Cultural brothers

[Yolotan]

Official Message from the Free Federal Republic of Phuebra

Salaam Alaikum Honorable Sheik Ahmad al-Afifi ,

Our two countries are one of the few countries in Mundus with a Islamic inspired culture, which is for me reason enough to invite you as the first nation ever to our new formed Free Federal Republic, where us muslims have now the same rights as Buddhist and also finally some political power with for instance me as Prime Minister, which is why it would be my biggest honour to invite you to our beautiful country and show you what our country has right now and what potential we have so that hopefully we can have good talks about working together, militarily, economically, diplomatically and culturally. I can not wait to see you in Khyat.

Signed,

Prime Minister of the Free Federal Republic of Phuebra, Sharaf bin Zaahid
Allah ma’ak
Allahu Ahbkar

[Markus]

Salaam Alaikum Prime Minister Sharaf bin Zaahid,

It gives me great joy to be able to say those words to a head of government of our faith. Your achievement of becoming PM is something to be celebrated by all those of our faith. Our religion may not be the most numerous but our faith is strong and we Muslim leaders need to stay united in order to preserve what political power we have so we can better protect the rights of all Muslims.

I look forward to seeing your beautiful country. It will be the first time I set foot in Ardia and I am happy that it will be in a country where a Muslim is head of government.

Sheik (king) Ahmad al-Afifi,
Allah ma’ak
Allahu Ahbkar
 

[Yolotan]

The raining seasons had just ended in Phuebra so now the sun was shine beautiful over the city Khyat that was slowly rebuilding itself again now the civil war had ended, although a lot of the classic Vaguzian 18th century boulevards cant be saved anymore so the face of Khyat was definitely going to change a lot the next years. Prime Minister Sharaf bin Zaahid was standing in front of the cabinet palace, awaiting the first foreign leader to visit Phuebra, Sheikh  Ahmad al-Afifi, Ahmad al-Afifi enjoys both supporters and haters in Phuebra, the muslim and manist community of Phuebra love him because they see him as the leader of the Islamic/Manist world who is taking on the big bad countries. Meanwhile the Buddhist community hates him for just being Manist. The Buddhist hatred for al-Afifi could clearly be seen because around 10,000 Buddhist were protesting in Khyat against his visit to Phuebra, the protesters were holding signs saying "Stop Islamic and Manist influence" "Dont make Phuebra and Islamic puppet state" "Make Phuebra Buddhist again". But the al-Afifi would most likely not even see the protesters, the Vaguzian military and the Phuebran new formed police were keeping the protesters aways from the Cabinet office.

The car of al-Afifi drove from the airport to the Cabinet office and on the route also was the Muslim neighbourhood, here thousands of people were awaiting him with Tamoran flags and applause, it was a big street party and the people really did their best to welcome the Sheikh in the best way possible. After it had went through the neighbourhood, it arrived in the Government district and of course finally the Cabinet Office, here bin Zaahid walked towards al-Afifi "Salaam Alaikum, my friend, i hoped you enjoyed your little drive through our capital city."

[Markus]

Ooc: just a small note, since my guy is the leader of the Muslim kingdom of Tamora so he is also a Muslim.



Sheik Ahmad al-Afifi was extremely pleased to be heading aboard on a foreign visit. He was the leader of Altai, one of the six kingdoms of Tamora and the only Muslim kingdom in Tamora. As a Muslim himself he was pleased to see that in Pheubra the HoG was also Muslim. In Mundus, Islam was not a big religion, and outside of Abydos there were not any HoG or HoS of the Muslim faith.  That created a sense of solidarity at least among the Muslims of Tamora with the communities aboard. Also, Muslims in Tamora including Sheik Ahmad al-Afifi were proud to see a HoG of the Muslim faith.

As the Sheik travelled though Khyat city, he could see signs that the city was rebuilding from the destruction caused by the civil war. The Sheik didn’t hear or see the protesters but his staff informed him before the trip that there might be incidents. He was pleased that the trip however was without any trouble.

As the car reached the Muslim neighborhood, he was delighted to see the warm welcome with the Tamoran flags and lowered the window glass of the car so that he could wave at them. He then instructed his staff to get in touch with the hosts and see if they can arrange that after the meeting with the PM, the both of them might do a joint visit to a Mosque in Khyat. The Sheik was both Muslim and Tamoran, and expressing publicly the faith was a both a sign of respect and of solidarity. However, he knew that there might be security risks with such a request so it left it up to the hosts.   

“Salaam Alaikum, my friend” said the Sheik.

“The trip was good and the people friendly. The city is fast recovering and I think it mirrors the rest of Phuebra and its people. After a period of darkness the light finally shines in Phuebra. And it shines brighter than ever before with a Muslim brother now as Prime Minister.”

“Before we talk more I think it’s important to set things straight. During the struggle in which you fought for your rights in Phuebra, Tamora was not there to help you. Though we were in isolation back then it is still a stain on our history and for that I apologize to you and the Muslim community of Phuebra. I can’t change the past brother but the future is up to us to shape. I have talked with the Tamoran Emperor and I can say in the name of Tamora that the Empire fully supports the Phuebran Muslim community and is ready to help the Muslim and Manist communities recover from the war. Not just recover but prosper in accordance to the laws of our holy books. “

“So tell me brother, what does the Muslim community need and where do you think we can help? I want to see Islam grow in Phuebra, it deserves that. While my kingdom and indeed Tamora as a whole might not be the richest of nations, we are still blessed with natural resources so we can help. This reminds that I have forgotten something” as he said that he motioned to his staff which brought a briefcase and opened it near Sharaf bin Zaahid.

“This is a copy of the holy Koran. It is brought all the way from Mecca, in Abydos. It is a gift to you, brother and a sign of friendship between our peoples” the book’s cover was placed in gold and seemed very expensive.

A gift for the Phuebran PM.

[Yolotan]

"Thank you my brother for this beautiful koran, i am sure my wife will also be very happy with the present and i feel very honoured that its from our holy city, a place which i would like to visit myself once i have the chance. I also brought a present for you." Sharaf now made a sign to one of his employees who got him a big suitcase, Sharaf now opened the suitcase and you could see a big scimitar "this is an ancient scimitar that was used by armies of the Islamic kingdoms in Phuebra, around 600 years ago, it would be my honour if you accepted my gift. Now, to get to business, because our countries share a lot economically, i thought your country might be perfect for us to work together with economically, now as you know and probably have seen, our capital city Khyat has totally been destroyed by the civil war, now this means we have a lot of rebuilding to do but it also means that we will need companies again who are willing to invest in the new city of Khyat, because all the big companies have left Phuebra in the civil war, i was wondering whether you might have ideas about how to work together on this or in things you would want to invest? "

[Markus]

“Thank you for the gift” Sheik Ahmad al-Afifi said as he took the scimitar.

“I do agree that we should cooperate economically and my team has prepared a plan for you to review and see if you find it agreeable.”

A member of his staff made a short presentation detailing the key points of the Tamoran economic proposals to Phuebra.

We would like to divide the plan into three categories, so with your permission I would begin talking about the first:

1.   Government grants given by Tamora, these are funds that will not be non-repayable by Phuebra and will part of our religious obligation by Tamora and the constituent federated kingdom of Altai as a Manist nation and a Muslim kingdom respectively:

A.   200 new busses manufactured in Tamora every year (for five years) will begin for free to Phuebran local authorities. The total cost will be 100 mil dinars/USD. This will allow your capital and other major cities to have public transport that will allow your population to move around in decent conditions.
B.   300 mil dinars/usd investment in the water supply of the capital and/or other cities in Phuebra over the course of five years.
C.   200 mil dinars/usd for the construction or renovation of Islamic schools or those that are in accordance with Islamic jurisprudence. Since we know that a significant part of Phuebra’s population speaks Arabic, we can provide, free of charge, teachers that will teach in Arabic in those schools until you train the necessary staff.
D.   Free tuition for 5000 thousand Phuebrans that want to get a degree as a teacher in Tamora and then return to teach in Phuebra. We would be covering the costs with transportation, accommodation as well as other extra curriculum activities regarding the religious needs (going to pilgrimages to Mecca etc).
E.   300 mil dinars/usd investment, over the course of five years, in the roads of Phuebran cities in order to get the infrastructure of the cities in the process of rebuilding.
F.   100 mil usd to the local Muslim and Manist communities that they will be able to use to fund the construction of religious temples and mosques.

The total estimate cost of the proposed grants above 1 billion dinars/usd spread over a five year period.

2.   Investments made by various wealth funds from Tamora, these will be  investments where we expect to have a return on investment but over a very long period of time and also respect the sharia jurist prudence on moral investments:


A.   Construction of a 500 MW gas power plant at a total cost of 500 mil dinars/usd with estimated construction taking two years. We hope here two also build a second such plant with funding from other MidAranye or OPEN states but a minimum of one will be certainly built.
B.   Construction of apartment buildings which will have 20.000 apartments in total which will be rented at very low costs to Phuebrans. We would be working with local religious organizations to determine who are most in need of such accommodation. The total cost is estimated at 500 million dinars/usd and construction will be done over the course of five years.

The total estimate of the investments above is 1 billion dinars/usd spread over a five year period.

3.   Private investments made by our businesses. Now obvious we cannot control them and these are just estimated based on the talks we have had with them and the interests they  have shown so far:

A.   Investments in the acquisition of agricultural land and the necessary agricultural machinery necessary to work that land to modern standards – 200 mil dinars/usd
B.   Textile factories: 50 mil dinars/usd
C.   Mining, we understand that Phuebra has gold, several Tamoring mining businesses are interested acquiring mining rights or joint ventures with local companies- 250 mil dinars/usd.
D.   Furniture manufacturing factories since Phuebra has access to cheap wood – 50 mil dinars/usd
E.   Forest land and wood processing factories – 200 mil dinars/usd
F.   Media (newspapers , TV channelsetc) -50 mil dinars/usd
G.   Heavy industry – 200 mil dinars/usd.
H.   The estimate total values of the investments at over 1 billion dinars/usd. Also please note that we expect these investments to bring many jobs for the Phuebran economy which would increase the living standards  of the people.

To summarize, we are looking at a 1bil dinar/usd grant (nonrefundable) and two billions dinars/usd in investments over the course of several years. "



After the presentation was finished Sheik Ahmad al-Afifi resumed:

“Before you tell me your opinion of the economic plan you’ve just seen, please allow me to approach another topic.

I will be frank, brother, since that is how friends should speak to each other. As you might be aware, Tamora has experienced various forms of sanctions from many states because we stick to our traditions and our institutions. We have to be careful when dealing aboard because quite easily things turn against us with foreign governments placing sanctions on us and ruining our businesses and even go so far as to resort to asset seizures  as we have recently seen in Seaforth. Even the Ardian Council has placed sanctions on us and they could easily place more sanctions in the future. I know that Phuebra wanted to join the Ardian Council as soon as possible but they rejected your application. That worries us since, as I said the Ardian Council is not an institution that is friendly to us.

My suggestion, brother, would be for Phuebra to follow a different path, one of neutrality that does not entangle itself with organizations such as SANE or the Ardian Council.

Before you say no, let me explain some more. Many nations, including Quintelia, Achkaerin and Rokkenjima, see Phuebra as poor state of either little importance that they can manipulate at will or a state they can just carve out for themselves in all but name. I do not mean to offend but merely to state facts. Djerb on the other hand is different, we do not care that Phuebra is poor and we see more than just a country torn by war. We see a nation that is heavily Muslim where a Muslim is either HoS or HoG. Your religion matters to us and as HoG with such a Muslim population your word carries weight in Tamora and MidAranye. Phuebra can play a role in the Manist-Muslim cooperation that Djerb has been pushing for with Abydos. It can do so much more thanks to its proud religious heritage and its current values that it has and shares with MidAranye. And I believe that a position of neutrality will also assure the Buddhist part of Phuebra since regardless of the excellent relations we hope Phuebra will develop with Tamora and other MidAranye states it will not be drawn into any military alliance of any sort. Just so we are clear, we are only talking about political neutrality. All should invest in Phuebra, be they Rokkenjiman, Helusian or whatever their heart is. Phuebra needs as much money as it can get.

So what do you say, brother?"