The Lives of Bergonians, from Birth to Death
Bergonians want well-organized, simple lives. They see nothing wrong with reliance on public institutions for support throughout their lives, so long as the institutions work well and fairly. An efficient safety net for all is the first priority, something not incompatible with human freedom. By freeing people from anxiety, a safety net enhances personal freedom. A Bergonian looks at the stress in an average American's life and asks, "How can a harried, fearful man call himself a free man?" Since Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed the Four Freedoms, Americans have altogether forgotten the "freedom from fear." No Alger Hiss ideals of ambition and fortune, no ideal of constant development, of incessant increase. Instead their ideal includes these five elements:
A Note on National Institutions: Any description of Bergonian life has to recognize the pervasive role played by the institutions created by Bergonian socialism. Most significant of these is the Peoples Health Service, the monster bureaucracy that administers the nation's health care. The minimum income program, which includes all income replacement and supplement programs, including temporary and permanent disability, are supervised by the National Income Funds. |
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From Birth to Death in Bergonia:
 Childbirth:
the birth ceremony,
Upbringing,
School,
also see
education,
Community
service
Four
years of free
College,
Reaching
adulthood:
the public welcoming.
Mandatory
Community Service: 14 months.
Marriage,
Work,
also see how people get
paid,
Vacation,
Retirement,
Disability
& old age,
Death |
|
The Evolving Rights of Women in Bergonia
The radical wing of the Mountain Lion Party in the 1850s, 60s and 70s espoused universal suffrage for all men and women. After the Mountain Cat revolution in 1856, several states gave women the vote, but after John Rarsa established his dictatorship in 1866, the vote was restricted to men, and women did not get the vote again until after Rarsa left office in 1885. By 1920, every state had granted women the right to vote.
The legal codes adopted by the various states during the 1840s all recognized a woman's equal rights to property. However, the matter of marital property and inheritance laws remained tilted in favor of the man in most states until the 1910s and 1920s.
The 1931-34 revolution established full equal rights for women, in the economic sphere as well as the political. But the reality of women's advancement lagged decades behind the slogans and the laws.
Women made great strides in certain fields, including education, academia, medicine (women comprise the majority of physicians in Bergonia, as in Russia), accounting, journalism, and the performing arts. But in industry, the crafts, and other "male dominated" occupations, resistance to women workers was immense.
Post-revolutionary socialists of course will claim their revolution rectified all injustices, including those inflicted against women. But even in a country as well disposed to gender equality as Bergonia, sexist attitudes still prevail among many men. There remains sexist assumptions about women doing hard physical jobs and joining the military. Some women still have to hear unwelcome sexist language. And more than a few women have suffered discrimination in promotions and reassignments.
In the context of worker-owned collectives it has been particularly difficult for women to assert work-place harassment and discrimination cases. Many decisions about promotions and reassignments are collective decisions, so many discriminatory actions are at least endorsed by the majority of coworkers. This problem of competing claims by equality and democracy remains unresolved, even though the laws of every state allows anyone to file a workplace discrimination claim on the grounds of their gender or ethnic identity.
Overt sexism, past and present, fortunately has been delimited by the prevailing culture of politeness, so that very rarely do women suffer catcalls, insults, propositions and other harassment by strange men in Bergonia. This same culture of restraint has never condoned wife-beating, and in Tan Era times a woman had the legal right to leave her husband and take the children if he abused her. Bergonian women lost these and other rights when the Europeans colonized their country.
Bergonia elected its first female president in 1976, Alasi Tanatarie, SFP, who had been the tough, no-nonsense governor and SFP political boss in the big state of Cuecha. She served two successful terms. The leader of one of the nation's three political parties, the Harmony Alliance, is Carmen Postoa, fiery, beautiful, a former actress.
The Lives of Bergonians, From Birth to Death
The Peoples Health Service offers generous pre-natal care and counseling. In general, Bergonia tries to emulate the French system of caring and monitoring the heath of infants from the pre-natal stage all the way through school, to catch illness and developmental delays as early as possible. PHS relies quite a bit on midwives, who practice in hospitals alongside doctors and in clinics to examine & counsel pregnant women.
The birth ceremony is almost always held the day after the birth, where the family gathers with the parents in a special room at the hospital to hear the mother proclaim the child's name. A representative from the county registrar is on hand to formally record the name and execute the "Statement of Birth," which initiates the child's official, bureaucratic identity. A priest or someone special then blesses the child and conducts a prayer for long life and happiness. The family drinks a toast to the mother and the child, then present the mother a gift, e.g. a quilted blanket for the baby, and several songs are usually sung, and plenty of pictures are taken of the newborn and family. This ceremony evolved from the ancient Miradi birthing ceremony, but now everyone, including Europeans and Christians, universally celebrate in this way.
Like all post-industrial societies with large percentages of women in the workplace, Bergonia has its share of unmarried pregnancies. The mother is required under law to name a father or explain under oath why she cannot. This file is sealed and made part of the child's health record. This law gives the child knowledge of his or her paternal genetic stock, pertinent to modern medical care. The Peoples Health Service law does not recognize the legal right to confidentiality of basic health information, since people often need to know the health vulnerabilities of their blood relatives. The PHS database, which records the significant illnesses of everyone in the country, plays the main role in sharing this information. This universal approach to storing medical records and keeping track of who is related to whom yields a massive database for research and study purposes.
If no father signs the formal birth certificate, the local family court automatically issues a summons to the man named by the mother. A family counselor meets with the mother and the purported father. Either may ask for blood tests. The counselor tries to broker an agreement between the two. But the law confers on the counselor some judicial authority, allowing him to enter orders concerning paternity, custody, visitation and support. When he issues such temporary relief, the matter then gets referred to a regular family court judge. A standard formula determines the parameters of child support, and standard guidelines for visitation exist. The counselor can counsel and otherwise help the parents with any problem affecting the support and custody of the infant, and refer them for services. From any of his decisions either side may appeal to a judge for a formal hearing. Use of a counselor in the first instance helps expedite the process. At any time in the child's life if it becomes necessary for the mother or father to address issues of custody or support, they go to the family counselor first, and then to the family court. This automatically starts the process of support and shared parenting from the very beginning of the child's life.
At the time of birth the Peoples Health Service creates a medical file on the infant, both a hard copy and a computerized form. With a central medical record-keeping system, there is maintained for each individual a basic medical history. Any physician, therapist or nurse-practitioner who examines or treats a patient sends the record to the central system, and every treating physician will refer to it. It will follow the individual throughout his life.
Every custodian is expected to bring her infant to the pediatrics clinic at landmark intervals. Visits, inoculations and pediatric treatments are, of course, utterly free under the socialized system. The clinic tests every infant to catch any developmental delays as soon as possible and if necessary to develop appropriate treatment plans.
The National Welfare Funds give every child custodian vouchers for child care. The vouchers are not themselves sufficient to pay the entire cost of day care, and they are not intended to do so, but they help greatly, so that every family can afford day care. If a mother decides to stay at home and raise her children, she may keep a certain percentage of the voucher money, so that in effect the program subsidizes stay-at-home moms. The families who live in communes get to use all their vouchers for any child care cooperative they chose to organize.
Upbringing in Extended Families:
Since Bergonians do not often move far from home, they usually have the help of grandparents and relatives in raising their children. Many Bergonians take comfort in knowing that they live in the same town as their ancestors of hundred, perhaps thousands, of years. Young mothers and fathers have the immediate benefit of their own parents' & grandparents' experience in raising children. Most children can and do spend lots of time with their grandparents, aunts and uncles. It may not necessarily take a village to raise a child, but Bergonians do feel that it takes an entire extended family. Babysitting is rarely a problem with extended families. There are also often a large number of cousins in the neighborhood or in town. People in villages and smaller towns of course live in a series of consanguineous web.
No later than the 9th grade a child selects a general career path in one of several broad categories, either "industrial," "crafts," "science," "social sciences," or humanities. He or she may of course change directions at any time later.Education is discussed generally elsewhere. Most children attend daycare, all with a mandated program of skill teaching, similar to HeadStart in the U.S.
During the 10th or 11th grade, many children
spend a semester in another part of the country, living as an exchange student with a host family and attending school. Schools in different parts of the country (reflecting different linguistic groups) have paired off with each other and trade 15 and 16 year olds, making travel the only cost. Others go to schools in other parts of their home state.
Teaching Democracy: Every Bergonian high school student takes
two years of "Government"
class. Here
students are taught the skills of debate, writing reports and laws,
running for office and campaigning, participation in meetings, service
on committees, basic meeting procedure, and mediation skills. The
Bergonian do not use the term to mean
"government" verses "the private sector," but rather
in reference to governing and
self-governing as
skills that must be taught, like any other skill—it might be called
"the Art of Governing" or
the "skills of democracy."
It includes the Bergonian equivalent of what Americans mean both by
"management" in the private sector and "public administration" in the
public (both of which assume the military style of command and control,
with workers treated as naturally inert and easily disgruntled children
who need "motivation"), yet Bergonians do not readily distinguish
between public and private, and see it all as a matter of "democratic
administration." Bergonians don't like the term "management" at
all since it smacks of anti-democratic "bossism."
Juniors and seniors in high school elect councils that participate in the governing of the school. Even in elementary school, students are taught how to organize themselves in order to pursue group projects, such as plays, celebrations, gardens, and fund-raising.
Basic law, parliamentary procedure, and problem-solving are taught in all public schools along with government and civics. Students in high school and colleges are then expected to conduct their own meetings, trials and mediation.
In every city and county, the local government sponsors a public "welcoming" of all young people turning eighteen. The date differs from town to town, but normally it occurs in June. The ceremony includes the young people registering en masse to vote, and rising together to take an oath of citizenship. In the typical Bergonian pattern, there is a great dance afterwards. A little excessive drinking is tolerated on this occasion.
After graduation from public school, young men and women spend 14 months in community service. The public welcoming acknowledges this, and contains a welcome into the service, as well as the more dramatic welcome into adulthood. Various groups (including the political clubs) organize cadres of young volunteers to plant trees, monitor wildlife, work in nursing homes and with retarded children, assist the military in projects, and work in public gardens.
When the National Community Service was founded in 1940, the entire emphasis was on getting important work done for society's benefit. Now the Service meets a secondary goal of education and skill training for the young people, and the Service collaborates with the nation's school and vocational institutions. Moreover, there is now the practice of giving the young people the 18th month off for travel opportunities.
A young man or woman can chose his or her service (so long as it is recognized by the community service coordinator). When requested, the coordinator will assign youth to services in need of volunteers. For example, many youth want to work in and around Bergonia’s preserved wildernesses, and the coordinator has to hold a lottery. The Miradi temples and many of the Christian Churches have organized services for the sick, handicapped and elderly—and many medical schools require this kind of service for admission. While most men and women do their service in their locale-- thus able to continue living at home with their family, a sizeable minority travel to other parts of the country to do their work. The ideal form of this involves sending a young adult to an ethnically or linguistically different part of the country. This often involves learning a foreign language, to expand the much valued multilingual base..
Over 100,000 young people are chosen for overseas service, mostly doing community, teaching & environmental work in poor countries. This is integrated with, and forms a big part of, Bergonia's version of the Peace Corps. In one noteworthy case, 23,000 Bergonian youth went to Angola to work on the highway system.A number of youth elect to extend their fourteen month term for another year. They get substantial pay if they do so, plus either (a) college credit for the work, or (b) more vouchers to use for advanced college.
upon completion of the Community Service, each young adult is given vouchers sufficient to pay tuition for a four-year degree, but the student has to pay for his own housing & other living expenses, and the student usually gets dunned for about a hundred dollars of so-called "fees" every semester.About half the population attends college level education after completing . Local governments sponsor colleges. States and big cities sponsor universities. Christian churches and Miradi temple affiliations sponsor colleges. The national government sponsors the prestigious academies. College usually lasts for four years. "Post-graduate" programs involve "professional apprenticeships, as explained below."
College has, as a matter of policy, been free since the revolution. Of course it sounds better than it really is, but still is a great deal. The general rule is that,
A student may expend his college credits on a whole array of technical & vocational training, at his
option.
Crafts and trades are more formally
organized in Bergonia than in the USA, generally in the broad
self-governing guild organizations called
syndicals. They maintain standards for apprenticeships,
and no one becomes a plumber, mechanic, computer technician, or chef
without going through an apprenticeship. Regrettably there are
plenty of complaints about how journeymen abuse apprentices.
Modern Bergonians, like their American
and European counterparts, often chose to live together without
marrying, but some Bergonian states recognize a device that pulls more such couple toward
marriage--
the
"trial marriage" of
two years, which automatically dissolves unless the parties opt to
extend it for another term or solemnize it with a "permanent marriage.
The "trial marriage" status confers cross-rights to spousal benefits,
and presumptive rights to one-half the estate if one spouse dies.
Married women keep their surnames in Bergonia. The law allows parents to select the surname for their children. The common atrei practice is that boys take their father's surname, and girls take their mother's. Under this system, women trace their descent back through their maternal line, and men through their paternal line. This was the practice as well in pre-columbian Bergonia.
Before arrival of the Europeans, Bergonians had generally tolerated homosexuality without much active controversy. In classical times homosexuality was prohibited within certain classes, such as the banda, although its occurrence was admitted in contemporary chronicles. For the most part homosexuals had to tolerate occupational and social ghettoization, but they were never legally prosecuted or bothered by the Miradi priesthood or governments, and one could openly live as a homosexual without scandal. (The Nacateca word acuslei derives from the phrase, "turned around backwards.")
Of course the Christian colonizers deplored and outlawed all forms of homosexuality with such vigor that homosexuality remained rather taboo until recent decades. All remaining legal prohibitions against homosexuality were ended in the 1950s, and discrimination against homosexuals in economic activity is now outlawed.
Gay marriage or civil unions?
Civil unions is the apparent the answer. As of 1 September 2004, 8 of the 31 states had approved some form of civil unions for homosexual couples. As of 1 April 2006, 11 states had approved civil unions. And no state has yet adopted same-sex "marriage." However, the manner of defining civil unions makes it clear that marriage is but a subtype. Instead of granting gay marriage, the Bergonian approach is to recognize marriage as a religious institution and thus to de-legitimize it.
A sizeable minority of the public opposes recognition of gay relationships. This faction is solidly anchored in the Christian population, as well as the most conservative Miradi.
Of course in keeping with the federalist principle, the various states make the decision, and not the commonwealth government.
Two compromises are currently before the public.
The first compromise would recognize two kinds of "civil unions": (a)
the "marriage" for heterosexual couples, which is explicitly recognized as an institution with religious origins and dimensions (Miradi as well as Christian), and (b) the "acusole," (ah-coo'-so-leh) the Nacateca name for a rite of contract reserved for gay couples in medieval times. (Most Shufrantei priests refused to preside at the rite, but some would, and all Hiestat priests & priestesses would.) It is a difference in name and form only, but enough to satisfy the religionists. A gay couple who has entered into an acusole would have mutual rights to survivors benefits, rights to make medical decisions, rights of inheritance, and recourse to divorce court, as do married couples. This plan has been adopted by 10 states as of 1 April 2006.The second compromise would have the government and the law recognize only "civil unions," and get government out of the business of "marriage" altogether, since "marriage" is, as the Christians so energetically argue, a religious institution. If people want a civil union, they would go to the courthouse, and if they want married they look for a priest. And if they want both (as most couples do) they would do both, typically and ceremonially both on the same day (since Bergonian courthouses are typically open every Saturday, and Saturday is the Bergonian day for weddings). This plan has been adopted by 1 state, Paiatri, as of 1 April 2006.
This issue is eating up politics currently in many states.
General laws formally restrict the work week to thirty-six hours a week, which means that any work over that has to be time-and-a-half. Since the first four additional hours spent in on-the-job council meetings are counted as overtime, most enterprises effectively reward the workers who want to participate.
Since work (as discussed elsewhere) entails in most cases an ownership interest, plus democratic control, workers tend to spend a lot of time in meetings. With freedom (in this case, freedom from bossism) and power (over one's own work) come responsibility.
In a dictatorship people needn't bother with the news, but in a democracy a good citizen reads (even studies) the news so he can cast an informed vote. In most of the world a worker needn't bother with the affairs of the company that employs him, but in Bergonia a good worker-owner reads the management reports, goes to floor meetings and volunteers for committee work so his company prospers.
The general practice is to grant two mandatory holiday weeks during the year, one in summer and the other around the six-day-long Celebration of Light which overlaps with Christmas. The general practice also grants three additional vacation weeks which a worker can take at his own discretion, though a worker often can "sell" his vacation back to the enterprise, give it to another worker, or bank it for future years.
The "Great Vacation Law" rewards years of productive work with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to engage in major wish fulfillment. After a person has worked twenty years, he or she receives a grant of three months vacation and a credit of six thousand dollars toward travel or vacation. A person does not have to use the time or the money when he earns it, and many postpone its use. Likewise the person may draw down the credit whenever they wish for several little vacations, but many people use it to take the vacation of a lifetime. Many workers spend the three months at a residential course (usually and some kind of very nice spa or resort) to study something for their own self-development, such as martial arts, mountain climbing, sailing, psychotherapy, arts, crafts, literature, or political organizing.
While neither law nor practice creates a mandatory age for retirement, the national pension law allows retirement at 62, but gets the full benefit at 66. Anyone who wants to keep working grows their pension account, and will receive fatter monthly payments when they do retire. Most people do, at least on a part-time basis.
In the USA conservative politicians want to raise the age of social security retirement, a solution appropriate for white-collar jobs but which prolongs the torture of blue-collar workers in physical jobs. Worker-owned enterprises endeavor to give light duty work to older and injured workers.
The national health has a corps of visiting nurses. A nurse is assigned to a neighborhood or collective; she goes door to door to check on the elderly (and disabled), and also on infants.
Bergonians have paid a lot of attention to community nursing homes and hospices, endeavoring to insure high quality. The national health, in conjunction with local governments, has financed community based residential nursing care facilities and hospices (often next door to the local health clinic), each with gradated levels of care, to permit a dependant person as much independence as possible. They are cooperatively operated, with joint management involving the employees and the families of patients. People like to put all their relatives in one nursing home, and people in a single collective, neighborhood or small town place their relatives in the same home. This insures that the important sense of community follows a person even into this stage of his life, and also often results in the parent's nursing home being the one closest to the adult children's homes.
Likewise, palliative care is considered a major priority in medicine. Disabled people are offered anti-pain regimens, which include activity, therapy and massage in addition to pharmaceuticals. People suffering from terminal conditions are allowed addictive levels of drugs, as are people whose pain is intense.
The laws of most but not all states permit suicide, including assisted suicide for those who can no longer tolerate their suffering.
Funerals are a matter of religious preference. Christian funeral and burial practices here are of course practiced. Miradi believers cremate their dead, and every city has at least one crematorium, fueled with coal or natural gas, where final ceremonies occur. Miradi believers usually place their ashes in columbariums-- parks full of walls or slender stones with cavities for placing urns. The parks are notoriously small, located in neighborhoods. The walls or stones bear plaques that memorialize the deceased and covers the cavity. Instead of merely stating a name with some dates, a plaque summarizes the life gone by. For example:
"Sumanar Icleisi Peslai
23 Jan 1924 --16 Aug 1997
Commercial lawyer, commercial judge two terms,
youth teacher at Balashifar Temple,
football quarterback at Beglosi University,
dedicated SFP supporter, cyclist and gardener.
devotedly married to Catar Selvren since 1947,
father of son Teran, son Iozan, daughter Sorai,
a man who could find humor in anything."
Note that Atrei names put the surname first and the individual names last; thus this guy's last name is Sumanar, and everyone called him Icleisi.
[rev. 17 Apr 06]