Kira Meru and the Comfort Women

[Timo]

Yes, the evidence may suggest that most attempts at resistance fail, but that does not invalidate them.

Of course it does. It's the bottom line: if the freedom fighters caused suffering while producing no benefit whatsoever, they were the bad guys, with no redeeming qualities to their actions.

Moreover, it's less likely that widespread and pervasive persecution will simply subside, especially over a perceived racial divide.

Futile resistance will be an even more decisive factor in promoting and justifying persecution.

Even worse, freedom fighters seldom have the means of fighting the occupying enemy. Most of freedom fighting in known history consists of attacking the life and property of one's own kin, for a number of reasons. First, they are soft targets, and freedom fighters want to kill or destroy something or they don't have a justification for their existence. Second, it's easy to hate one's neighbor. And third, rather distant third at that, killing of collaborators will hopefully terrorize your kin into not collaborating (whatever good that will do).

No one is getting on the train to go to a nice sunny place.

Extremely few occupations in history have involved a "purging" element; if there's mass murder, it typically concludes when conquest is completed, and freedom fighting has no say on the issue, it being over before any resistance cells can form. Most conquerors aren't insane: they may terrorize for a while, but they won't purge for the sake of purging.

Many (although not most) well-known occupations have involved arrangements of extensive and prolonged forced labor, though. Is that worth all the misery that freedom fighting brings about? Well, it might be, if fighting somehow alleviated the suffering from forced labor. It's difficult to see a mechanism by which that would work, though. Blow up an industrial plant, and the slaves only get to do more manual labor. Blow up the slaves, and that will gain you points at the Pearly Gates, not to mention among your kin!

Fighting is an inherently negative thing. It calls for some sort of a justification in order to credibly happen. If there's hope of liberation, then there's your justification all right. If there's none, you're just doing the negative thing for the sake of doing the negative thing.

In the most general terms, grabbing an AK-47 and running to the woods to continue the fight is the solution of a coward. Even if you don't turn into a murdering madman, there are less damaging ways to commit the eventual suicide. At best, what can you gain? A medal once somebody else comes and liberates your country. A happy killing and raping session of collaborators. And afterwards, sleepless nights as you wait for your countrymen to come murder you for all the evil you did.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shada Dukal]

1. “As Damar found himself powerless while the Cardassians gradually became a subjugated people in their own land, he began turning to kanar and dalliances with women as a way of forgetting his troubles.” Memory Alpha.

2. Damar's mistress.

DAMAR
(smiles)
Still, power has its privileges.
(pulling her close)
You're a good listener, my dear.
If only my wife were as
understanding.

He's about to kiss her when the door CHIMES.

http://ds9.trekcore.com/media/scripts/717.txt
“Penumbra” script.

3. In “Shadows and Symbols” episode we saw Siana – a very attractive lady that Damar had met at a dinner party.

4. In “The Never-Ending Sacrifice” by Una McCormack, Kotan Pa’Dar’s mother made sure that her future husband killed single handedly his illegitimate children before she married him. Pa’Dar were a politically influential clan on Cardassia.

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Geleth_Pa'Dar

I have good news for the Bajoran liberation – finally the Bajorans were free …for two weeks. After that the Emissary came and took over Dukat’s office. So much for the Bajoran independence.

I don’t see why dying heroically and changing nothing should be morally more elevated than just dying. In both cases, the person dies and the status quo remains. Survival and if possible victory is what matters, not dying. One should pick up their battles.

Still, I did not see combative comfort women in the series so the assumption that they can serve as a representative sample for the Bajoran sentiments during the Occupation is unsupported. In fact, they were a border case between collaboration, denial and a Stockholm syndrome. What is more, I think that the Bajorans condemned the comfort women judging by Tir Remara’s case.

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Tir_Remara

Ascribing to comfort women more strength than they really have, or respectively blaming them for being the small cog in the large wheel that made it turn around is equally useless. They were what they were, just R&R, nothing much. I did not see any deep insights coming from Meru, just a simple-minded country wench who had the chance to touch luxury. I don’t think that this type of personality has much chances for development regardless of the Occupation.

 

[Kilana2]

Ascribing to comfort women more strength than they really have, or respectively blaming them for being the small cog in the large wheel that made it turn around is equally useless. They were what they were, just R&R, nothing much. I did not see any deep insights coming from Meru, just a simple-minded country wench who had the chance to touch luxury. I don’t think that this type of personality has much chances for development regardless of the Occupation.

It was Kira who had the strength to fight the . Her mother is dead. If she were alive there would be trouble between them.