Our Present Crisis
Twilight Sparkle let out a heavy sigh. She had been one of the few diplomats on the international scene who had recognized early on that there would be no appeasing of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Whilst the other nations of the world attempted to appease the appetite of the madman, Twilight Sparkle had understood that at some point the world would have to fight.
Or perhaps it was merely because Twilight Sparkle had never been one to accept realpolitik. For a mare with such a fierce sense of right and wrong, compromising with evil was never an option she had wanted to entertain. But it would prove to be an option she would have to entertain.
Twilight Sparkle was far from the most influential diplomat on the European scene, but through her fierce morality and her clear moral compass, Twilight Sparkle came to find her voice on the international scene. When Italy invaded Absyinnia in 1936, directly contravening the will of the League of Nations, Twilight Sparkle gave what some consider to be one of her greatest speeches as a diplomat.
Addressing the matter of larger nations invading smaller nations to only minimal global condemnation, Twilight Sparkle took the international community to task for its failure to protect the weak and the innocent. In her speech, she asked:
“When, and why, has it become acceptable in this world, for the strong to bully the weak? For the strong to attack the weak without retaliation? For the strong to flout and spit upon the dream of international friendship, as was once embodied in this League of Nations?
Our country joined this league in the hopes that there may have been found friendship among all nations, both strong and weak. But in Equestria we have also come to the realization that sometimes friendship must be fought for. That sometimes friendship must be protected. And when the strong claim dominion over the weak, such is when friendship in the international community begins to die a slow death, suffocated under the greed and lust of the powerful.
Why will we not help Ethiopia? Is it because the problem is far enough away from our lands that we will wash our hands of it? And if we are to wash our hands of the Ethiopian people, how many more peoples will we give up to the whims of tyrants? When will this international community finally stand for the friendship of nations? When will we finally say that the friendship and peace of nations is important enough that it is worth fighting for?
And when, shall we stop compromising with the forces of evil, and instead face them head on, as is our duty not only legally under the convenant of this League, but also morally as citizens of this earth?”
Twilight Sparkle showed exceptional courage during this speech. Even as almost every diplomat in the League of Nations jeered and mocked, she continued on. She asked the questions that the diplomats of the world were afraid to ask themselves. How many more peoples would fall to tyrants, before the international community acted? When would the international community stand up for the dignity of every citizen of the earth?
Not that she received much credit for the speech afterwards. Most of the European diplomats were intensely displeased with the performance, not only for the fact that it called them out for their lack of action in the protection of Absyinnia, but also because of the fact that there was an implied critique of all colonialism to be found within the speech.
One of the British diplomats at the League, Lord Haversmith, ran up to Twilight Sparkle after the speech and informed her that
“Her Majesty’s government neither appreciated nor expected the Equestrian performance today at the League of Nations. Our government would advise the ponies not to repeat such a performance again”.
The French diplomat was more blunt “I think these ponies need to go home to their magical land of frolicking and flying lions and talking zebras, and let human beings deal with the issues of humanity. We have nothing to learn from santicimonious equines.”
But whilst the international diplomatic community may not have appreciated the speech, there were many ordinary people in the world who did. From citizens of nations that felt threatened by attack, such as the Chinese, the Czechs, the Poles, and the Griffons, to the more moralistic citizens of nations such as the US and UK, many ordinary people across the world were touched by Twilight Sparkle’s speech. Twilight Sparkle was standing alone, much like Winston Churchill in the British Parliament, as the sole voice of morality and intervention. And in the process, she gave voice to many millions of people across the world who had become voiceless.
Indeed, to many educated citizens in colonial India and Africa, Twilight Sparkle was increasingly becoming a hero. And perhaps most importantly, Twilight Sparkle was becoming a symbol of hope to Germany’s beleaguered Jewish community, in a time when there was precious little hope for the Jews to cling on to.
Almost alone among the nations of the world, Equestria began to open its borders to the influx of Jewish refugees. It was not a decision taken lightly by the Equestrian government, and it was not one that was much appreciated by the Unicorn dominated Equestrian Parliament. Indeed, the Equestrian Parliament was rather steadfast in refusing to pass legislation that would open Equestria borders to Jewish refugees from Germany and other parts of Europe. Many unicorns felt they had enough competition in their own country with the entrepreneurial earth ponies. They had heard from European anti-semites at the diplomatic and society parties of Canterlot about how the Jews had a proclivity both for money and conspiracy.
Indeed, one of the sad things that will be recalled of this era was that anti-semitism was not limited merely to the Germans or the Poles, but rather was a ubiquitous sentiment across Europe. In nations as far afield and as far removed from Germany as Canada, the Prime Minister there, Mackenzie King, was well known to hold anti-semitic viewpoints, such that he severely restricted any migration of Jewish refugees to the shores of that country. France, Britain, and America certainly had their share of anti-semites as well. Indeed, anti-semitic comment had become a somewhat ubiquitous topic of discussion in high society parties not only in Europe, but across the world.
The Jews were an easy target. Marginalised in many countries, and often being confined to ghettoes, the Jews were a race much maligned and easily subject to suspicion. This suspicion manifested itself in anti-semitic tracts such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Because of their isolation, it was easy for the less educated and disadvantaged in society to imagine that they were somehow plotting amongst themselves, and plotting against the broader society.
Perhaps that was what made Princess Celestia’s decision so amazing in hindsight. She fought through all the prejudice of the era to grant the Jews one of their few safe havens in the world. It was an increasingly rare show of leadership from the royal palace. For Equestrian opinion was certainly no more racially tolerant than any other nation’s.
Indeed, the truth about Equestria was that it had a long and sordid history of racial intolerance and hatred. It seemed as if the Equestrian ideology of friendship only applied if you were a technicolored pony. For all the other races, like the zebras, the griffons, and buffalo, and the humans, there was a huge dollop of prejudice and hate.
The zebras had seen some of the worst of the hatred which Equestria had to offer. What made their plight particularly tragic was that they, much like the Jews, were also fleeing from genocide in the Elephant Kingdom. And, much like the Jews, Princess Celestia had granted the zebra population extraordinary clemency to enter the country as a place of refuge. When they arrived, however, they began to see the ugly side of ponydom. For the ponies were a conservative and often suspicious people. They saw their country as having a sacred balance or harmony between the pony races, a balance that they believed would only be upset by the presence of outsiders. When the zebras began to arrive in Equestria seeking refuge, they were rapidly confined to ghettoes inside the major cities where they were harassed by police, swindled by the earth pony businessmen, and at times attacked by racist mobs led by unicorn firebrands.
The traditional religion, cooking, and medicine of the zebras rapidly came to be viewed as voodoo by the pony citizens of Equestria, who believed that the zebras were concocting spells and curses to harm ponykind. Movements developed to ban the zebra religion and culture altogether. Ponies began to blame calamities in their own lives and in the world around them on zebra voodoo. Soon enough, unicorn firebrands began to assemble lynch mobs to hang zebras in various cities and towns who were believed to be concocting spells and curses.
Twilight Sparkle had experienced this sort of racism firsthand against her friend Zecora. Zecora was a zebra who had fled the ghettoes of Manehattan to live by herself outside the small town of Ponyville. For many years, her only interaction with the town of Ponyville had been once a week when she entered town to buy groceries and basic supplies for herself. Whenever she did enter, the paranoid and prejudiced citizens of Ponyville would board up their doors and hide in fear of what they saw as her spells and voodoo. It was an uneasy truce between Zecora and Ponyville, one that was bound to be broken eventually.
The catalyst which almost led to the lynching of the zebra was when she was accused of having cursed Twilight Sparkle and her friends with various afflictions, including voice changes in Fluttershy and the removal of Pinkie Pie’s ability to speak. In many other towns in Equestria. Such an event would have proven sufficient for the lynching of Zecora in any other town in Equestira, and indeed, when Twilight and her friends approached the cottage of Zecora, their intentions were not kindly towards the zebra. It was ultimately Twilight Sparkle’s rationality and willingness to listen that allowed Zecora to prove that it had not been her who had cursed the ponies, and that indeed, a cure was to be found in her traditional medicine. It was a rare story of racial understanding in Equestria, and was one of the first occasions in which Twilight Sparkle proved herself to the Princess Celestia as a positive and wise leader.
It was now the Jews to which the hatred of the reactionary classes of Equestria turned toward. The unicorn classes in particular were already in a conservative mood. Feeling that their society was changing beyond recognition, the human Jews were merely another sign of the changes which were wrenching the country, and they became a rallying point for all those who just wanted to go back to the old days. The old days, when the only group which inhabited Equestria were ponies. The old days, before the human interferers had intruded upon the sacred balance and harmony of Equestria.
And once again, it was the Parliament which acted as a conduit, as Princess Celestia feared, for the worst impulses of ponydom. Whereas the rallying cry for racism against the Zebras had been the supposed voodoo practiced by that community, the rallying cry against the Jews soon became the idea that the Jews were spreading filth and disease across Equestria. For it was simply impossible for a pony to claim, as the Europeans did, that the Jews were holding an inordinate amount of control over society. It was impossible, because almost every Jewish refugee who now lived in Equestria lived in slums and ghettoes far away from the ponies and the main cities. And so the ponies came up with a way to hate them for their poverty and desperation. Soon, MPs in the Parliament and firebrands outside it began to accuse the Jews of spreading disease across the country as a result of the filthy conditions they lived in.
This attitude was epitomized by the speeches of the Unicorn MP Bastion Intolerance, who claimed in one of his speeches before Parliament that “The Jews live in some of the filithiest conditions ever seen in our country. They have no sense of hygiene, no sense of cleanliness, and no sense of self-dignity. Now I for one would be happy enough to let these filthy humans wallow in their own squalor, if but for the fact that they are now spreading their filthy disease to other ponies. Other ponies are falling sick because of these people! We now have cholera, dysentery, lice in our bodies, and a whole host of other ailments, which can be blamed on the filth of Jewry! The slums are spreading disease! For god’s sake, I ask this Parliament, and I ask the people of this country, clear out the filth in these slums!”.
Many ponies took Bastion at his word, and began to harass and attack the Jewish residents of these ghettoes. Racial attacks and slurs became a fact of life for many Jews in Equestria, as they came to realize that the ideals of friendship held hollow for those who were different.
The fact was that disease was spreading across Equestria, but it was not because of the Jews. It was because of the poverty which the Great Depression had wreaked across the landscape of Equestria. As was discussed earlier, the hardest hit race during the Depression was the Pegasi. With the shutdown of large numbers of weather factories, thousands, perhaps millions, of unemployed pegasi descended down to the ground level to beg, to squat, indeed, to just escape the wasteland that the old industrial heart of Equestria was becoming. Cities like Cloudsdale were becoming overrun with crime, disease, and starvation. The unicorns allocated precious little funding to relieve the suffering of the pegasi, preffering instead to build new monuments and commission new art within the confines of Canterlot.
The 20s had brought prosperity never before seen in Equestria, but, like many other nations, the 30s were bringing never before seen suffering to a once proud people. This suffering was brought home to Twilight Sparkle in a poignant way when her friend Rainbow Dash came to her one day sobbing. Asking what had happened, Rainbow Dash replied “they tore down Dad’s factory”.
For a pony as proud as Rainbow Dash was, it was truly a difficult thing to see the state of her old city of Cloudsdale. She was watching as a once proud race of industrial ponies were being slowly broken spiritually and emotionally, as the productive work which had once been their birthright was being stripped from them by the evils of a government that no longer saw worth in the work the pegasi did.
One pony that should have continued to be a source of pride for Equestria ought to have been Twilight Sparkle. For her bravery in facing the deceitful, calculating, and amoral world of 1930s world diplomacy was nothing short of spectacular. Twilight Sparkle had been the only diplomat to speak out at the Munich Conference against the defenestration and abandonment of the Czech Sudetenland. But her words had fallen on deaf ears.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried, far from it, she had been the only one who had tried to give voice to the concerns and fears of the Czechoslovakian nation, a nation which had not even been invited to the conference which was to decide the fate of its territory. Twilight had tried to speak with the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, but she found the Prime Minister to be almost in a naïve trance, insistent upon his belief that Hitler could be reconciled with a reasonable compromise.
Perhaps most importantly, she found the French and British simply unwilling to fight and die for the freedom of Czechoslovakia. And that, she thought, was what was most shameful about the whole affair. For Twilight Sparkle realized the old adage, that if you refuse to fight for the freedom of others against tyranny, there will be no one left to aid you when the tyrant turns his sights to your people. Chamberlain may have believed that Hitler only had reasonable and peaceful intentions towards the Czechs, but he was soon to be proven wrong in early 1939 when Hitler marched into Czechoslovakia to annex the entire country, with the minor exception of a Slovakian satellite state. Chamberlain only then finally came to realize that there would be no appeasement of Hitler. But despite this reluctant realization, Chamberlain never came to the emotional realization that the time had come to fight. And so even when the French and the British reluctantly plodded off to war, they would initially prove no help to their friends. It was only when Britain came under new leadership, that she would become willing to fight.
The European crisis was far from the only crisis on Twilight Sparkle’s watch. Rumour had it that the old foes of ponydom, the Dragons, had designs upon the Griffon kingdom. The whispers in Canterlot gave voice to even darker rumours, that the mind of the Griffon queen was being corrupted from within by the malign influence of a Draconoqui, who, having been offered fortune beyond his wildest dreams by the Dragon king, had been enlisted to destroy the Griffon Kingdom from within.
Twilight Sparkle remained a master of magic, and she was beginning to feel the tempo of magic on the Equestrian continent change in a most malign way. Dark magic was rising across the land, as the desperate and the greedy turned to extraordinary means to enforce their will. She could feel in her body that the tyrant Sombra remained alive, and she began to notice signs of corruption in the various unicorn wizards tasked with protecting the Equestrian Kingdom from the dark arts.
The power of magic was a reality which ponies had had to deal with since time immemorial. In contemporary Equestria, magic was mostly a tamed force used for creativity and convenience. And yet there continued to be the spectre of dark magic and evil spells which loomed over the continent. Luna knew of the dark arts first hand, as she in our jealousy had once dabbled in that which should not be dabbled with, and in the process was consumed by black magic, becoming the dreaded Nightmare Night. Seeing the corruption of her sister, and realizing that she alone could not combat the black arts, Princess Celestia, thousands of years before the time of Twilight Sparkle, had convened the Guardian Council, a secretive, elite group of the finest wizards and mages in Equestria. Together, their task was to guard against black magic in the world, and to eliminate those who began to dabble in its use. Sombra had been a Guardian once, but realizing the power of his magical talent, he began to dabble in the dark arts in an uncontrolled lust for power, and soon became a dark mage. Needless to say, it was dark news if a Guardian was corrupted by the powers of evil. For a Guardian was powerful enough that few could stop him.
Twilight Sparkle feared this was happening to certain members of the Guardian Council, but she, and Luna, could do nothing but keep a closer eye on certain Guardians for the time being.
Twilight Sparkle knew however, that war was coming to the lands of Equestria, and that in order for the nation to survive, it would have to rally its old allies under one banner of freedom and friendship. It was for this reason that Twilight Sparkle set out with the Guardian wizard Boctath to the Griffon kingdom, in order to strengthen the resolve of the Griffon queen, Matilda. As she set forth to the Griffon kingdom, Twilight Sparkle could increasingly feel the spectre of dark magic. This was not quite going to be a social call.