Alston, NCD, Dec 31 – Tonight the curtain will be drawn on the year 2011 forever, a year which has had profound impacts on both the community and Sirocco itself.

In a statement, Premier Daniel Anderson had this to say:

“This year has been absolutely fantastic for myself personally, and for Sirocco it has been a year of major development and quick maturity, and now it is an established and respected member of the community. My plan was to get Sirocco into the upper echelons of the community as fast as Yabloko had, and I feel I have done exactly that. 

“I wish everyone a happy and safe 2012, and I hope the MicroWiki community will try to learn from its mistakes and work together in this new year. We’re over petty squabbles, now we have to come together as one. Let’s make 2012 a better year than 2011 was.”

Sirocco

The Zealandian issues
In early January, Sebastian Linden was widely seen as a nuisance cowering behind Zealandia’s protection. There was no possible way the MicroWiki admins could bar Linden from the community, and. The following day, Anderson posted a Commonwealth Avenue publication outlining how the war was actually pre-arranged in order for Sirocco to assume control over Zealandia, and thus allow Anderson to use the Siroccan Constitution to formally get rid of Linden forever. But the plan backfired, and within a couple of hours Zealandia, with Eleytheria in tow, had declared its independence. Outraged, Anderson immediately suspended diplomatic relations with Zealandia.

Relations were again strained after the Zealandian socialist government began clamping down on the opposition National Peoples Party. The final straw came when Anderson was dismissed from the Legislative Assembly due to “mental illness”. Many senior members of the community were outraged and relations between Sirocco and Zealandia were suspended again, and currently they remain that way.

8, no 7, no it’s 6, no wait it’s 7 again
Sirocco entered the year with eight provinces: Camina, Denbigh, Jellicoe, the National Capital District, North Tasman, South Tasman, Trafalgar and Wellesley and two dependencies (Castor and Watchman). But the provinces still were not organised to the Government’s liking, and on April 20, Bolton, Denbigh and Falkirk were split off from Jellicoe entirely. Camina, the Tasmans and Wellesley were all dissolved.

During the course of the year, Sirocco picked up two new dependencies, Gillies Island and the Muldoon Protectorate.

Sirocco entered the fray on Micras when its claim to Weymouth was accepted, forming Sirocco’s seventh province.

Sirocco lost its Denbigh province on November 8 this year after Annabelle Morgan formally renounced her citizenship and withdrew the province (and its capital, Riverhill Park) from Sirocco. But the gap was short-lived – on December 12, Halvorson was officially elevated from territorial to provincial status during this year’s Otanaki National Exposition of Sirocco.

They Call Him “Chancellor”
An idea arose  in late December last year to form the office of “Chancellor”, a head of the Board of Ministers (next year to be replaced with a new Executive) Elections held in early May this year, King Anthony (now Håkon) was elected as Sirocco’s first (and to date only) Chancellor. However this system didn’t last long, and after a major argument between the Premier and Håkon, Anderson fired Håkon and abolished the office of Chancellor.

Squabbling Teenagers
Sirocco shot to instant fame when the SBC released its first locally-made television series, Micro High, on April 19. The adventures of many of the community’s more notable micronations (and some outside the community) was an instant success, and with a further six episodes under its belt, it has already been placed next to SCBN’s NY Cops as the community’s two biggest television series.

Further success arrived with the one-off The Uncle Bob Lethler Show. Presenting itself as an Erusian children’s show, The Uncle Bob Lethler Show parodied typical children’s programming while satirizing the attitudes of many of the community’s extreme-left states (such as Sandus, Erusia, Tiana and Burkland). The show was well-recieved for its clever script (including the famous subtraction problem involving the execution of several capitalists in an Erusian concentration camp) and gentle nudging at Sirocco’s own capitalist path. Despite calls for a second episode, the SBC has said further continuation of the series “is not in the pipeline”.

You speak Siroccan?
While at the moment the project is on hold, this year it was revealed that the Siroccan Government is underway constructing Sirocco’s own constructed language, or “conlang”. Constructed predominantly out of English, German and Czech, Siroccan (or Sirokie) is intended as a “word replacement language”, whereby the foundations and construction of the English language are present but the words replaced.

The Siroccan Language Authority (SLA-SSA) has said the project is “currently on hold” but will be resumed sometime next year.

International

Yablokogate
No review of 2011 is complete without mention of the disastrous “Yablokogate” affair. Following Robert Lethler’s return to the community, the Grand Unified Micronational began preparing to revive itself. However TASPAC got wind of this, and before anyone knew what was going on the community had erupted into a storm the likes of which have never been seen. Lethler and GUM members accused TASPAC of trying to take over the community, to which Yablokon leader Aldrich Lucas said he would if he wanted to, but didn’t.

TASPAC began preparing to leave the community, with an almost unanimous vote in the TASPAC room to leave MicroWiki. However it was last-minute intervention by Alexander Reinhardt, backed by Peter Bralesford and Marka Mejakhansk that held the community together. While TASPAC never left, mistrust pervaded the community for some time afterwards.

Lethler and Sandum leader Will Soergel eventually left the community.

Summit 2011
One of the year’s more peaceful happenings was the August 24 “Intermicronational Summit” in London. Attended by over a dozen micronationalists representing almost as many micronations, the Summit had the theme of “micronationalism and its place in the Modern World: Eccentrics, Hobbyists and Free-thinkers”. The Summit was generally regarded as a success, and already a 2012 Summit is being planned.

Plans for American and TASPAC summits never came to fruition.

Kyng’s End
The Mass Exodus of November 2010 had flow-on effects into January, with ominous rumblings in the Slinky Empyre. Many felt that the Slinky Empyre was a mere shadow of its former self, and on January 17 even this crumbled as Departments began seceding from the Empyre. The Slinky Republyc, its successor state, was soon embroiled in a war that many condemned as pointless, and was soon disestablished. Slinky, which had a year before been a major power in the community, had collapsed in spectacular fashion.