Season 2 episode "Cardassians"

That's what I believe as well. And I think Sisko made the wrong call.

 

I'm not sure a right call was possible under the circumstances. :/

I don't think the Bajorans necessarily intentionally fed Rugal anti-Cardassian sentiment, but they didn't necessarily do what they could to make it clear that there was more to Cardassians either, and it's a valid argument that he was never going to learn that if he stayed on Bajor at the time.

 

Personally, I'd say they definitely did. The Cardassians enslaved their planet and murdered millions...I'd be truly surprised if they didn't espouse anti-Cardassian sentiment.

Sisko "The Cardassians are suggesting that the Bajorans are raising these orphans to hate their own people."
Proka "To hate Cardassians? It shouldn't be too hard, should it? We told him the truth, Commander. The truth about what Cardassia did to Bajor. He needed to know, and for that I make no apologies."

And I don't say that to mean that they were in the wrong. I can't imagine anyone in their place saying, "Well you know, it wasn't my favorite five decades what with the beatings and back-breaking labor and so many of my friends and family dying, but there are probably many fine Cardassians so I'd hate to give you the wrong idea about them..."

...Not sure whether to hashtag #NotAllCardassians or #BajoranLivesMatter

 

Sorry, my point is that I don't think they went out of their way to do so.

Nobody could blame the Bajorans for telling Rugal the facts of the matter and having a lot of feelings about said facts. That would be different from, for instance, hammering him over the head about it every day.

 

Think about Worf parents, they raise a kid full of Klingon pride so the Bajoran parents of Rugal did something wrong...

 

What does one thing have to do with the other?

If you really wanna compare them though...Rugal only bit some dude's hand, whereas Worf killed a kid. So who parented "better"? (And yes, I am aware of what a ridiculous comparison this is to make. That's the point.)

 

Both were sorry they did what they did... but Worf was sorry because of what happened to the other kid. Rugal was sorry because of what happened to him.

 

Not sure the comparison is accurate, as the kid Worf killed was accidental because he didn't realize just how strong he is.

Rugal, on the other hand, purposefully bit Garak.

 

Very different events, I agree.
One was accidental, one deliberate.
One was unlucky, one carefully arranged.
One, the consequences were internal: Worf's ironclad discipline. The other, the consequences were external: Rugal's return to Cardassia.

 

What would we expect form a xenophobic society like the Bajorans? They did not want the Federation there anymore than they want the Cardassians. Remember, there was a coup attempt by a fraction that wanted Bajor for the Bajorans.

What do we expect? Rugal live among xenophobic and bigoted people and he was not one of them.

 

Better that he live among the people who butchered the people who raised him?

 

Yes they did, the provisional Bajoran government specifically asked the Federation to step in. Nerys disagreed.

It's weird that you call the Bajorans xenophobic and bigoted and yet you ascribe traits to them based on the words/actions of a relative few.

It's not accurate, and wasn't intended to be so. It was to illustrate how senseless it was to compare Worf's parents with Rugal's.

 

You seem to forget Tora Ziyal she was not accepted by Bajorans when she went down to Bajor...

It seem these religious Bajorans have intolerance issues...

 

I haven't forgotten that Ziyal spent time on Bajor. And that she was accepted there. Everyone was very polite to her. But she started to pick up on whispering about her, the daughter of Gul Dukat. The man who was at the forefront in a war where he stood opposed to the Emissary.

And even if there weren't these actual reasons for some mild whispering (which is very far from intolerance), it still doesn't mean anything in the grand scale. You're still attributing a stance to them based on very few (non) examples.

 

I think in some ways you're both right. It's been awhile since I've seen the episodes, but per MA - "However, she was never truly accepted on Bajor either, since her father was the hated Gul Dukat."

I would conclude that Ziyal wasn't fully accepted on Bajor, but it's hard to say how much (if any) of that was because she was Cardassian in general, and how much of that was specifically because of her father.

 

She was accepted on DS9, wasn't she?

 

If anyone took issue with her being there, they had Major Kira to contend with.

 

Ultimately it doesn't matter. You can't fairly label a species as xenophobic based on one or two truly questionable examples.

 

Yes, but not on Cardassia or Bajor... She was shielded by Major Kira and Gul Dakat ...

 

And can you fairly label all Cardassians as butchers when later seasons made it plain that the civilians are almost as much victims of the military junta running the show as the Bajorans were?

Sisko's decision was tough, but it came down on the side of "let him see the world as it really is and make up his own mind" rather than enforcing a lifetime just hearing the Bajoran side of the story. In effect, letting him get to know some Marritzas.