Asynchronicity and the Weekend for Workers protests

It occurred to me, after writing an article about the Weekend for Workers protests in New Light of Yurtyzstan today, that perhaps my account of the protests will be perceived by readers in the community as less than credible. When a micronationalist publishes a claim of a major event in which a high level of activity is sustained over a significant period of time, without any photographic documentation, it is often perceived as false, and it probably often is.

However, this generalised statement does not describe most events in Yurtyzstan. The reason is asynchronicity.

In a macronation, demonstrations, for example, are straightforward: a group of people gather together and demonstrate. This group of people is usually large by micronational standards, and is usually a minuscule fraction of the entire population of the macronation. Further, these demonstrators most likely perceive no separation between their involvement in the protest and their "real life". In a micronation, the group of demonstrators is a subset of an already very small population, and most likely the demonstrators all have a macronational "real life" as well as a micronational one. (Certainly, these are often blended or are not separate at all, but one will admit that this is the case only among the most dedicated. At any rate, this does not apply to Yurtyzstanis, as far as I am aware.)

This added complication -- that only an extremely small amount of demonstrators are participating, and that they are unwilling to devote the same amount of time and effort to the demonstration that they would to a macronational one -- requires a different arrangement. The simultaneous nature of macronational demonstrations is logistically difficult to apply to micronations. Hence, asynchronicity.

As realised in Yurtyzstan: demonstrators trek to a major Yurtyzstani city, perhaps with a picket sign or banner, and stay for a few minutes or maybe an hour at most. Sometimes they take pictures of their protest but not always; more important for media purposes is the record submitted by the demonstrator to the organiser or to domestic news outlets. This model also applies to other major public events, such as political rallies, which are videotaped or transcribed for distribution.

Yurt Kyong-yon