The whole idea of needing to meet even the stupidest idea with polite consideration is, frankly, a stupid idea.
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Indeed, if you wish to maintain a national perspective that slavery is inherently wrong, then allowing conversion to Amarr should be anathema to your misguided view of the universe.
But, from an Amarr perspective, if abolitionism on the Empire’s part was required for the Republic to consider peace treaties binding, then the Republic should have never agreed to sign those treaties. Signing treaties that you fully intend to break as soon as the balance of power shifts is highly dishonorable behavior. From our perspective, the reality that you view our worldview as being fundamentally anathema to yours should have had no bearing whatsoever on whether you stick to an agreement that you signed. The time to have taken into account such fundamental incompatibilities was before any treaties were signed. As such, acceptance of fundamental ideological incompatibilities should have been an assumed part of the CONCORD treaty from the beginning.
That said, expecting the Republic or the Federation to think like Amarr on this issue is and was a mistake. I now believe that as long as Amarr holds ideologies that either state considers anathema, no treaty with either state will ever be considered binding by that state. They will see the incompatible ideology and because of it assume that Amarr is eternally preparing to backstab them at the first opportunity. This becomes especially true when those agreements were signed by rival political parties in the first place. I now believe that one simply cannot expect democratic systems to abide by the agreements of past regimes.
The ironic thing is that the post-coup Tribal Regime seems significantly more trustworthy to me on these sorts of issues than the prior Gallente-inspired Republic. If the tribal chiefs and the Sanmatar signed an agreement with Amarr that replaced the prior agreements, I believe that said agreement would actually hold. However, I also believe that said Tribal Chiefs and Sanmatar fully understand that signing such a new agreement would mean actually accepting the right to continued existence of the parts of Amarr that they find reprehensible, which probably makes any renewed push for peace impossible.
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There should never be any ‘assumed part’ of any treaty. A treaty is a legal document designed expressly to formalize and structure an agreement, after all. Assumptions build in levels of opacity and unclear communication, especially where later actors are involved, and the original negotiators are dead. As such, assumptions are inherently contradictory to the entire purpose of having a treaty in the first place.
I also find myself wondering how that reflects on CONCORD being a Federal idea in the first place. It seems to me that, with the Empire following an ideology considered anathema to the Federation, and the Federation itself adhering to an expansionist conversion ideology that I can only imagine the Empire considers inherently objectionable and corrosive, both sides would have entered into the agreement with full intention of continuing their cultural expansionism, and expecting such behavior from their counterpart.
Further complicating this is the very nature of both expansionist powers. The Amarr did not establish any end date or sunset provisions on the CONCORD treaties, so far as I’m aware, nor did anyone else. However, the Amarr Empire does still hold to a divine mandate to bring all other nations into the Empire. The Federation cannot become part of the Empire and still remain the Federation. Thus, the Empire signed a peace treaty with a foreign nation it expressly intends to destroy.
You are the second Amarr to disregard history in the face of making an incorrect point.
If Amarr was opposed to the idea that enslaving civilian populations would be a violation of peace treaties, then Amarr should never have agreed to the treaties that were proposed by the Federation and Republic.
And of course, you lot did raise a huge stink over getting into treaties with … what was your word of choice back then? Barbarians? Heathens? Tribals?
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I don’t know. The Federation’s been pretty reliable thus far.
Also, I think it’s important to note that we think the other nations hold ideologies that are anathema to us. That we do not agree with everything another nation does does not mean we cannot make treaties with them. You only make peace with your enemies, that’s why it’s called making peace.
Eh? I would expect all of the CONCORD treaties have set periods and are renewed as a matter of course. That is pretty standard for these kinds of policies. Alternatively, I’m sure there are provisions in the treaties for legal withdrawal from them. No nation is going to agree to a policy that they have zero means of withdrawing from.
Amarr wasn’t opposed to that. We agreed to and signed treaties forbidding exactly that, and we’ve gone after illegal slaving operations. Now, certainly, we’ve not been as committed to this as we should have been, and violations of those treaties have grown tremendously since Heideran’s passing. But for the time being, the age of foreign conquest was supposed to be over.
The Federation and Republic accepted the provision allowing the Empire to enslave prisoners of war, however, and there are apparently enough loopholes in the EMWPA to legally permit it to the extent of civilian populations in the warzone. None of us might like it but this is all apparently legal by the treaties as they stand. But I am hoping those loopholes can be sealed up with the talks going on in CONCORD right now.
To this discussion as a whole… here’s the thing. As I said above, the age of conquest for Amarr was supposed to be over for the time being. I don’t think anyone, Amarr or Minmatar, Gallente or Caldari, went into these treaties thinking it’d lead to permanent peace. Treaties are not signed with that in mind. They are established for the concerns of the present, which at the time was a desire for peace. Just because nations desire peace, does not mean they will just throw away their other priorities and goals, and nor should we expect them to. All it means is that they are putting peace above them for the current period. If they can be achieved during and through peace, then wonderful, that is what everyone would prefer, but otherwise, preparations will be made for the inevitable day when the treaties are no longer in place.
Signing a treaty does not mean you are throwing away your nation’s priorities in the name of peace, and I think it’s silly to assume either the Amarr or the Minmatar sides (or the Gallente or Caldari) were going to do this. It just means that other priorities – peace – are placed higher for the moment. Thus we should always be expecting that the other side is still wanting to achieve its national goals, while doing what we can within the terms of the treaty to fulfill our own. But it is always our duty is to uphold the commitments we have entered, and ensure that others uphold them as well, for as long as those treaties are in place.
I never said we didn’t. Rather, those ideologies were taken into account before any treaty was signed.
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