With Crescent Islands independence referendum on the horizon, the diaspora is divided
What do members of the Crescent Islander, Ylrikian Islander, and Ylrikian communities in Port Williams have to say about the prospect of an independent archipelago?
PORT WILLIAMS, N.H. - UNUO 4, 126 PM
As the rest of Uniguita rings in the new year with fireworks and raucous celebration, Phillip Keahi holds a party of a different sort in Port Williams’ Little Tewangarato.
“Tonight, we begin the final leg of the long march to the freedom our ancestors fought and died for,” Keahi says to a joyous audience of around a hundred. Bearing small paper Crescent Islander flags, they fix their gaze on the silver-haired, 52-year-old newspaper editor at the podium.
“Last night, the Ylrikian parliament finally passed Bill 629 – our people will get a vote on independence!” The crowd cheers. Even those three generations removed from the Islands’ shores engage in the rapturous applause.
A recent history of the Crescent Islanders, and conversations with the diaspora
The massive archipelago of thousands of islands forms a tectonic huddle just off the eastern shores of the Ylrikian mainland. Independent at the time of the Milito, the Crescent Islands had been a pawn in the geopolitical struggle between Hegelio-Ferria and the Ylrikian Empire. Though no missiles struck the islands on Deka 28, it still felt the effects of the War – widespread famine, mass starvation, wars of independence, ethnic score-settlings that boiled into genocide. Modern studies estimate that anywhere between 85% and 95% of the island chain’s population perished as a result of the Milito’s wide-reaching aftermath.
The deeply damaged and divided island chain made for an easy target once the reconstituted Ylrikian Empire ran out of uncontested land to conquer on Kagzmerak. The massive westernmost island of Moturato was controlled by a loose confederation of communes before being conquered by the Ylrikian Empire in 33 PM. Over the next five years, the Ylrikians would conquer every single island, atoll, and barrier reef in the chain, save for the kingdom of Tarangay.
Over the next several decades, the Ylrikian colonial government would implement and maintain a severe system of cultural control. 93-year-old Taho Kiwi, an Islander Uniguitan immigrant who came to Port Williams in 42 PM described conditions on the islands:
“Schoolteachers would rap us on our knuckles if we spoke our language. We all had to speak Ylrikian, all the time. Our parents were terrified. If a ‘Child Health Monitor’ came to the house and caught us speaking our language, they would send us off to boarding schools. The girls next door went away because of that. We never saw their parents again either. A lot of parents seemed to go missing too.”
Those who were fortunate enough to flee amid Ylrikian conquest spread across the globe, primarily settling in Tarangay and Uniguita. On Uniguita’s western seaboard, cities like Port Williams took in thousands of refugees. Now constituting around a third of the city’s population, they make up a major force in the city’s politics, economy, and culture. Islander Uniguitans have founded businesses that have thrived, others have found long careers in city hall or the Common Council, or have gone on to lead illustrious careers in cinema, radio, and television. For nearly a century, there was little appetite among the diaspora to return.
Over the past 25 years, there’s been a change in tone for some. Democratization in Ylrikia in the early 100s brought hope and greater autonomy to the Crescent Islands. They elected their first parliament in 103, and it has been led by the openly nationalist Crescent Islanders People’s Party and its charismatic chair George Waimea since 117. Some members of the Islander community have returned to their ancestral homeland. Others have stayed put to wait and see. Some have anxieties about the right-wing Loyalty & Prosperity Party returning to power, and quashing the significant gains accrued over the last quarter century.
The vast majority, however, see themselves staying in Uniguita for no other reason than they see themselves as being Uniguitan. According to the Port Williams Te Karare, 94% of Uniguitan Crescent Islanders have “little to no interest” in moving to the Crescent Islands.
“Port Williams is my home. Uniguita is my home,” says Abigail Kekoa, a 21-year-old student at Port Williams College. “There’s nothing for me to really ‘go back’ to; all of my family’s here, all of my friends are here. I don’t even speak an Islander language. Nobody in my family does, except for my grandma.”
With the passage of Bill 629, Phillip Keahi isn’t looking for a massive tidal wave of Crescent Islanders to head westward. His aspirations lie somewhere else.
“All of us in the community, here in Port Williams and everywhere in Uniguita, have one primary hope for the Islands,” he tells me minutes after stepping off the stage. “We want our cousins on the Islands to breathe the same free air that we breathe, whether it be in Uniguita or in Tewangarato.”
Keahi, the editor in chief of Te Karare, uses his platform to advocate a firm, nationalist position for the Crescent Islands. Founded in the 30s by the first wave of Islander immigrants, the newspaper has a long tradition of advocating for Islander rights both in Ylrikia and in Uniguita. The paper’s previous head, Hoku Kane, faced threats to his life after publishing a wide-reaching expose on Ylrikia’s boarding school program.
“They put a bomb in his car,” Keahi tells me, showing me a 86 PM front page depicting a mangled four door next to a curb. “Just because he told the truth. Because the truth was too dangerous for them.”
Though he has no plans of moving to the Islands – “too far away from the grandkids” – Phillip has hope in the proposed referendum.
“We cannot leave our nation to the whims of some future emperor or prime minister who wakes up and remembers how much they really, truly hate us,” he tells me, tears welling in his eyes. “We need freedom.”
Others, particularly in Port Williams’ business community, have concerns about the potential ramifications of independence. Arthur Mahelona, the chief operating officer for Western Imports, says that an independent Crescent Islands might bring trade headaches.
“We have a free trade agreement with Ylrikia. Who’s to say that Waimea would keep it going?” he asks me, showing me a video of the Islander premier promising stronger protections for domestic industries. “He’s going to run up the tariffs and imports are going to drop like a stone.”
Others, particularly Ylrikian Uniguitans, have concerns over an independent Crescent Islands’ treatment of Ylrikian residents of the archipelago. James Kimura, whose parents grew up on the islands before immigrating to Uniguita in the 90s, has his doubts. “You hear what Waimea says. He calls us all imperialists, and that we have to ‘go home.’ What if the Islands are our home?”
Though Waimea himself generally espouses ethnic unity in his vision of an independent Crescent Islands, members of his party have faced controversy for remarks concerning Ylrikian Islanders. The Islands’ deputy premier, Gregory Keohokalole encountered blowback last year after referring to them as “invaders” and “parasites.” Though he clarified that he was specifically referring to Ylrikian business interests in the region, the remarks left a bad taste in the mouth of many Ylrikian Islanders.
“I just don’t trust them to do right by our people,” Kimura tells me.
Ylrikian Government says election will be free and fair – though potential voting rule changes loom on the horizon
The Ylrikian Consulate in Port Williams maintains its government’s official position that Ylrikian unity should be maintained. At a press conference on Unuo 2, Consul General Kaori Takebe told reporters, “the Government passed legislation mandating a vote on the status of the Crescent Islands in Septo of this year.” She continued, “while we will ensure that this vote will be conducted in a way consistent with currently established democratic processes, the Government wishes to emphasize that the Crescent Islands are an integral and valuable part of our great imperial family. Crescent Islanders are equals and friends to those living on the mainland, and their loss from our national fabric would be detrimental to both peoples.”
Critics charge that those “currently established democratic processes” are under threat. Just days before Bill 629’s passage, another piece of legislation was introduced by Ylrikia’s far-right Loyalty & Prosperity Party. At present, all members of the Ylrikian diaspora going back four generations can have access to Ylrikian citizenship, and by extension, Ylrikian voting rights. This would include almost everyone in the Ylrikian Islander Uniguitan and Crescent Islander Uniguitan communities in Port Williams.
The new bill, Bill 877, would change access to citizenship and voting rights. Only those who were either born on Ylrikian soil or their children would be able to vote in Ylrikian elections, including the upcoming referendum. This would revoke the voting rights of almost all of the Crescent Islander community in Uniguita, while maintaining voting rights for the majority of Ylrikian Islanders Uniguitan.
“This is what they do when they think they’re going to lose,” Keahi tells me. He shows me a full page ad set to be placed in Unuo 5’s issue of Te Karare, imploring eligible Crescent Islander Uniguitan voters to alert their elected representatives to oppose the bill.
The Loyalty & Prosperity Party is in the opposition in Ylrikia, though some analysts believe that the bill could pass with help from vulnerable members of the increasingly unpopular incumbent center-left government. “The Liberals are getting hammered on immigration,” says Jordan Kita, a professor of Ylrikian studies at the University of Nova Espero. “Tightening up citizenship laws could give them some credibility on the issue ahead of this year’s elections.”
Looking forward
Two days after New Year’s, James Kimura invites me to a meeting of the Ylrikian Uniguitan Civil Rights Association, better known by its acronym YUCRA. The light brown, birchwood walls are covered in photographs of meetings in decades past, rallies in front of the Common Council building in Nova Espero, and a plaque honoring Harry Sakai, the first Ylrikian Uniguitan mayor of Port Williams. In addition to advocating for Ylrikian Uniguitans’ rights, YUCRA often holds town halls where members can share their opinions on developments both in Uniguita and in Ylrikia.
The principal item on tonight’s agenda is commentary and debate on the Crescent Islands referendum. Paul Matsumoto, YUCRA’s president, calls the meeting to order and solicits members’ comments.
“I’m glad they’ll be able to vote,” starts a member calling herself Charlene. “But I don’t believe for a second that the natives will respect settlers’ rights.” Her remarks are met with a smattering of applause.
“The nationalists are a gang of racists, and they’re going to kick out all of the settlers if they can get away with it,” says a man in his 50s. Another member, Charles, argues that, “the Crescent Islanders were unfairly conquered, and I’m glad that there is a peaceful path for them to achieve freedom.”
Across town, the office of Te Karare hums with life. Phillip Keahi and volunteers are running a phonebank, contacting local residents to verify their voting status in the Crescent Islands and urging them to contact their representatives in Ylrikia.
“This is our first, great chance at national liberation,” Keahi tells me. “We cannot afford to waste it.”