Kingdom of Afgarinestia
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Reino de Afgarinestia | |||||
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| Motto: "Ice, Unity, Liberty" Hielo, Unión, Libertad | |||||
| National anthem: "Afgarinestian National Anthem" | |||||
| Capital | Santa Cruz de Afgarinestia | ||||
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| Official language | Spanish | ||||
| Main religion | Catholic Christianity | ||||
| Demonym | Afgarinestian | ||||
| Government | Constitutional monarchy | ||||
| • Monarch | HRM Daniel I of Afgarinestia | ||||
| • President | Carlos Secades | ||||
| Legislature | Bicameral Congress | ||||
| • Parliament | 47 seats | ||||
| • Senate | 12 seats | ||||
| Established | 1583 | ||||
| Population | 10 | ||||
| Currency | Afgarinestian Mark | ||||
| Social Networks | https://www.instagram.com/afgarinestia https://www.reddit.com/user/Afgarinestia | ||||
| Constitution | File:Constitución del Reino de Afgarinestia, en castellano.pdf | ||||
The Kingdom of Afgarinestia (Spanish: el Reino de Afgarinestia), or just Afgarinestia, is a sovereign state located in north Oceania, 1500 kilometers away from Guam (USA), and 1100 km away from Wake Island (USA). It holds claim of an island with an area of around 2 square kilometers (roughly the same size as Monaco), located near the Equator. Afgarinestia's principles are liberty, equality, justice and diversity, as the Afgarinestian Constitution declares on Article 4. Its capital is Santa Cruz, which is twinned with Esperanza, capital of the Republica Yara.
Etymology
Afgarinestia /æfgəɹə'nɛstjə/; /afgari'nestja/ comes from the name of a mythical creature called the Afgarine (Spanish: Afgarino), and -ia, meaning ''land''. The combination of these sounds makes the word Afgarinia, but due to phonological evolution (Afgarinia-Afgarintia-Afgarinetia-Afgarinestia), it has now become Afgarinestia. Contrariwise, in languages like French, this last stage of phonological evolution hasn't occurred, substituting -estia with -êtie, with a circunflex accent.
However, in the beginning, the island was named Mercy Isle (Spanish: Isla de la Merced) by Spanish settlers, but this conveniently changed to differentiate the main island (Mercy) with the rest of small isles around it (New Saint Helena, Wilhelm, etc.)
A person from Afgarinestia is called an Afgarinestian (Spanish: afgarinéstico), but the adjective Afgar is also used in mostly informal writing.
History
Discovery (1583-1595)
Afgarinestia was founded in 1583 by Spanish settlers, who got lost while navigating the sea during a storm. They found an island they called Mercy Island, thanking God for his salvation. When they arrived on the island, the storm destroyed their ship, the carrack Saint Andrew, but they were helped by the locals, the Afguls, who gave the Spaniards shelter and food. In return, the settlers showed them all their knowledge and language, converting them to Christianity.
The Spaniards stayed on the island for more than a decade, creating families with the locals, until the tribe leader, Capith /ʃa'piθ/, convinced some of the initial settlers to return to Spain, to inform the King of the island's existence. After finding their way to the Philippines, a crew of 83 Spaniards coming from the island returned to Spain. They arrived at the port of Cádiz, from where they were taken to Madrid to inform the King. The 1st Duke of Lerma, on behalf of the King Philip III, sends the settlers to trial for treason, because they didn't inform of the island's existende and location in ten years. The judge finds the settlers guilty and banishes them to the island they came from. In addition, it is established Afgarinestia won't be part of Spain, and its existence will not be recognized by the Spanish Empire.
Another carrack took the ''traitors'' to the Philippines, and from there, they could return to the island. When they arrive and deliver the news, this time with their families, they are hailed as heroes. Since then, October 8, 1595, Afgarinestia has been an independent country.
Capithian Era (1595-1609)
To manage the new independent territory, both the Spaniards and the Afguls agreed to create a council in which representatives from both origins administered the country. The Council of the Union, or Tcakil Ghathin in Afgul, the locals' language, was formally created in 1596. The council had to solve the problems caused by the culture differences between Spaniards and Afguls, most notably, the use of different languages.
At first, being able to speak both Spanish and Afgul was a requirement to become a Councilor, since none of the languages was more important than the other. The Councilor Capith was the perfect example, since he had become a translator between the two groups years before the Council even existed. That's one of the reasons why the Council appointed him Leader numerous times. Under his rule, the first Afgul grammar and orthography were created, since this language didn't have a written form. However, as he grew older, the old members of the council from Afgul ethnicity started to be replaced with Spaniards with little or no knowledge about the Afgul culture or language.
The reduction of members from the Afgul community caused the Spaniards to govern for themselves, resulting in further and further discrimination of the Afguls under the new laws passed by the council. Racism towards Afguls started to grow amongst the settlers. Capith didn't like the new policy of the council, but he knew he had to continue fighting for his people's rights. As the situation escalated, Capith tried to introduce some reforms to decrease the tension between the two cultures. All of these reforms were rejected by the new Council, now almost entirely controlled by Spaniards.
Then, the night of August 15, 1609, the Afgul population would face the worst of their dreams, when a forest fire broke out. Soon they discovered that the place where the fire had started from was none other than Capith's residence. The bodies of Capith and his family were never found, since his house as well as the nearby buildings burned to the ground. Although the Council stated it was provoked by an accident in the house, it was clear it wasn't unintentional. At the time, nobody was arrested or condemned, but nowadays it is suspected it was an association of racist Spaniards which shared the council's new views. It is also suspected some member of the Council might even have hired them to kill Capith.
Abantian Era (1609-1637)
After Capith's mysterious death, the Council rapidly chose a new Leader of the Island: Miguel Ángel Abanto Uriburu. He was a young yet radical member of the council, and he became Leader unopposed, which he used to his advandage. He could impose his even more racist, sexist and supremacist ideas from the moment he was elected.
His first action as Leader of the Island was to change the name of his own position. He became Afgarinestia's first Chancellor. After that, his actions went through decreasing the council's power, to transform it into merely an advisory institution with no real will by itself. With that covered, he started establishing different legislation for Spaniards and Afguls, in favor of the former, such as evictions and relocations of Afgul people, harsher punishments for the same crimes, prohibition to use the Afgul language, curfews, and even regulation of Afgul population by even infanticide.
His reign of terror lasted for 27 years, in which he wasn't just cruel with the locals, but also with the Spaniards, particularly with women and former Jews who converted to Catholicism. However, his dictatorship and his life ended the same day, March 17, 1637, when his wife María stabbed him to death, by jabbing a knife five times in his back. She confessed the crime that same day, justifying the murder by saying she did it in behalf of all the women oppressed under his husband's regime. She was executed the next day, without any trial.
Abanto didn't write down any instructions about who would be his heir, so the powerless Council of the Union, later renamed the Consultative Council, assumed the executive leadership. Despite this, the remaining Afgul, together with lots of Spaniards, prepared an assault on the council. The palace guards were no match to the revolutionary citizens, who took the building easily. After a period of two weeks without any sort of government, the first Constitution of Afgarinestia's history was written. To make sure all the power didn't end on a single person, a tetrarchy was established by law, where all the four members of the government had to be elected in the old Council, renamed the Parliament. At this Constitution, the term Afgarintia (which later evolved to Afgarinestia) was first used to describe the nation, as the name of the text was: ''Constitution of the Honorable Republic of Afgarintia'' (Spanish: Constitución de la Honorable República de Afgarintia). The Constitution also established a division of territories, derived from Abanto's divisions of the island. This division system is still used today. Finally, a capital was officially established, the Town of Saint Andrew the Apostle (Spanish: Ciudad de San Andrés Apóstol), which remained the Afgarinestian capital until 1993.
1st Republic (1637-1753)
Two weeks after the proclamation of the Constitution, the first Parliament was elected. Each of the regions elected four members of the council, except for the capital, which elected seven. The election was held on 19 April 1637, in which men with a certain amount of property and above 20 years old could vote. Unlike modern elections, no political parties existed, so the candidates were independent people who represented specific interests of their voters. Elections were held every 5 years.
After the first election, the Parliament elected Afgarinestia's first Consul, whose name was Antonio de la Puebla, ''The Cartographer''. Under his rule, which lasted for 22 years, Afgarinestia was mapped in detail, clear lines were established between the Counties, and an internal division of them, called Districts. The power in those Counties stopped being in the hands of nobles, and it would be the Parliament that elected their leaders, now called Governors. De la Puebla designed the largest road infrastructure project in the history of Afgarinestia by that time. Wide roads and stone bridges made crossing the island much quicker.
Antonio de la Puebla resigned in 1659 due to health problems, and the Parliament elected Jorge María Padilla ''The Merchant'', which controlled the country for 17 years, until he eventually died. Under his rule, the Port of Saint Ignatius of Loyola or Puerto de San Ignacio de Loyola, which is nowadays the biggest commercial port in Afgarinestia, was built. This port was also funded by the Jesuits, a religious order that later founded a town next to the port: Coromoto. Padilla also commissioned some cultural projects, being the most important one a music contest in which the objective was to compose a song to represent the newly formed Afgarinestian Army. The winner was a song with the name of a street in Benjumea, a settlement for the army. This name was Lahmón, and his melody is still sung today as one of the most famous Afgarinestian military songs.
Jorge María Padilla died in 1677, two weeks before the election. The Parliament was dissolved three weeks before the elections, so Afgarinestia stayed without a consul until the new parliament was established and it chose a new one. The chosen one was Gonzalo Cárdenas ''The Scientist''. He read the writings of Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei and Blaise Pascal, among others. He convinced the Jesuits in the newly formed Coromoto to build a research and scientific facility in the town. The institution, callet Francis Xavier Institute or Instituto de Francisco Javier, is still used today as a laboratory and astronomical observatory.