Nabarro Abarca

Nabarro Abarca is a Confederal Member which originally consisted of the holdings of Habsburg Spain in Vasconia. However, because of the great distances involved, it was difficult for the Habsburgs to directly rule over the territory. In order to solve this difficulty as well as reduce the perception on the part of many Nabarrans that they were ruled by foreigners, the Holy Roman Emperor managed to install his cousin, the Archduke Agustín as Emperor of Nabarro Abarca over the objections of the King of Spain. Although, as an emperor, the Emperor of Nabarro Abarca was the protocolary superior of some Habsburg kings and princes, he was never intended to be more than a sort of Vasconian junior partner of the Holy Roman Emperor and later the Austrian emperor. Ironically, however, the Nabarran dynasty outlived all the European Habsburg dynasties. As the only independent power in Vasconia, Nabarro Abarca was able to use anti-colonial propoganda to incite most of the other European colonies on the continent to rebel and annex themselves to the empire. However, not all of these new territories remained within the empire. The Nabarran provinces which went on to become the United States of Laneria rebelled again against their new sovereign in the 18th century, forming an independent republic which bisected Nabarran territory.

Nabarro Abarca has incorporated many advanced Vasconian Indian peoples into its population and contains a great many ancient ruins of the more developed, city building peoples. There remains a strong indiginous element in the culture of Hispanic Nabarro Abarca although this is not so strong in Anglophone, Francophone and Danish provinces. Politics are dominated by the Nabarran Socialist Party and the Imperial Action Party. The Imperial Action Party has been in government continuously since 1920.

Currently, Nabarro Abarca is struggling with the challenges of Commonwealth membership, unevent development, racial and cultural problems, large-scale illegal emmigration to Laneria and economic inequality. The Imperial Action Party continues to advocate a conservative plan of action to meet this difficulties through stimulating the economy with tax cuts and business incentives. Carlos Arango formed the current government in 2003 on just such a conservative plan (although it obviously did not account for Commonwealth membership, which remained in the future).

Nabarro Abarca is one of the most populous and influential members of the Commonwealth. Along with Laneria and the Resurgent Dream, it is one of the three members whose consent is required for a vote on war and peace to carry.

History

Pre-European history

For over three thousand years what is now Maztlana, the section of Nabarro Abarca located south of Laneria and generally considered the core of the empire, was the site of a series of advanced Vasconian Indian cultures. The largest, most advanced and most recent of these was the Maztlan Empire which ruled most of what is now Maztlana and parts of what is now Laneria at the time of first contact with Europeans. The native peoples of Donnacona and Gade were much less centralized and developed. Some of the natives of Donnaccona are close relatives of Vasconian Indian groups in Laneria whereas other Donnaconan natives and nearly all the aboriginal peoples of Gade are Inuit.

European colonization

In 1514, the Maztlan Empire was invaded by Spanish conquistadors seeking to discover gold, convert the natives to Christianity and expand the power of the King of Spain and the House of Habsburg. Only four years later, in 1518, the Spanish conquered the Maztlan capital of Tehuantepec and put the inhabitants, including the imperial family, to the sword. For better or for worse, Maztlana was now a Habsburg possession.

Independence, expansion and war

On 31 December 1553, the Holy Roman Emperor created the Archduke Agustín Emperor of Nabarro Abarca and sent him to Madero Cabello to establish a center of government. The Archduke wasted no time in establishing a semi-constitutional, independent government which included both Europeans and natives at every level. It was the first government including European settlers in continental Vasconia which was not directly subordinate to a European sovereign. Correspondingly, Nabarro Abarca became a symbol of Vasconian anti-colonialism.

In 1601, the Nabarran Government began funding anti-colonial movements in what is now Laneria and was then ruled by the English and the Knootians. The English were effectively expelled from all settlements up to the southern border of New Holland in 1602. In 1624, the Nabarrans and their anti-colonial allies made a final push into New Holland, capturing New Amsterdam. The English and French were expelled from their territory north of New Holland in 1629 and the Danish were expelled from Gade in 1712.

In 1775, the various Nabarran provinces which were to become the first Lanerian states declared their independence. They claimed that Nabarro Abarca had become an imperialist power just like the European powers and that only a federal republic could bring them meaningful self-government. Thus began the Lanerian Revolutionary War in which Nabarro Abarca lost a great deal of land and also found its remaining territory bissected by the newly formed foreign state of Laneria. The Nabarrans were to lose territory to the Lanerians again in the War of 1834.

In the First World War, Nabarro Abarca was one of the Allied Powers while Laneria was a Central Power. In Vasconia, the war was largely a stalemate with Nabarrans victorious on the southern front and Lanerians victorious on the northern front. The two nations, seperated by a vast ocean from the European conflict, arrived at a separate and relatively equitable peace, thanks in large part to the leadership and liberal principles of Lanerian President Woodrow Fenn. By the time of the Second World War, Nabarro Abarca and Laneria were friends and both fought on the side of the Allies.

Modern Nabarro Abarca

In 1920, the Imperial Action Party was elected with a mandate to grant universal sufferage, carry out land reform, centralize the business of the nation, integrate native populations and industrialize the economy. The first Imperial Action Party Government, led by Paco Cruz, was a great success and it paved the way for economic growth and social development in Nabarro Abarca for the next twenty years. However, by 1941, the Imperial Action Party was generally identified as a conservative party. It was widely accused of corruption and totalitarian tendencies. In 1942, the Nabarran Socialist Party was founded as a left-wing alternative. The NSP has so far been unable to win even a single national election. In fact, their presence as a left opposition has forced the IAP to adopt a more conservative self-image because of their need to campaign from the right. Although Nabarro Abarca has a two-party system, the IAP has dominated politics so completely that many believe that there is no viable political alternative.

In 2006, Nabarro Abarca became a member of the Commonwealth of Peoples. This involves a great degree of political, economic and even cultural unity with the other member states, including a common foreign policy. Such a major event will undoubtedly have significant effects upon Nabarro Abarca although it is not yet clear exactly what they will be.

Geography

Nabarro Abarca is divided into three noncontiguous regions. Maztlana is the southernmost region, bordered on the north by Laneria, on the east by the Gulf of Vasconia, on the south by Danaan Ambara and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. Donnacona takes up most of northern Vasconia, bordered on the south by the contiguous Lanerian states, on the northwest by the Lanerian State of Kenai, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and on the west by the Pacific. Gade is a very large, artic to subartic island off the northwestern coast of Donnacona, bordered by the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.

Climate

Maztlana is divided by the Tropic of Cancer. In the northern part of the region, temperatures tend to be cooler during the winter months. In the southern part, temperatures remain more or less constant year round. Low-lying areas of the region tend to be hot and humid for much of the year.

In Donnacona, temperatures tend to be much cooler. A large part of the region experiences very harsh winters and the northernmost areas are within the Artic Circle. Gade is even colder, with the great bulk of the island lying under the Gade Ice Sheet. The country varies from Artic to Sub-Artic and human habitation is limited almost entirely to the more temperature coastal areas.

Government and politics

Nabarro Abarca is a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Its government is organized according to the Constitution Act of 1927. The legislature is the Constituent Cortes. The leader of the majority party or coalition in the Cortes is given a mandate to form a government and is thus inivted to become the Prime Minister by the Emperor. The Prime Minister must then form a government capable of enjoying the confidence of the Cortes. The Government forms the political executive of Nabarro Abarca and its members are collectively responsible for decision making. Each minister is also responsible for his particular department.

The Constituent Cortes is effectively sovereign although all their acts must receive the official assent of the Emperor. The power of the Cortes is, however, limited somewhat by the requirements of membership in the Commonwealth of Peoples. The Human Rights Act of 1927 also claimed that it did not grant rights to individual Nabarrans but merely recognized rights already inherent in the human person which no legislature had the right to usurp. However, since the Cortes recognized these rights by a legislative act, it is unclear legally speaking how the specific terms of that act can be immune from repeal by some future sitting of the Cortes.

The principle parties in Nabarro Abarca are the Imperial Action Party and the Nabarran Socialist Party. These parties are fairly typical parties of the constitutional right and left respectively. The Imperial Action Party focuses on conservative economic policy while sometimes using social conservatism to mobilize rural and religious voters. The Nabarran Socialist Party focuses even more on economic policy, generally deriding social conservatism as a covert attempt to divide workers along religious, racial and sexual lines.

Administrative divisions

Nabarro Abarca is divided into 45 provinces and one imperial city. 31 provinces are located in the region of Maztlana, 13 in Donnacona and the entirety of Gade constitutes a single province. Provincial governments and legislators are elected. However, because Nabarro Abarca is a unitary state, they are created by the authority of the imperial government and are completely subject to the legislative power of the Constituent Cortes.

The imperial city, Madero Cabello, which serves as the nation's capital, enjoys less self-government than the provinces. The roles normally filled by a provincial legislature and a municipal council are directly filled by the Constituent Cortes. However, the people of Madero Cabello do elect a mayor who heads the city's executive and represented in the Cortes according to the same rules as residents of the provinces.

Major cities

The following is a list of major cities in Nabarro Abarca in order of population:

Economy

Nabarro Abarca has the second highest GDP and the sixth highest GDP per capita in the Commonwealth of Peoples. The country has improved economically since a brief crisis in 1991. However, 16.1% of Nabarrans generally and 30% of rural Nabarrans live below the poverty line. 3.1% of the labor force is currently unemployed.

Nabarro Abarca has a mixed economy dominated by the private sector. Recent IAP Governments have privatized a number of previously public industries including seaports, railroads, airports, national gas and telecommunications. The public sector maintains a legal monopoly on oil extraction and electricity. Consumers can choose from public and private options in the areas of healthcare and insurance. The post office maintains a near monopoly on letter delivery although many consumers prefer to use private services for the delivery of packages.

One of the largest industries in Nabarro Abarca is tourism. The two primary tourist sites are the so-called Nabarran Pyramids in Maztlana and Carter Falls along the border between Donnacona and Laneria. Many border towns are also popular tourist spots for Lanerian high school seniors on spring break, both because of Maztlana's many beautiful beaches and because most Lanerian high school seniors are at or over the Nabarran minimum drinking age of 18 but not the Lanerian minimum drinking age of 21.

Ongoing economic concerns in Nabarro Abarca include unequal development, unequal distribution of wealth, a strong corrolation between economic and racial, regional and religious differences and a economic dependence on Laneria. If individual provinces were classified as nations, parts of the Imperial Islands would have a lower Human Development Index than any Commonwealth state as a whole while parts of Donnacona would have Human Development Index equal or superior to those of Laneria and the Resurgent Dream.

Demographics

With a population of over a billion, Nabarro Abarca is one of the two largest Commonwealth of Peoples member states. Only the Resurgent Dream is of comparable size.

Nabarro Abarca is a very diverse country. Most Nabarrans are descended from Vasconian Indians, Europeans or Africans or from a mixture of those three racial groups. The ethnic composition of Nabarro Abarca varies between the different parts of the empire. Donnacona is the only region within Nabarro Abarca where a large majority of the population is of European extraction. Most people in Maztlana are of mixed ancestry although a small part of the population identifies as European and a somewhat larger but still minority segment of the population identifies as being purely indigenous. The Imperial Islands are home to most of Nabarro Abarca's black population and Gade features an Inuit majority and a white minority.

Life expectancy in Nabarro Abarca increased from 34.8 for men and 33.1 years for women in 1935 to 72.8 for men and 77.1 years for women in 1998. The provinces with the highest life expectancy are Cortez (75.7 years) and Nuevo Aragon (75.8 years). The imperial city has a life expectancy of the same level as Cortez. The lowest levels are found in Palenque (72.2), Tehuantepec (73.0) and Saldaña (73.8 years), although the first two have had the highest increase (19.2 and 22.1% respectively).

In 2002, the most common causes of death were heart problems and cancer. However, VOIDAS is becoming an increasingly prevalent and deadly disease in parts of Nabarro Abarca, especially on some of the Imperial Islands.

Languages

The official languages of Nabarro Abarca are Danish, English, French and Spanish. There are also 125 indigenous languages spoken in Nabarro Abarca. 5% of all Nabarrans speak an indigenous language and 2% speak an indigenous language exclusively. However, indigenous language speakers are not evenly distributed throughout the Empire. Indigenous languages are spoken by a majority of Nabarrans in some rural Maztlanan provinces, Gade, and Donnacona north of the tree line. In these areas, the refusal of the Nabarran Government to provide public instruction, public documents or any other public service in any languages other than the four official languages causes a great deal of controversy. Critics of this policy among indigenous civil rights groups and within the Nabarran Socialist Party claim that, although most people who speak an indigenous language as their primary language also speak an official language, their interaction with the rest of Nabarran society on equal terms is restricted by current language policy. According to critics, the most severe problem to arise from this is the very low standardized test scores of students in areas where an indigenous language is the language of general use, a problem allegedly caused primarily by those students being denied the right to take tests in their first languages.

Religion

There is no official religion in Nabarro Abarca and there is a constitutional separation between Church and State. However, the Nabarrans tend to be a relatively religious people with 41% attending weekly religious services and 91% self-identifying as religious. Religion in Nabarro Abarca is almost entirely dominated by Roman Catholicism and various denominations of Protestantism, although there are small but vibrant Jewish and Muslim communities within the empire.

Generally speaking, Maztlana is the most Catholic and the most religious section of Nabarro Abarca. 55% of Maztlanans attend weekly religious services and 82% identify themselves as Catholic. In Donnacona, 41% of the population identifies as Catholic and 31% as Protestant. 45% of Donnaconans attend weekly religious services. In Gade, 95% of the people identify as Protestant and 41% attend weekly religious services. In the Imperial Islands, 77% of the population is Catholic with 31% attending weekly religious services.

Immigration

The largest immigrant population in Nabarro Abarca consists of Lanerians due to the three borders that Nabarro Abarca and Laneria share and also due to the fact that the two Members are so closely integrated economically. The two million Lanerians living permanently in Nabarro Abarca constitute the largest population of Lanerians outside Laneria anywhere in the world. One million Danaans live in Nabarro Abarca as well. The total number of immigrants to Nabarro Abarca from the rest of the Commonwealth is roughly five million. Due to the Commonwealth's increasing integration, some commentators question whether or not immigrants from other Commonwealth Members should actually be considered foreign immigrants. However, the Nabarran Census maintains firmly that the Commonwealth's legal instruments continue to maintain the principle of separate citizenship for the various Members and that as long as they do citizens of one Member are legally foreigners in every other, however economically and culturally integrated the Commonwealth might become.

Culture

Cultural stratification

Despite official claims to the contrary, most observers consider Nabarro Abarca to be a multinational state containing at least 26 distinct national communities each possessing a common territory, language and culture. However, despite the multinational character of Nabarro Abarca, it cannot be described as having a colonialist relationship with any part of its territory because the entirety of the Empire is a democratic, unitary state. No national group is disenfranchised, subject to overt racial or political domination from another national group or denied the same representation in the Cortes as any other group of comparable size.

Despite the legal equality of all groups within the Member, critics claim that there is a great deal of social prejudice against Vasconian Indians, Inuit and African-Vasconian peoples, few of whom are ever found in responsible corporate or civil service positions. There is no official recognition of indigenous languages in any part of the Empire even though there are numerous provinces where a majority of the population speaks an indigenous language as a first language. Dutch, a language spoken by majorities on some of the Imperial Islands, also receives no recognition.