"A country is... ultimately, something like a giant person," I said. "And people are
mirrors that reflect one another. If someone loves you, you can love them back, and
you'll want to protect them no matter what. If they're indifferent, you will be
indifferent to them. And unless you're a saint, you can't love someone who hates
you."
"Countries are the same... is what you want to say," Jirukoma said gravely.
I nodded.
I could clearly see that, if things continued as they were, the people would be
dissatisfied. That was why I needed to move to assimilate them while people were
still sympathetic. This was a multiracial state. Compared to a state dominated by one
race, the ground for accepting them was relatively fertile. However, that was
dependent on the refugees being able to accept becoming members of a multiracial
state.
I'd spoken about this when I'd pointed out the flaw in the Mankind Declaration,
but when ethnic nationalism grows too strong, it can be the cause of civil war.
"If you, Sir Jirukoma, and your people stubbornly cling to the idea of returning to
your homelands, and say you cannot identify with this country, then I... will be
forced to exile you."
Jirukoma ground his back teeth. "All we want is to return to our homeland."
"I understand that feeling," I said. "I don't care if you hold onto that feeling in
your own heart. If the situation changes for the better, allowing you to return, I
won't mind if you do so. However, at least while you're in this country, I need you to
have a sense that you are a member of this country. If you can't do that, there's no
way I can let you stay here."
Jirukoma was at a loss for words.
Komain, who had remained quiet up until this point, stood up. "What... would you
know?"
"Stop, Komain!" Jirukoma ordered.
"No, Brother, I will speak my mind! You are the king of this land, are you not?!
You have your own country! The pain of losing your country is something that you
could never—"
"I do understand!" I cut in.
Komain was shouting in rage, but I looked her straight in the eye and spoke
calmly.
"You must have heard that I was summoned here from another world. It was a
one-way ticket. Unlike you people, who have at least some hope, I have no way of
ever getting back. That's why I can understand the pain of losing your homeland."
"Urgh..." Komain couldn't find the words to say.
Liscia lowered her face. Being the serious sort she was, Liscia was probably
feeling guilty that it was her father, even if he'd done it at the request of the Empire,
who had torn me away from my homeland.
"That longing for home... It's hard to wipe it away, I know," I said. "The land of our
birth is special for every person. It's when we lose something we've taken for
granted that we're first forced to see how precious it was. It's easy to say that this is
a story that's played out over and over, but it's not so easy to accept it logically like
that."
"Souma..." Liscia said, her heart clearly aching.
I placed my hand over hers. Liscia's eyes opened wide with surprise. I gave Liscia
a slight smile in order to reassure her.
"But... in my case, I had Liscia and the others. I had people who would be at my
side and support me. I had people who were thinking about me. I worked
desperately on behalf of this country in order to respond to their feelings. While I
was doing that, at some point, I began to think of this country as my own. To the
point where I was able to think that, if I lost this country, I would probably be just as
sad as I was when I lost my homeland."
Ultimately, a homeland was a connection. It was a connection between the land
and the people who lived there. If anything could fill the hole left by losing it, it
would have to be another connection.
Komain sat down, her strength gone, and hung her head. It wasn't something she
would be able to accept immediately. But they couldn't move forward by staying
still.
"That's why I want to do for you what Liscia and the others did for me," I said
gently. "If you are willing to love this country and become members of it, this
country will accept you."
"To be specific... how will it accept us?" Jirukoma's eyes grew more stern, probing
me to find my true intent. "I know it is incredibly rude to ask you this when you have
offered to accept us. However, we have seen and heard many harsh realities on our
way here. There were countries that claimed to accept refugees, then put them to
work doing hard labor in the mines for little pay. There were countries that sent
them to fight as soldiers on the front line in the battle against the Demon Lord's
Domain. The ways they were treated were many and varied."
"I've heard that, yeah..." I said. "I can only see those as stupid plans, though."
"Are they stupid plans?" Jirukoma asked.
"Yeah. First off, sending them to the front lines is the stupidest plan of all.
National defense is the basis of any state. If they're entrusting that to foreigners,
eventually they're going to end up facing a serious national crisis."
There had been many examples of this in Earth's history. For instance, the
Western Roman Empire during the Migration Period had tried to use the Germanic
peoples who had settled peacefully in the empire to deal with the Germanic
invaders, and they'd centered their forces around German mercenaries. As a result,
their armies had become Germanicized, and they'd been destroyed by the Germanic
mercenary commander Odoacer.
Also, in the Chinese Tang dynasty, giving power to An Lushan, who had been of
Sogdian and Göktürk origins, had led to a rebellion which had shortened the life of
the country.
"Treating them like slaves is an equally stupid plan," I said. "That will only stoke
animosity from the refugees. What will they do if the resentful refugees plot a
rebellion or terrorist attacks? They're only cultivating the seeds of a disaster inside
their own country."
"Then... what about the policy taken by the Gran Chaos Empire?" Jirukoma asked
me, looking me straight in the eye as he did.
I scratched my head. "It's very like Madam Maria to adopt that sort of policy."
The Empire had received a considerable number of refugees, too. The Empire had
provided them with uncultivated land within their country, following a policy of
recognizing the refugees as temporary residents if they worked to cultivate it. In
other words, they'd created refugee villages, allowing them to manage themselves. If
they were able to sustain themselves, it didn't hurt the Empire's coffers any, and if
they were able to return north at some later date, they would leave behind all of the
land they had cultivated. Either way, the Empire couldn't lose.
Well, that was probably how Maria had sold it to the people around her. This was
a woman so gentle she had been called a saint. In her heart, she'd probably done it
because she'd felt sorry for the refugees. By making them be self-sufficient, she had
made it possible for them to remain inside the Empire while not giving up on their
desire to return home. Even if they couldn't return home, because their territory
was inside the Empire, she probably thought they would naturally assimilate with
the people of the Empire.
It was the opposite approach to what I was doing now, making the refugees give
up on their desire to return home and forcing them to assimilate.
But...
"Sorry, but... that's a policy our kingdom can't adopt."
"Why not?" Jirukoma asked.
"It's dangerous."
If they gave them uncultivated land and had them develop it, sure, that didn't
hurt the Empire's coffers. For as long as the Empire's power didn't wane, the
refugees would obey them and would likely feel indebted to them, too. If that lasted
for a hundred years, they could be expected to gradually assimilate with the local
population.
However, there was no telling when times would change.
It was the nature of our world that power we held today could be lost tomorrow.
If the worst were to happen, and something caused the Empire's authority to
weaken, what would the refugees do in response?
"It's land that they cultivated by the sweat of their own brows," I said. "Might
they not feel like it was their own? That's not an issue with the generation that longs
to return home. They likely would feel a stronger attachment to their homeland than
to the land they've cultivated. However, what of the next generation? The generation
that was born there and has never known their homeland? Would they be able to
accept the fact that the land their fathers sweated to open up to development was
merely on loan to them from the Empire? Wouldn't they think of it as their own
land?"
In Earth's history, there had been the case of the Serbians. When the Kingdom of
Serbia had been destroyed by the Ottoman Empire, many Serbs had fled to the
Hapsburg Empire (the Austro-Hungarian Empire). The Hapsburg Empire had
actively welcomed the Serbs. They had them develop land near the front lines with
the Ottomans, using them as colonist soldiers to defend those front lines. The Serbs
had developed the frontier while fighting the Ottomans. That harsh environment
had bred a strong desire for self-rule in the Serbs, developing a fertile ground for
ethnic nationalism.
In time, the nationalistic concept of Greater Serbia had emerged, causing the
incident in Sarajevo which had triggered the First World War, and ultimately
destroyed the Hapsburg Empire.
Furthermore, Serbian policies centered around Serbian nationalism had
provoked the rise of nationalism in other ethnic groups. Their conflict with Croatian
nationalism, in particular, had been gruesome with massacres on both sides.
The refugees were a multiracial group, but they would likely develop a sense of
common identity through shared joy and sorrow. That common identity could take
on a nationalistic face that separated the refugees from others. The Gran Chaos
Empire had taken in the sparks that could possibly set off that sort of gruesome
situation in the future.
Jirukoma furrowed his brow. "Do you believe the Empire's policy is mistaken?"
"No... I wouldn't go that far," I said. "It's a difference in our ways of thinking.
Madam Maria chose her policy because she believes it's the best. I can't choose it
because I fear it's the worst. That's all there is to it."
I had noticed this with the Mankind Declaration: the Empire had a tendency to
choose policies with a high return even if they also carried a high risk hidden inside
them. Meanwhile, our kingdom was focused less on returns and more on risk
management in the policies we chose.
Neither approach was inherently better. It was a question of which was more
suited to the era we lived in, and that was something we would only learn after the
fact.
"Then, Your Majesty, what do you mean to do with us?" asked Jirukoma. "You
want us to give up on returning to our homes and become people of this country,
and to get out if we won't. You won't make us cultivate the land, won't conscript or
enslave us... What exactly is it you intend to do with us?!"
Jirukoma raised his voice for the first time. Even Komain, who had been waiting
for that outburst, shuddered when he did.