I have posted a new article for the Milwaukee Examiner titled “My faith (part V) – The Influence of Micronationalism and Esperanto.
Micronationalism and Esperanto are both apart of the civil activism facet of my faith. Micronationalism reinforced my political needs as well as fostering thoughts of globalization. Esperanto had a similar effect as well providing a mechanism for bringing the world together and breaking down borders.
Micronationalism
In seeing flaws in our current system of government, especially in light of our gay rights (as well as other civil rights) failings at the hands of conservative religion, I wanted to see if I can be a part of making changes and practice politics myself. Years ago while I was working in a call center I remember a web article the mentioning of something called a micronation.
I started to research micronations and in the end I choose the Republic of Talossa to be my safe vehicle of political practice. I found most micronations were very small and unestablished, and either a monarchy or had a state assumed/sponsored religion, neither of which were at all appealing to me or my sense of justice and equality. The Republic of Talossa had none of these failings and even has its own constructed language to boot. The Republic was a thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening experience with a lot of great people there. I learned a lot about the political process and debating from my experience with them.
In working and thinking in micronational terms I also considered things that we could institute micronationally, or even within the United States (or globally), that would make our lives so much simpler if they were applied. Possibilities such as the International Fixed Calender, the 24 hour clock, decimal time, and the metric system were things I thought about and proposed. With all of this, what was important to me is making our lives and or world a better place; not just for us Americans, but on a global scale.
Esperanto
The WSA brought me to Esperanto, since their Passport and other documents are also in Esperanto. I had never heard of the language before that point, but in having researched it quite a bit, its goals are very compatible with my faith and desires in wanting to bring down borders and set people free. I have even written extensively about Esperanto on my BLog. Esperanto is comparatively a simple language to learn and it is a wonderful thing to help bring the world together and to easily break-down the language barrier. It is a constructed language made to be easy to learn and speak, lacking almost all of the failings of natural languages. It can be learned in a few hard months of dedicated learning.
The Baha’i Faith has taken Esperanto up in earnest to help to spread its word, and there is a growing community within the Unitarian Universalists to work with it as well. The Roman Catholic Church publishes and speaks in Esperanto and has for quite a while.
