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Chapter 346 The Only Thing That Can Stop Eden Is... Their Televisions!?

Following China’s proposal, the Russian ambassador also gave their proposal. It was along much the same lines, but was phrased in a different way and suggested in a slightly more aggressive tone.

“Does anyone else wish to speak?” Ambassador Aboulatta asked, but was met with a resounding silence.

It was strange, since America was very opinionated in the UNSC and tended to hog the limelight whenever the slightest opening was left for them to do so. And considering that their historical competitors, China and Russia, had spoken, it was doubly strange.

“Since there are no other proposals, let us vote on the ones before us. First to be voted on is the proposal submitted to the council by the honorable ambassador from the Republic of Eden, Madame Foster,” Amr said, then cast his own vote.

One by one, votes started being cast by the UNSC member nations.

……

Back in Eden.

January Lilungulu and his father were recent immigrants to Eden from Tanzania. They had arrived thanks to the Coeus Foundation’s “Dreamer” program, and Lilungulu’s father had been lucky enough to get a job working at a Hephaestus assembly factory, working on the line to manufacture a number of products that were on the sanction list.

Today, he and his father, who had taken a day off from work, were sitting in front of their television, just two more of the innumerable people watching the broadcast of the UN Security Council’s emergency session on their local news program. The house they were in was new, and bought at cost with a low-interest, long-term loan that was offered to new immigrants by the Coeus Foundation, and the cost of goods in Eden was also fairly low, which had given the two of them a brand-new lease on life compared to what they had before in Tanzania.

Many people in Eden, both natives and recent immigrants alike, were flourishing, even under the sanctions. Many things that had been expensive in the past, due to currency exchange rates and import/export tariffs, were now cheap, and the quality of the goods produced in the Hephaestus assembly factories was even higher than things imported from more “industrialized” nations in the past.

The same was even more true for the people who had gotten jobs in those assembly factories, like Lilungulu’s father had. But there was a certain respect given to those workers over and above the workers in almost any other industry, which let them hold their heads high in pride. And the education subsidies that Edenian schools offered students all the way from preschool to postgraduate degree programs ensured that the children of immigrants and native citizens alike would only be in better and better positions than the generations that came before them.

After all, the sanctions would be temporary, and once they were lifted, most of the assembly workers would need to find other ways of earning an income as the “rightful owners” of the patents for the goods currently being produced would likely take over the manufacturing of them.

All of the current economic and population stimuli that Eden was currently experiencing were a result of the decisions made by Aron and Alexander in order to increase the number of high-paying jobs, lower the unemployment rate, and increase the Edenian citizens’ happiness. After all, content citizens weren’t likely to declare revolutions and overthrow governments.

But not everyone in Eden was merry after the sanctions were imposed. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced out of their comfort zones and jobs that had previously relied on export industries, or were displaced by the government buying their familial properties in order to turn them into new farms.

If any group existed in Eden that would want their government to comply with the international community’s demands, it would be those disenfranchised people.

However, things were even looking up for them, thanks in large part to Alexander’s continued campaign of forging diplomatic and trade ties with other nations suffering under the same unfair yoke as Eden, and for different, but still bullshit, reasons. As the sanctioned nations drew closer to each other, exchanging goods, technologies, and even citizens, more and more of those disenfranchised Edenians began to slowly recover their previous lifestyles.

And with Panoptes and Nyx in charge of monitoring them, they were the first to be given the opportunities to restore their previous lifestyles if they were dissatisfied with the recent changes.

As for those that had been disenfranchised, poor, and so on before the imposition brought on Eden by the UN-backed sanctions, they had also been provided with opportunities to lift themselves up and into a comfortable life. They were provided with interest-free loans, job-specific education programs, various grants, and much, much more, all of which came from the Coeus Foundation in cooperation with the various related Edenian government ministries.

For example, Coeus provided funding to the Ministry of Agriculture in the form of co-signing guarantees on loans offered by the government, with the stipulation that they be used to buy land and rehabilitate it into farms. Once someone was offered an interest-free farming subsidy loan, they would then be given a place in a Coeus Trade School, where they would be taught how to farm, then assigned as a worker on an existing farm for hands-on experience from planting to harvesting during the loan approval process. It was all very efficient and guaranteed minimal wastage and maximum results.

The new government’s efficient handling of economic and interior issues ensured that anyone living in Eden that had the drive to work hard would receive educational and financial support from the various government institutions. It was made very clear through daily government propaganda that the programs were available and in place for anyone that wanted a better life to receive one.

But for those who chose to not work hard and simply wanted to live off the government’s charity, they were given three chances to change their mind. If they chose not to accept the government’s various outreach programs—none of which were willing to harbor malingerers or the lazy—the government would simply stop offering them of its own accord. The programs would remain available, and the people would still be welcome to apply for them in the future, but they would have to ask for them instead of being offered them.

When all of the new initiatives were combined with a highly motivated, angry populace, the country would naturally grow faster after the sanctions than before. The citizens were enraged that they were being looked down upon and bullied by nations that were proud of their arrogance and threw their weight around with relative impunity, and it showed in the high adoption rate of the new programs.

But today, the entire nation of Eden had ground to a halt as nearly every Edenian citizen, like Lilungulu and his father, had been glued to their television, phone, and computer screens, watching the UN Security Council’s broadcast of their emergency session regarding plans to deal with the visitors. They all wanted to know what their country was going to propose, and whether or not they would once again be ignored.

And from the looks of things, being ignored was likely to be the best outcome for the fledgling nation.