Bicentennial #patria200 an underwhelming dud

In 2018 Patria celebrated 200 years of being the best country we never had!

As 2018 comes to a close, Patria's bicentennial celebrations - known by the hashtag #patria200 - have been condemned as an underwhelming dud that failed to generate much enthusiasm within Patria and in the greater micro-world. This was due in part to the celebrations of Patria's founding in 1818 being mostly locally focused, rather than a huge Patria-wide party or Micro-world's Fair. There are more than enough fingers to point for Patria's bicentennial failing to live up to the hype. A general feeling of "you get what you pay for" as Patria's 50th Congress (2014-2018) appropriated only token funding for the celebrations, while precinct and local governments attempted to take up the slack. The Ministry of Transportation came under fire for failing to celebrate the centennial of the Castoropolis Metro (Patria's first subway/metro/tube, opened in 1918) as well as for failing to offer a distinctive bicentennial license plate, though motorists in Patria can choose from three graphic plates, as well as a non-graphic base. The Patria Mint made little effort to place special issue bicentennial coins into circulation; one and two Patrienish Rupee pocket change featuring only the "1818-2018" double date. Patria Post produced a number of commemorative stamps, but most of them seemed like regular issues that added only the #patria200 hashtag.

Of course, no one expected a celebration on the scale of the United States bicentennial in 1976 or Canada's centennial in 1967. The celebrations were about as low-key and underwhelming as #Canada150 - the celebration of Canada's 150th anniversary as a Dominion of the Commonwealth (Canadians rarely use the term "independence") in 2017.

Nonetheless, there were a few highlights and happy times in Patria in 2018:

• The election of 2018 saw Bernie Sanders-style democratic socialism win a plurality of seats in the Fifty-First Congress. The election campaign proved to be a hard fight against the forces of right-wing populism and fear-mongering about an evil communist bogeyman, but in the end voters in Patria chose left-wing populism, the Social Democrats, combined with the Amrita Party and the other spiritual parties. On Inauguration Day, June 30, a stirring (if not extra long) Inaugural Address was delivered and to show that even socialists can look rich for one night, a traditional Inaugural Ball was held.
• After more than a century of failed efforts, Patria officially recognized the tenrec as its national animal symbol.
• The Patrienish Rupee held its value as arguably the most stable micro-national currency.
• Only a few weeks ago, Cook Islands became the second real-world macro-national country, after Samoa, to sign the MAPS (Marine Arctic Peace Sanctuary) treaty. Since its ratification of the treaty in 2016, Patria has lobbied hard for the establishment of MAPS as an effective step to cool our planet and keep our oceans alive.

As we leave 2018, you will find below the last of Patria Post's series of bicentennial stamps, along with Patria's traditional Christmas stamp issue.