Difference between revisions of "South Jutean cultural values"

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Over the centuries of life far away from their ancestral homelands, including under foreign rule, South Juteans have been careful to maintain their cultural heritage from the tropical island of Jute, adapted to suit the differences in climate and local ecology where needed.

Preference for urban environments

Entirely unlike Jute, and also unlike Gfiewistan and Lufasa, where the countryside is culturally valued is seen as the stronghold of national culture that preserved local traditions and values the most or even generally seen as the better, more authentic place to live in, in South Jute it is the city life that is treated as the most desirable.

90 % of the South Jutean population (not counting people who have [[Mermelian]|Mermelia] citizenship) lives in Laina, and immigration from the countryside is steady. Most people moving also do so voluntarily, as soon as possible, rather than reluctantly, out of economic necessity alone. This is also a large contrast to Jute, with its village culture which even residents of larger cities generally attempt to uphold.

Origin

The origin of this very urban culture are complex, and can be traced back to various historical causes and developments influencing the heritage of Island Jute culture. According to oral tradition, already during the initial arrival of Juteans to what would become South Jute there was a pervasive sense that for the sake of collective safety and welfare it would be best to always remain as one in a single settlement. It is said that for a long time few people ever voluntarily left the growing village that would later become Laina, instead doing it mostly only due to banishment.

On top of that, living together rather than spread apart was seen as a better way to preserve and nurture their cultural and religious heritage, especially in a foreign environment with a very different climate. Knowledge of practices, experiences, activities, rites and stories could be shared and built upon more easily. With more people to keep it all alive it would not be lost as easily in case the often harsher weather and work started preoccupying e.g. those farming more than it had on the tropical island. And so the division of labor in a town allowing some people to dedicate themselves to cultural and religious work became important, as their religion encouraged the time-intensive study of mathematics and other more academic pursuits for which many people now had much less time.

There were exceptions, with some traveling further up the Ersaj River Laina was located on, to the lands of modern-day Lufasa, although it remains unclear why this initially happened. Lufasan oral tradition and stories give no indication, it might have been due to disagreements, as it was commin on the island of Jute where they had all come from, but it might also simply have been the hope for better land with more space.

A disastrous double epidemic in about 475 AD that saw a large number of the population of Laina infected, a subsequent huge fire that destroyed most of the town and many of the survivors fleeing up the river to the early Lufasan settlements is said to have done little to change the minds of those remaining South Juteans. Their culture once again threatened with extinction, they saw little more reason in dispersing themselves than before, or in abandoning a convenient settlement site that had also become culturally significant to them.

Thus, Laina was built up again, and few other villages found outside of it, mostly again by banished people. In fact, the association of the countryside with outcasts will have become gradually stronger over time, further reinforcing the cultural preference of more urban living.

The huge emigration back towards the island of Jute that began after word that the ancestral tropical homelands were free once again had reached Laina in the 11th century and saw many emigrate was another event that further reinforced a collective sense of needing to stay together among the remaining inhabitants.

Impact of colonialism

With the beginning of colonization by an overseas empire in the 18th century, many Juteans were forcibly brought back to Laina to work on construction sites around the town with which the town was gradually turned into a trade hub and military base.

While it was a hard time for any town dweller, the situation in the countryside was arguably worse, as South Jutean villagers were forced to work much, or in many cases also all of their time on larger estates, often isolated from their community and having to endure attempts to be assimilated to the new culture of the colonizers. In Laina, workers were often living together in collective quarters and could also spend time together with their cultural relatives, which helped both get through the hard times, and once the language barrier was broken down, e.g. stories could be exchanged and religious topics discussed.

Additionally, the new buildings in the city did make it look more appealing to both locals and those living in the countryside, further increasing the draw Laina had on villagers. The fact that South Juteans viewed themselves as largely having done the construction themselves, even if involuntarily and with little to no recognition by the colonial government, also filled many with pride. The increased trade as well as the many other new institutions also provided welcome alternatives to farm labor.

After the end of the colonial regime in the late 19th century, when South Juteans could take ownership of the port, trade companies and the many representative buildings such as town hall, opera hall and temples, the attractiveness of the city was further increased, as a shining city, full of life, culture and economic opportunities. Many young people, either born in Laina or moved in from the countryside, founded new trade or other companies, seeking to get rich, or at least live comfortably enough to be able to enjoy all that the city had to offer.

With the help of overseas capital, both trade and urban cultural institutions were soon having a new golden age, with new neighborhoods appearing where business owners and workers lived, while life in the countryside was only slow to improve, with the introduction of labor-saving industrialization only happening gradually starting in the 1900s.

After independence

With the regaining of independence the tradition of community assemblies was revived and soon reformed into a representative democracy that managed to limit excesses, prevent corruption and exploitation from becoming widespread and build up inclusive institutions and regulations that gave workers, traders and investors all a guaranteed minimum of safety, which further boosted the desirability of Laina as a place for work and trade and helped sustain growth, both of the population and the economy.

Until the 1970s, with the signing of the treaty that established co-sovereignty between Laina and Mermelia regarding the lands of South Jute outside of the capital and its harbor, recurrent clashes and conflicts with Mermelian settlers and officials were another major factor that made South Jutean villagers often desire moving to the free and safe capital.

As a result of all these factors, even today many young inhabitants of the countryside leave their home as soon as possible, often leaving the older generation behind and the economy of the villages undeveloped. Only recently, with the treaty having restored peace in the countryside, has there has been a growing movement for newcomers to Laina to not cut ties and to keep regularly visiting and helping out in their home villages. Gradually, they are learning to appreciate village culture as being equally valuable, and as a great source of inspiration for new kinds of art and technology that is proving popular in the city as well.

Environmentalism

One other major part of this heritage is the religion of Saandism, which aside from encouraging research into and discussions about math and astronomy as well as philosophical, self-reflective deliberations about the world, society and one’s place in it also places an emphasis on living in harmony with nature.

This harmony does not entail any glorification or deification, but rather a peaceful co-existence based on respect for both the bounty of nature as well as the dangers lurking in it, as a source of life as well as a possible threat to it. Attempts to banish or suppress nature would be equally as disastrous as careless, naive underestimating the power and possible ruthlessness of nature. In modern terms this could be termed a type of proto-environmentalism.

With South Jute being significantly more urban, the need for green spaces alongside streets developed to demonstrate such a healthy relationship with nature with the appropriate balance between the two extremes. They were also needed as communal meeting places where people could meet to discuss e.g. philosophy, mathematics and religion. Beaches, the traditional meeting place in tropical Jute were too far away from Laina and many neighborhoods also too far away from river banks.

With the heightened need of agriculture in South Jute in comparison to Jute that could rely mostly on gathering wild fruits and small-scale forest gardening came increased knowledge of planting and growing crops, trees and flowers that could be applied to horticulture and the creation of parks that were constructed around town. Thus, harmony with nature and later environmentalism more generally was understood to be expressed above all in gardening, not just preserving nature, but also helping it grow and form it in the process.

This also influenced the culture more generally, impacting among other things for example philosophical views about nature as something to be ideally maintained by humans rather than left to its own devices, although with growing awareness of ecological knowledge this has been somewhat diminished. It also added to the already widespread idea of the city as the more desirable place, where nature was tamed and under control, existing in harmony with humans, as opposed to the rougher, often dangerous wilderness outside of it.