You are listening to Earth National Radio.
We are pleased to present this very special announcement from the Great Uniter herself, Comrade Chairman Kuvira.
Good evening, people of the Earth nation. It is I, Kuvira, and I have come to speak to you tonight not merely as a general, a revolutionary, and a patriot, but as a scholar and a teacher of revolutionary science. A subject we must never forget lest we succumb to baser emotions, the project of our liberation - of the worldâs liberation - is a work of science and reason. Our labor of love is also a labor of history. We are not merely artists sitting in front of a blank canvas - we are the auteurs of a delicate and ancient struggle. The struggle I am referring to, of course, is the class struggle.
In all of history, we have striven to overcome our fellow man in the name of our class interests - representatives of our communities, our faiths, our cultures, and even of our prestigious families. All people in history have understood intuitively that for a nation to âthriveâ it is necessary for that nation to steal and to exploit - to take from others. And whomever you take from, you give back to your class in equal measure, returned to palatial estates that grow in size and power with the wealth they extract from others. The ultimate expression of this power, the ultimate goal of all who have partaken of this historic struggle, is known as the rule of Government.
For most of history, a cycle has prevailed over the fate of all people. The cycle of dynasties, of the rise and fall of empires, and of the destruction of old land and the sowing of new. Long-dead places where ruins stand were once the province of power - and with time, they, too, did succumb and crumble. And all along this cycle has been characterized by the same thing: the class struggle, the rule and the conquest of man by man.
But in our modern era, a miracle has occurred. We have developed a power our forebears could only dream of: the awesome power of industrial civilization. Suddenly, the productive forces that were once the domain of precious few craftsmen and laborers have become the domain of the merchant class - those who live by trade and commerce. To own factories is to own the means of advancing every aspect of society, of annihilating Want and Need where one wills, and of accumulating incredible wealth. This ownership class, these bourgeoisie - they are the masters of our industrialized world.
Does one require proof? Look at the other nations of the world. A hundred years ago, the Great War set aflame and burnt to ashes the last vestiges of the ancient orders. The Fire Nation, ruled by a feudal emperor, could only resolve the contradictions between its nascent bourgeoisie class and the aristocratic class by joining them in an alliance against the other nations of the world.
Ask yourselves, what did it mean that the Fire Nation discovered such powerful technology before the rest of the world? Iâll tell you: it meant that there came to be in the Fire Nation a class of wealthy shippers, owners of fabulous navies that could move against the winds and currents with the power of fire, whose commercial exploitations around the world brought wealth and power back to the Fire Nation. Make no mistake, this is the development responsible for the rise of the Fire Nation. And this development introduced in turn a struggle for power, between those traditionally powerful aristocrats - and the newly powerful bourgeoisie.
This conflict could only be resolved one of two ways: one class destroys the other and claims the Fire Nation for itself - in the process tearing their nation asunder. Or, the two classes join as one, under the aegis of the Fire Lord, and resolve as allies to plunder the rest of the world together. And this latter case is what came to pass.
The resulting Great War all but annihilated the old order, and ironically the Phoenix Lord did not rise from the ashes, but the rule of the bourgeoisie did. The Air Nomads and their ancient order - destroyed, represented now by a reclusive and valuable colonial estate in Republic City harbor. The Water Tribes - driven to the brink, now ruled by Varrick Global Industries. The Fire Nation - ostensibly defanged, but preserving all of its commercial attachments to its far-flung colonies, and now sitting comfortable, distant, and aloof among its ill-gotten gains.
And what was the Earth Kingdom left with? A pathetic government that preserved the status of a corrupt aristocracy at the expense of the entire nationâs self-determination. For the past two hundred years, our nation has been beaten down into the mud. And even when the Great War ended, no reparations came and no justice was forthcoming. Our people had been taken into slavery and brutalized by the merciless, exploitative colonizers of the Fire Nation, and the reward our people had for their diligence was to be forced to allow the Fire Nation settlers to continue their business. How many thousands of Earth Kingdom families were forced out of their homes, keys still in hands, to make way for Fire Nation colonizers? How many of those Fire Nation colonizers ever paid back what they had stolen? As shameful as it is, this is our history. It seems only too fitting the final Earth monarch was killed in her throne room by an unhinged maniac.
However, the antidote to the shame of our nation is not the same vulgar pride the foreign imperialists cultivated. It is humility, for through humility do we recognize the true cause of this shame. In fact, the Fire Nation is not composed of a superior breed of people. That conceit is nothing more than the arrogance of petty conquerors. And the fall of our Queen was no reflection on our people: it was merely a reflection of the decrepit standing of her waning, soon-to-be-irrelevant class.
Look at how the foreign nations took responsibility when she was killed, and anarchy ruled our fates. All they cared about was lining their pocketbooks, and maintaining their precious business relationships. The richest woman in the Earth Kingdom, Suyin Beifong, elected to recline within her metal domes to continue profiting off of trade with the outside world. None of these events are rooted in anything supernatural, or uncanny, but in the simple, base reality of the historical class struggle. It was the class struggle that placed the Earth nation in this position, and that is why our true struggle is not against the people of the Fire Nation, the Water Tribes, or the colonized territories, but against the bourgeoisie.
It is the international bourgeoisie that we stand against, ultimately. After all, it was the international bourgeoisie that sought to use the fall of the Earth Kingdom as an opportunity to crowbar in their own business interests. They were happy to support the pacification of the Earth Kingdom insofar as the minerals they sought kept flowing into the factories spread throughout the colonized territories. Any detail was perfectly irrelevant to them as long as it did not affect the bottom line. President Raiko, Varrick, the White Lotus - all content with the project of our liberation while it seemed they could profit from it. Suyin Beifong, alone, opposed it - perhaps out of distaste for a little competition.
Keep in your mind that the moment we demonstrated the remotest inkling that we sought the liberation of our people for our own good, their knives were out. All of a sudden, they spoke of a Second Great War, of regime change, of the âgoodâ of the âglobal community.â The only good they spoke of, my friends and my comrades, was their own good. The good of the international bourgeoisie.
It is this enemy we struggle against, and this enemy over which we shall triumph as a united, liberated, and decolonized people. We are all out of time for tonight, but please tune in tomorrow, when I will be answering questions that listeners like you would like to Call In over the radio. After all, we now have electricity and telephone service here in Ba Sing Se, the proud achievement of our comrades at the newly nationalized Ba Sing Se Telecom & Electrics Utility Corporation. Why not treat yourself to a little of it?