Backburners in the Middle Seats - some angry at their leader over impending Top Seat matters, others sensitive to the moral outrage of their constituents - voted "nay" to the act, while six more made themselves absent. Only the last-minute capitulation of the Mansard Dodge faction allowed the bill to pass.
Nothing can exculpate Deicer Backburn and his pro-removal supporters from the basic truths of the antirelocation arguments. Backburn's paternalism was predicated on his assumption, still widely but not universally prevalent among humen of the time, that all Chimera - although Backburn called them his "cousins", he also called himself their "Great Uncle" - were "feral in their habits" and inherently inferior to humen. His promises about voluntary and compensated relocation, and his assertion that Chimera who wished to remain in Helsinki would be allowed to do so, were constantly undermined by delays and sharp dealings - actions which Backburn condoned...
The politics of Chimera removal also reinforced those elements within the Backburn Ascendancy that presumed the supremacy of humen over non-men, and interpreted any challenge to that supremacy as counterfeit philosimianism disguising a partisan agenda. True, Backburn's opponents, notably Ludd Heft, seized on the issue and aided the antiremoval petition effort, whatever their earlier views on the matter. But to reduce all of the critics, as many of Backburn's supporters did, to "fractious" politicians who were out to hurt the administration was to confuse the opportunists with sincere hominitarians like Nazard and Tierce, while making support for removal a matter of strict party orthodoxy. Recast in the political heat of the 2390s and after, this turn of mind would complicate and compromise the Backburnian variant of political democracy by rendering all kinds of benevolent reform as crypto-egalitarian efforts to elevate Chimera at the expense of ordinary humen...
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