Arzanshahr
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People's Democratic Republic of Arzanshahr زەوی لە ژێر ئاو | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
Motto: Unity Within Division | |
| Capital and largest city | Sayendag |
| Official languages | OFFICIAL: Arzan Avestan RECOGNIZED: 14 regional dialects. |
| Religion | No Official Religion
Recognized: Sunni Islam Zoroastrianism Mandeanism Aliism |
| Demonym(s) | Arzani |
| Government | Plurinational Socialist Republic |
| Currently Vacant | |
| Tahmine Pirouzfar | |
| Legislature | Grand Committee of Nationalities |
| Population | |
• Estimate | 35,000,000 |
| GDP (nominal) | estimate |
• Per capita | $22,400 |
| Currency | Taler (₮) |
Arzanshahr, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Arzanshahr is a multinational confederation located in Audonia. It is located on the X isthmus, bordering Y and Z.
There are several scholarly debates about the founding of the Arzani state, and which particular historical entitty is the direct predecessor, but the present Arzani state cites its founding and begins its revolutionary calendar in 2027, with the overthrow of the First Arzani Republic in a military coup by revolutionary officers under the command of Captain Nasir Karimi.
While officially, all political parties and organizations in Arzanshahr have been abolished in favor of a system that is claimed to be "directly democratic", the majority of Arzani institutions are presently held by individuals once belonging to Karimi's Arzani Renaissance Front.
Extremely ethnically diverse and prone to centuries of civil strife prior to the revolution, the current government instituted extreme territorial devolution, modeled after the proposal of Levantine socialist [NAME HERE] in the leadup to the great war.
Etymology and Nomenclature
History
ANTIQUITY/EARLY HISTORY
MUSLIM CONQUEST AND ISLAMICIZATION
~500 AD Muslim domination of Arzanshahr, beginning of the country’s partial conversion to Islam
Emirate of Jazirat 850-1250
30 Years’ Anarchy 1250-1280
FOUNDATIONS OF ARZANI STATEHOOD
1265- Local Zoroastrian resurgence, rise of Hormozd The Conqueror, first Zoroastrian Spāhbed (Commander) of The Arzani
1275: Hormozd The Conqueror is captured and beheaded by the Oduniyyad Caliph; Caliph recognizes the title as Spāhbed as an appointed ethnarch of the Zoroastrian community subject to the Caliphate.
1280: rise of Local Persianate (Muslim) rule as Emirs under the Caliphs.
1350: Civil War during Caliphal succession crisis leads to Zoroastrian uprising, crushed by the return of Central Caliphal Authority. Caliph appoints the Arab Abbas Al-Khashraq. His descendants continue to rule and are later Persianized, adapting their dynastic name to Qashraq.
ZOROASTRIAN ERA
1525: Emir Ali Khan Qashraq declares himself Soltan, first ruler of an independent Arzanshahr
1500s-1600s: Second Zoroastrian resurgence with rediscovery of ancient texts during the Arzani renaissance under the Qashraq dynasty. Beginning of major Zoroastrian conversions among the nobility, and then later because of their influence, the peasantry of most of the country. Sectarian violence often breaks out, leading to the later instability of the Burgundie-dominated Wilayah period.
BURGUNDIAN COLONIALISM 1670-1825
1670: Qashraqid Dynasty become client state of Burgundie following a failed attempt to seize Burgundian trading vessels traveling to Audonia
1675: last Qashraq Soltan dies after epileptic stroke; Burgundian consul-general arranges for his quartermaster Yusuf Al-Rostami to become the Wāli of Arzanshahr
1700: Beginning of foreign Wilayah: several different individuals and families of disparate origin hold the title of Wāli, continued weakening of central control over the countryside.
BABAK I AND THE RISE OF THE BABAKID DYNASTY
1825-1830: Ethnically Sarpedonian mercenary captain Abd al-Aziz Karimi (born Agapius Caudinus) storms the citadel of Šāyendag, declares himself the independent Malik of Jaziristan. Burgundian interference attempts to topple Abd al-Aziz’s rule over the surrounding countryside, but fails. A large Burgundian force in 1826 attempts to storm the Citadel, which the Malik has reinforced with his own Western mercenaries. During this battle, The Malik has a religious vision following being struck with shrapnel from Burgundian cannon, prompting his battlefield conversion to Zoroastrianism. Redubbing himself the Persian Šah of Arzanshahr and renaming himself Bābak. Using the Zoroastrian nobility as his base, he is able to use Local troops to come from the rear and expel the Burgundians from Arzanshahr temporarily.
1847-1945 KIRAVIAN PROTECTORATE OVER ARZANSHAHR
1847: Bābak’s grandson Ardashir I is forced to give mining concessions to the Kiravians and accept the title of Sirdar of the Arzani under Kiravian protection following a second attempt by the Burgundians to reclaim their protectorate over Arzanshahr.
1945-1976 EARLY INDEPENDENCE
1945: During the midst of the Great War, the general-secretary of the underground pro-independence Arzani Imperial Renovation Party, Dariush Yazdi, launches a coup d’etat against the Bābakid-Kiravian government, and deposes the Sirdar. Unsure whether the Muslim and Zoroastrian clergy could agree on a candidate for the throne, or would at all support the proclamation of a Republic, Yazdi forms a regency council. Leaving the position of Padishah nominally vacant, Yazdi wields monarchical power as the head of the regency council.
1949: Collapse of Kiravian oversight over religious harmony in Arzanshahr leads to the first outbreak of sectarian violence in Arzanshahr. Previously ambivalent towards religious authority in Arzanshahr, the nominally Muslim Yazdi puts high-profile clerics of both Zoroastrianism and Islam on public trial, blaming them for the outbreak of civil war in his country.
1950-1975 - YAZDI DYNASTY
With power now solely consolidated in the hands of the central government, Yazdi now has to deal again with the constitutional question. The throne has remained vacant for four years, and the question of Republicanism can now be pursued in proper. However, Yazdi, still acting as regent, dissolves both the constituent assembly and the regency council. Assembling a new Crown Council of Zoroastrian and Muslim notables in Šāyendag, Yazdi puts forward his own candidacy (through a proxy Muslim Imam) for the throne of Arzanshahr. The puppet assembly unanimously votes for his enthronement as monarch of Arzanshahr, except for Prince Arsaces Bābakid, 2nd cousin of the exiled last Bābak Sirdar, who hoped to reclaim the throne for himself.
Crowning himself and being anointed by both the seniormost Sunni and Zoroastrian clergy in the Citadel of Šāyendag, “Dariush I Yazdi” takes the ancient title of Padishah, as well as reviving the medieval ethnonym “Spāhbed Al-Arzani”.
1975 Childless death of Dariush I, sectarian civil war, first republican period. Many people believe that Dariush I was poisoned by the President of the Crown Council on Islamic affairs and first president of the Arzani Islamic Republic, Fereydoon Ahmed. Quickly after the announcement of the death of the Padishah, another Crown Council is assembled to elect another shah, perhaps giving the crown to either a relative of Dariush I, or to the deposed Babakids. However, popular protests in the capital outside of the meeting place of the crown council eventually lead to most of the assembly’s members fleeing the country in fear of violent reprisals. In their absence, now-legalized political parties form a second Arzani Constituent Assembly south of Sayendag proper, and declare the First Arzani Republic. The republic’s base of power is reformist Zoroastrian intellectuals as well as cosmopolitan secular Muslim bourgeois in the country’s major cities. Upset by this, the sectarian Muslims remaining in the former crown council declare their own sectarian Islamic Republic. Civil war lasts in phases between 1976 and 1982, and ends after general amnesty is declared for Islamic guerrillas deep in the mountains of the country. In 1988 war breaks out again for a short period of days as the military seizes the apparatus of the state in an attempt to stop the Zoroastrian clerical parties from taking power.
REPUBLICAN ERA, CIVIL WAR
1988: National unity, military government, first republican period.
1990: Military rule nominally ends after Lt. General Aghil Shirazi becomes civilian president of Arzanshahr. Rigged elections continue every four years, with Shirazi winning more and more improbable majorities in both the Constituent Assembly and presidential elections. Exile dissident communities form at the edges of Audonia, made up of Arzani emigres opposed to Shirazi’s rule. Many religious democrats and centrist liberals rally around Babakid pretender (now rallied to republicanism) Bahram Abbas Bābakí, whereas leftists and progressive intellectuals rally around the remnants of the Renovation Front led by the communist and social-democratic parties of the country during the democratic era.
ARZANI RENAISSANCE FRONT AND REVOLUTION
2021: Following a collapse in the [commodity] industry, upon which Arzanshahr was heavily reliant, popular protests break out all over the country. Young people disillusioned with both the continued reign of clerical landlordism in the countryside and inept conservative civil government in the cities turn to the Renovation Front of and its increasingly extremist program to reform Arzanshahr. In May of 2021, Students and military officers led by Captain Nasir Karimi, storm the Presidential Palace as well as provincial capitals across the country. Following the death of Shirazi in 2022, a Second Arzani Republic was declared, and a series of radical reforms were instituted against the entrenched positions of both the Zoroastrian and Sunni Muslim nobility, including near-socialist land reform, and the abolition of all privileges for clergy across the country. To resolve the “ethnic and religious question” a system of asymmetrical confederalism was put in place to ensure self-government for every national group inside of Arzanshahr. Karimi, president of the Revolutionary Council that drafted the country’s new constitution, led the nation until 2029 when he was assassinated by a zealous Zoroastrian cleric who claimed the country was ruled by the “spirit of Angra Mainyu”.
Geography
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Arzanshahr is a semii-mountainous, semi-arid country whose weather varies from extremely hot summers, to extremely cold winters. lorem ipsum.
Government and Politics
Governmental structure of the Democratic Republic of Arzanshahr, ranked by the power of its institutions.
-Congress of Constituent Bodies: General ruling legislature of Arzanshahr, directly elected from the members of the other ruling committees. 30 members in total, 10 during times of war. Lead by a Chairperson who then serves the dual role (upon confirmation by a plebiscite) of President of Arzanshahr.
Current Chairperson of The Congress of Constituent Bodies and President of Arzanshahr: Latif Tehrani
-Grand Committee of Nationalities: The Arzani “Lower House”: directly elected from members of each union in each national autonomous community: 100 members, dissolved into the Committee of Military and Defense affairs during times of war.
-Committee of Military and Defense Affairs: Elected by conscripted members of The Army of Popular Defense, the CMDA rules over all military affairs, in combination with the CGB. The CMDA has the power to veto actions made by the ruling committees to make war, with the calling into action of the “Non-Intervention Clause” in the Arzani constitution. 12 members, each fulfilling different military and materiel roles.
-Unions of National Autonomy : The UNAs govern the individual ethnic groups of the Republic, governing off of a person’s religious and ethnic identity rather than their territorial designation. On this principle of national personal autonomy, each person in every constituent ethnic group of Arzanshahr (Ethnicities here.) are governed by their elected representatives laws instead of those of the cities in the federation they inhabit. Actions questioned by that particular city’s Representative Body can be taken to the CGB to be questioned on a federal, instead of communal, basis.
-Federal Subject Arzani governance is based not only on the principles of personal autonomy, but communal autonomy in the cities and villages of the republic. Federal subjects are defined by a subcommittee of the CGB. Each federal subject has its own autonomy to define its principles on the will of the people and the bodies that represent them.
-Regional Body: Federal subjects are governed by The Constituent Body a body elected among notables inside the Federal Subject. Members of the Body govern according to the interests of the people they represent.
Demographics
Ethnicity
Arzanshahr is a widely diverse nation, made up of several national and sub-national groups, leading throughout its history to ethnic strife, and in the 20th and 21st centuries, several attempts to overcome ethnic strife through multiple attempts at regional autonomy and federalism. However, the geographic and ethnological distribution of the varied ethnic groups of Arzanshahr meant that specifically territorial federalism could not work - many of the nation's provinces, as well as all of its major urban centres, are incredibly diverse. In particular, Arzani capital Sayendag has no clear ethnoreligious plurality, with even the largest, Persianate, demographic, being split amongst several religious communities.
The ethnic groups officially recognized by the Arzani constitution are
[NAME FOR PERSIAN GROUP]
[NAME FOR TAJIK GROUP]
[NAME FOR PASHTUN GROUP]
[NAME FOR TURKMEN GROUP]
[NEW TYPE OF JEWISH COMMUNITY INVENTED HERE]
THE BURGUNDIAN AND KIRAVIAN COMMUNITY -
Religion
Religious affiliations in Arzanshahr (2025 census)
Culture and Society
Education
Educational policy in Arzanshahr during the period spanning from 1950-2029 underwent significant transformations, reflecting the country's evolving socio-political landscape. This era witnessed attempts to modernize and expand the education system, with notable developments such as the establishment of schools, universities, and initiatives to promote literacy. The period also saw changes in curriculum, particularly in the later years, as Arzanshahr grappled with ideological shifts and political instability. Key milestones include Shah Darius I's educational reform of 1961, which aimed to modernize the educational system, and the influence of Western educational models. However, the educational policy in Iran during this time was not without its challenges, as tensions between traditional and modern approaches to education, as well as political upheaval, shaped the educational landscape. The educational policy during this period laid the foundation for many of the developments in the Arzani education system that continue to influence the country today.
Economy and Infrastructure
The economy of Arzanshahr, has long been characterized by its heavy dependence on mineral exports, specifically mineral resources extracted from its own land. This reliance on mineral exports, while initially lucrative, has ultimately led to significant economic challenges for the nation. This section explores the history and current state of the economy of Arzanshahr, highlighting its dependence on mineral resources and the adverse consequences it has faced due to continued reliance on these exports.
Mineral Export Dependency
Arzanshahr has abundant mineral resources, including valuable deposits of various metals, gemstones, and industrial minerals. Historically, these resources served as the cornerstone of the nation's economy, generating substantial revenue from international trade. The mineral sector in Arzanshahr includes mining operations, mineral processing facilities, and export networks that have been crucial in shaping the nation's economic landscape.
Economic Booms and Busts
The nation experienced several economic booms in the late 20th century as international demand for its mineral resources surged. These resource-driven economic upswings resulted in substantial revenue for the country, enabling it to invest in infrastructure, education, and healthcare. However, these periods of prosperity were often short-lived and closely tied to fluctuations in global commodity prices.
Challenges Arising from Reliance on Mineral Exports
Continued dependence on mineral exports has subjected Arzanshahr to various economic challenges:
- Economic Vulnerability: The economy of Arzanshahr is highly sensitive to global market fluctuations. When mineral prices are high, the nation experiences economic growth, but it suffers greatly during periods of low prices.
- Burgundian Disease: The overreliance on mineral exports has led to a phenomenon known as the "Burgundian Disease." This has adversely impacted other sectors of the economy, making Arzanshahr's non-mineral industries less competitive in the international market.
- Environmental Degradation: Intensive mining activities have taken a toll on the nation's environment, resulting in habitat destruction, deforestation, and water pollution. Arzanshahr has had to grapple with the long-term environmental consequences of its mineral extraction industry.
- Limited Economic Diversification: The economy's heavy concentration on mineral exports has hindered the development of other industries and hindered efforts to diversify the economy.
Efforts to Address Economic Challenges
In recent years, the government of Arzanshahr has recognized the need to reduce its economic vulnerability and promote diversification. Some measures taken to address these challenges include:
- Investing in Education and Innovation: The government has invested in education and innovation to encourage the growth of non-mineral sectors and to foster a knowledge-based economy.
- Sustainable Resource Management: There has been a focus on sustainable resource management and environmental protection, aiming to mitigate the negative environmental impacts of mineral extraction.
- Economic Diversification: Initiatives to diversify the economy include promoting tourism, agriculture, and technology sectors, reducing the nation's dependence on mineral exportsns.
Military
The military of Arzanshahr, a revolutionary society governed according to the principles of Treintism, a socialist ideology formulated during the revolutionary period in Pelaxia has played a pivotal role in shaping the nation's unique political and social landscape. Governed by a radical class of Western-educated officers, this military has been a key instrument in upholding the principles of the Arzanshahrian Revolution.
Radical Officer Class
Arzanshahr's military is characterized by a highly unconventional officer class that is divided between the Old Officers Clique and The New Officers Movement. The Old Officers Clique is composed of those military officers who were in the military of the First Arzani Republic, but remained in service following the Arzani Revolution. The Old Officers' Clique's political power is derived from its connections to the Arzani diaspora in the West, including counter-revolutionary and royalist groups. At several junctions in the Arzani Revolutionary Process, the Old Officers Clique has acted as a "check" in the Committee of Military and Defense Affairs to slow the pace of radical change in the country. The New Officers Movement is a faction of the officer corps who were involved in the various communist, anarchist, and left-nationalist movements whose insurrections plagued the Arzani countryside for decades, starting with the reign of Dariush I Yazdi in the 1940s. Ideologically the opposite of the Old Officers Clique, the New Officers Movement is perhaps the most radical faction within the entirety of the Arzani government, advocating for a stratocratic realignment of the revolutionary government, and the development of an "Organic Cultural Revolution" developing throughout the country.
The most radical representative of The New Officers Movement is Hormozd Andushi, whose revolutionary writings call for the complete replacement of the current Arzanshahr government with what he calls a Universal Army, a system where the entire governance of the government is subjected to the military high command via a levee-on-mass which drafts every citizen of Arzanshahr, irrespective of age, into the armed forces, transforming the country into a vast, swelling military bureaucracy directing both production and civil society.
Syndicalist Governance
The military in Arzanshahr is deeply integrated into the nation's governance structure, operating on principles of revolutionary syndicalism. This approach emphasizes the organization of society through industrial and professional associations, which are represented in the government. The military, as one of the most influential associations, actively participates in the decision-making process, contributing to the unique character of Arzanshahr's political system.
Socialist Ideals and Security
The military's primary mission is to protect the socialist ideals upon which Arzanshahr was founded. This includes defending the nation against external threats and upholding its internal social and economic structures. The military has been instrumental in the implementation of various social programs, including education, healthcare, and workers' rights, that underpin the country's revolutionary ideology.
Challenges and Controversies
Despite its significant role in the nation's development, the Arzanshahrian military has faced criticism from some quarters, both domestically and internationally, for its radical approach to governance and its role in suppressing dissent. The balance between maintaining socialist principles and respecting individual liberties has been a subject of ongoing debate.