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Dictators, Democracy, and My Success in Pangea – Justin Mei

Pangea is a Civic Mirror country made up of Grade 12 International Relations students from Shanghai American School.  Pangeans are action-oriented, as evidenced by their national slogan:

Some people make things happen,
Some people watch things happen,
and some people wonder what happened.
Be the change you want in the world.

So after dictatorial maneauvers by a Pangean named Kevin resulted in a civil war (i.e. Crisis Vote), citizen Justin Mei reflects on the pros and cons of having an authoritarian ruler, efforts made to restore democracy in Pangea, and his overall success in the game:

“Entering the fourth year of this game, it has been interesting to see how people react to different situations. While working with Kevin Huang, one of the more dominant figures in our country, there has never been a year where I struggled to obtain the necessary units to survive. Where others resisted his dictatorship, they had years where multiple deaths occurred (the worst being Dennis losing three members in one year); I supported him because he was helping me achieve my hidden agenda. The measures taken by the other party were pretty drastic, including signs of protest (courtesy of Christine), hunger strikes (again courtesy of Christine), and the ultimate solution: The Crisis Vote (aka, a violent revolution).

“No one was willing to compromise with the other party and consequently it led to a Crisis Vote. The other party was able to regain control over the government, however they had to go further and coax Kevin out of one of his two energy hexes. It’s interesting to see how far and how worked up the other members of the party got. There were multiple classes where there was arguing and shouting – some of the time the shouting turned into a different language. Anyway, seeing as we have one year left, there’s not enough time to try and achieve my agenda again. Things would have been easier if there was some military component. 🙂 “

Drawn adaptation of a Liger seen in the Pangean wild.

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