Kai Opoka

[JirinPanthosa]

The Cardassians targeted innocent people as retribution for the terrorist acts. Maybe they wouldn't have killed as many people if not for the resistance but there's no question they enslaved innocent people which is not an improvement over murdering them.

There's been a weird trend on this board of defending the Cardassians as a proxy for defending the atrocities of our cultural history.

 

[Timo]

there's no question they enslaved innocent people

Oh, sure there is. We never hear of enslaving, for one thing. Very much to the contrary, people who get to work for the Cardassians appear to be a privileged lot (save for prisoners being put to work, that is - and that has nothing to do with enslaving or with innocence). Tellingly, the cover story of Kira when "working at Terok Nor" is that she had a working history of a series of jobs, and got kicked out of the previous one for punching her employer. Slaves punching their employers don't get fired, they get fired at.

There's been a weird trend on this board of defending the Cardassians as a proxy for defending the atrocities of our cultural history.

Where? You sound paranoid.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kkt]

They didn't say 'enslaving', but they said 'forced labor' many times. Slavery or forced labor, it's much the same from the wrong end of the whip.

Some forced labor had its pleasant aspects, the comfort women or the Bajoran man who, um, recruited them clearly had a much more comfortable existence than most Bajorans. However, for most forced labor was working in ore processing or equally unpleasant jobs.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

there's no question they enslaved innocent people

Oh, sure there is. We never hear of enslaving, for one thing. Very much to the contrary, people who get to work for the Cardassians appear to be a privileged lot (save for prisoners being put to work, that is - and that has nothing to do with enslaving or with innocence). Tellingly, the cover story of Kira when "working at Terok Nor" is that she had a working history of a series of jobs, and got kicked out of the previous one for punching her employer. Slaves punching their employers don't get fired, they get fired at.

There's been a weird trend on this board of defending the Cardassians as a proxy for defending the atrocities of our cultural history.

Where? You sound paranoid.

Timo Saloniemi

You were posting in that thread, come on now. Something about a British guy defending the actions of the British in their former colonies.

We never hear of enslaving? They took women away from their families to serve as concubines! If they refused they threw them into the manual labor pool! Not to mention the forced labor camps referenced in Duet. You sound like a holocaust apologist.

That's on top of the very much confirmed stealing of all their resources and throwing an entire planet into poverty. What are you even suggesting, that dominated cultures are wrong even to fight back against their 'Superior' mother countries?

 

[Timo]

Something about a British guy defending the actions of the British in their former colonies.

That was not supposed to be a joke? Sorry, it just didn't get past my filters apparently.

I think it's a further tribute to DS9 writing that such attempts backfire so sadly. The conflict in the show is utterly generic, and nicely preempts all the arguments in turn: Bajorans are despicable theocrats and terrorists, Cardassian attempts at justifying their antics make everybody sound as crazy as Dukat, but OTOH Bajorans are the everyman victim, and Marriza's desperate attempt at painting the Cardassians as actual monsters requires gross overacting and still fails.

We never hear of enslaving? They took women away from their families to serve as concubines! If they refused they threw them into the manual labor pool!

From which they originally came. Cardassians had their own brand of cruelty - in some ways, they were actually better than, say, Imperial Japanese.

But you seem to be misunderstanding the context of "Wrongs Darker" somewhat. Assuming the Orb vision was true to history, some Cardassians sold sex slaves, while others took mistresses. The latter's hardly a Nazi trait exclusively: every civilization ever involved in anything approaching an occupation, a merger or a sending of troops to assist has done that.

Dukat had his supplier, whom he despised, elevating himself in the process. But that supplier was Bajoran. The issue of sexual slavery apparently wasn't an occupation-dependent one, but a more deeply running concern.

Not to mention the forced labor camps referenced in Duet.

You mean criminals being put to work for their sins? We never got any idea why those people were sent to the camps. There was no mention of Cardassians resupplying, whether through courts of law or press gangs. And that's telling when what we are hearing are the gross exaggerations of "Gul Darhe'el" and the bitter protestations of Kira who "saw the bodies".

The writing in "Duet" is deviously balanced. Which leaves us to wonder about things without the ballast of having to take sides. Objectively speaking, if Cardassians put people in camps for labor, as opposed to making people in camps do labor, shouldn't there have been hundreds or thousands of such camps? Yet Gallitep appears to have been the only one - as if all the work there was make-work, imposed purely for punishment for the handful of people the occupiers wanted to get rid of.

That's on top of the very much confirmed stealing of all their resources and throwing an entire planet into poverty.

And on top of an infinite number of other things. But those won't affect the issue of "slavery", which is what I was talking about.

What are you even suggesting, that dominated cultures are wrong even to fight back against their 'Superior' mother countries?

And that weird claim has even less to do with the matter at hand.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

They didn't say 'enslaving', but they said 'forced labor' many times. Slavery or forced labor, it's much the same from the wrong end of the whip.

Which is beside the point - if you break rocks in chains and a striped pajama, and will be whipped if you stop and shot if you try to flee, it may well be because you once gutted a thirteen-year-old who said no to you. "Forced labor" isn't inherently wrong in our system of morals.

Some forced labor had its pleasant aspects, the comfort women or the Bajoran man who, um, recruited them clearly had a much more comfortable existence than most Bajorans. However, for most forced labor was working in ore processing or equally unpleasant jobs.

The telling bit is that you could drop "forced" from the above and end up describing life in a morally neutral fashion... The world in general doesn't require gun-toting oppressors to work the way it does.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kkt]

They didn't say 'enslaving', but they said 'forced labor' many times. Slavery or forced labor, it's much the same from the wrong end of the whip.

Which is beside the point - if you break rocks in chains and a striped pajama, and will be whipped if you stop and shot if you try to flee, it may well be because you once gutted a thirteen-year-old who said no to you. "Forced labor" isn't inherently wrong in our system of morals.

Evidence in the show was that the Cardassians had forced labor camps because they didn't feel like paying workers market rate wages, not generally speaking because they were convicted of a crime.

Some forced labor had its pleasant aspects, the comfort women or the Bajoran man who, um, recruited them clearly had a much more comfortable existence than most Bajorans. However, for most forced labor was working in ore processing or equally unpleasant jobs.

The telling bit is that you could drop "forced" from the above and end up describing life in a morally neutral fashion... The world in general doesn't require gun-toting oppressors to work the way it does.

Timo Saloniemi

But the world DID work that way for Bajorans during the occupation, which was kinda the point.

 

[Terok Nor]

This doesn't warrant another thread so I'll post it here.

In the series finale it's mentioned that the search for a new Kai has begun. But how did anyone know that Kai Winn was dead? The only ones who knew she died were Sisko and Dukat and they had no opportunity to tell anyone else.

And Sisko present for the death of 2 successive Bajoran religious leaders!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

how did anyone know that Kai Winn was dead?

The Prophets probably passed the word along, via one of the Orbs.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It was made pretty clear in the show that Bajorans were forced to work against their will, which is pretty much the definition of slavery. Maybe in some cases they were paid sustenance wages, which is irrelevant because they clearly did not have the option to refuse.

The Cardassians invaded a country with a weaker military and then took whatever they wanted from the planet and dominated their entire culture. You can nitpick specific examples and argue the definition of slavery, but it doesn't change the fact of one culture dominating another culture against their will.

About 'Wrongs Darker'. Again, quibbling about the definition of slavery. Women were taken from their families and told 'If you become our willing sex slave your family will be delivered from the poverty that we inflicted on them'. There is no reasonable definition of consent that matches this.

There's no suggestion in Duet that Gallitep was a prison camp, I don't know where you even come up with that. It was pretty clear in the script that the selection criteria for Gallitep was just that the Bajorans might be good at the job.

Coercion is a form of aggression, and resistance against this is clear cut self defense. There is no reasonable defense for one culture dominating another. The Bajoran resistance is no more evil than the French resistance during the Nazi occupation or the founding fathers resistance against the British. To defend the Cardassians requires the justification of 'Might makes right', which is ridiculous.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I think the actress died however.

Camille Saviola is still alive and done a couple of films this year, according to IMDB.

 

[Timo]

Evidence in the show was that the Cardassians had forced labor camps because they didn't feel like paying workers market rate wages, not generally speaking because they were convicted of a crime.

That's just it, though - what evidence? We never heard of any other camp save Gallitep, and we never heard of Gallitep producing anything besides suffering.

It was made pretty clear in the show that Bajorans were forced to work against their will, which is pretty much the definition of slavery.

No, it's the definition of forced labor. That may befall slaves or prisoners, or people who are both, POWs, whatever. And "Bajorans" above only applies to the people imprisoned at Gallitep - we never heard of any others!

Maybe in some cases they were paid sustenance wages, which is irrelevant because they clearly did not have the option to refuse.

Kira's cover identity in "Necessary Evil" did have options, ones highly incompatible with traditional concepts of slavery.

The Cardassians invaded a country with a weaker military and then took whatever they wanted from the planet and dominated their entire culture. You can nitpick specific examples and argue the definition of slavery, but it doesn't change the fact of one culture dominating another culture against their will.

Oh, I have no desire to contradict the first sentence above. I'm just disgusted by wanton misuse of terms such as "slavery" or "rape" or "murder" in ways that randomly shift moral and legal responsibility.

About 'Wrongs Darker'. Again, quibbling about the definition of slavery.

Nope. Just saying that accusing the Cardassians of it is not even telling half the story - it's shifting blame from those in factual charge of the slavery.

Women were taken from their families and told 'If you become our willing sex slave your family will be delivered from the poverty that we inflicted on them'. There is no reasonable definition of consent that matches this.

Actually, most of the world's marriages work that way here on Earth today. Except for the "we inflicted" part, which can be argued case by case, but certainly the haves enslaving the have-nots this way can be given partial responsibility for "inflicting". Otherwise, they wouldn't have!

Consent in general is fiction - people work for wages because they would suffer and die without those wages, seek company because they would suffer and die alone, etc. Legal and moral systems are built on the quantitative degrees found in consent or lack thereof, and no system assumes or requires consent in its abstract pure form, that devoid of factual coercion. Basing absolute statements on the absolute abstraction simply makes for hollow accusations.

There's no suggestion in Duet that Gallitep was a prison camp, I don't know where you even come up with that. It was pretty clear in the script that the selection criteria for Gallitep was just that the Bajorans might be good at the job.

The episode featured no mention whatsoever on how people ended up there. All of Marriza's lies and exaggerations, all of his apologies and dubious testimonies regarded how people were treated once they were already in. Ditto for Kira's one-liners.

It's just that there only was one Gallitep, and it produced nothing we know of besides corpses. The only quotas "Gul Darhe'el" was supposed to meet were his own ones for orderliness and suffering.

Coercion is a form of aggression, and resistance against this is clear cut self defense.

Which is why gunning down cops is such an accepted practice.

The Bajoran resistance is no more evil than the French resistance during the Nazi occupation

Which isn't saying much, considering how much evil the French did to the French under that particular banner.

or the founding fathers resistance against the British

Same caveat.

To defend the Cardassians requires the justification of 'Might makes right', which is ridiculous.

Nope. To defend the Cardassians against fictitious charges basically only takes moral courage. A Nazi murderer may be headed for the gallows, but that doesn't mean an additional and baseless charge of enslaving his housemaid should be dumped on him (and buried with him, leaving the actual injustice utterly unaddressed).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'll give you credit for a lot of really clever sophistry there. Yeah, the specifics of the occupation were often not explicitly stated on the show. The show makes it abundantly clear that Bajorans were invaded and conquered against their will, their entire planet was stripped of resources and Bajorans were coerced into laboring against their will. The only alternative interpretation is that all the Bajorans we ever see on the show are just lying.

Even if the workers at Gallitep were convicted of crimes, do you think they were all capital crimes? Or do you think they used convictions of petty theft without trial as a pretext to staff their labor camps? It was very clear that Odo was the only agent of the Cardassian legal system who gave half a damn whether the person convicted was the person who committed the crime.

As for 'Defending a murderer against additional charges'. The Cardassians occupied another planet through military force against their will. Every action they took on Bajor was illegal. Every action taken by a dictator against a people without representation is wrong. Moral relativism across cultures may be reasonable in some cases but not when a person's basic rights to life, liberty and property are violated.

 

[UnknownSample]

Gallitep wasn't the only labor camp because "labor camps" are referred to, plural. I'm thinking of Quark on occupied DS9, season 6, talking about how the labor camps hadn't been reopened. They are also spoken of as brutal places on a par with German concentration camps. That was the idea, Auchwitz in space... So it wasn't just a bunch of justifiably convicted Bajorans, and we know Cardassian trials weren't fair anyway. So they weren't just a group of murderers being imprisoned.

 

[Shada Dukal]

Hey, wasn’t that thread about Kai Opaka or some people have problems with the Annexation of Bajor?

I am sick and tired of repeating that the Occupation was ratified by the Bajoran government headed by Kubus Oak, all workers sent to the labor camps were there with his formal consent, it was a colonial project, the Bajorans were primitive, the Cardassian made a use of them, in fact it could be worse. Asymmetrical relations always lead to occupations and oppression, life is unfair.

The series did not show how the Occupation began, there were a few reminiscent episodes set during the Occupation, but they don’t answer the question how it started. It is never said that the entire planet was stripped of resources, the Cardassians excavated the most easily accessible resources. Not all Bajorans were laboring against their will, but the show presented only those who were sent to forced-labor facilities. One of the hallmarks of the victim mentality is exaggeration of the plight and avoidance to analyze the reasons that led to it, that is why they all complain so much.

According to the Terok Nor trilogy, the workers sent to Gallitep were captured terrorists, vagrants and petty criminals so they were not pillars of society exactly. The Cardassian juridical system is much harsher than the Federation one but still they have the right to exercise it on their worlds.

The Bajorans did not have any of the trendy rights you whine so much about – they were ruled by hereditary governors, each of them a kind of a feudal lord in his province, these governors controlled the biggest business endeavors such as space faring, mining and commerce. They had a rigid caste system, their clergy had big influence on the political and social life, and they had no idea about the universe about them. All the Cardassians had to do was to have the ear of several local governors, form joint ventures with them and enhance their political careers. These politicians gave the Cardassians the whole planet on a plate. No war, no Resistance. The Bajorans were just a silent majority without any social and political thinking who had never had the mechanisms to control their own politicians or have a say in their decisions.

The Occupation of Bajor was so legal in terms of interstellar law that even the Federation did not interfere, openly at least. Cardassian morality has nothing to do with Federation ethics, Cardassia is a colonial empire and from their point of view, they did not do anything wrong, Bajor was their backyard. If the Cardassians were Nazi-like, they could exterminate the population once and for all, they had the technology and the weapons. The books clearly say that the initial plan was making Bajor an affiliated world, it was turned into a client world as a plan B because the Bajoran politicians wanted to profit from the shipments to Cardassia and haggled too much. Bajor had 10 years to ask for help, if they resented the Cardassians so much, they could contact the Federation but they did not do it.

Occupations and colonialism have been part of human civilization since the dawn of history, in the past they were done more forcefully but nowadays, they are carried out more sophistically. Everyone is free to interpret their past as they see fit. Being outraged does not erase it or change it. Penitence at gunpoint is not penitence but a promise for future trouble and victims should think about what made them victims in the first place instead of whining. Everything we call progress and enlightenment has been achieved by colonization and economic exploitation so no one is innocent, we simply have to learn to live with that, as the Emissary said.

There is a very cynical proverb in my language, “You can’t revenge for being beaten and being raped.” It means that whoever did something wrong to you, had done it and all your attempts to undo it are futile and secondary. Even if you kill that person, he/she will die as a winner and you will live as a victim.

What exactly do we discuss – in-universe issues, historical guilt of RL nations, general frustration with the unfairness of life, or some weird combination of all that?

 

[STEPhon IT]

Kai Opoka knew that it was her destiny to remain on that planet. Kira understood that and Sisko was already a religious figure.

It would've been fun to see Sisko and Kira return to the planet to see if there was some sort of progression. What if Opoka changed those people in some way where war is not the answer? Its a story I'd like to see.

 

[Kor]

It would've been fun to see Sisko and Kira return to the planet to see if there was some sort of progression. What if Opoka changed those people in some way where war is not the answer? Its a story I'd like to see.

It may have been covered in one of the novels.

Kor

 

[Shada Dukal]

And Kai Opaka charges at Sisko and Kira with a battle axe. The poor Ennis and Nol-Ennis cry and beg Sisko, “We will be good, we will live in peace, just take the Deep Space Nun with you.” I would love to watch this too.