Making Sense of DS9: Terrorism

[david g]

Hi all,

After years of being a decided non-9er, I have been rewatching the series, and in many cases seeing certain episodes for the first time.

Something that really strikes me about the show is that it was really onto something long before it hit the U.S. mainstream in a big way: terrorism.

It seems to me that this theme is both a very interesting aspect of the series and one that it does not really explore sufficiently. (Though I am a huge fan of VOY, the case is even truer there.)

I saw, for the first time, the S5 episode "The Darkness and the Light." In this episode, pregnant Kira is abducted by one of the victims of her former terrorism days who is now hunting other Bajorans from her group...it was to my mind a shockingly violent episode--the Cardassian was about to cut open Kira's stomach, and then she begged for a sedative...it really unnerved me.

Anyway, my question is--in the last few moments, Kira gives a speech about what happens. I find it impossible to tell if Kira is ruefully accounting for her own guilt over her terroristic former activities, or further impugning her kidnapper for his moral failings...

I also think this episode crossed the line in terms of violent content. Cutting open the stomach of a pregnant woman? I cant believe the show got away with this.
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[FordSVT]

Except for the part where he didn't end up cutting her open. You're making it sound like a scene from Saw.

 

[ALF]

Yeah, it's heavy. DS9 is some heavy, dark Trek sometimes, mixed with those crazy silly Ferengi episodes. It's layered.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

They didn't actually cut open her stomach.

But, I must say that episode really knocked off a lot of respect points for Kira in my book.

 

[david g]

I am speaking to the threat of violence to the pregnant Kira...that was enough to deal with...

Nerys Ghemor, it sounds like you read the final speech as I did--as Kira's condemnation of her oppressor? The problem would be, then, not that he didnt deserve condemnation but that she failed to learn anything from what he said...

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

What she should have said was that she WAS sorry that there were civilian casualties, including him, that it wasn't justified. BUT that HE has made a choice now in which HE is not justified. Personal responsibility for all parties. Needless to say I am one who thinks VERY poorly of people who refuse to assume the full responsibility for their actions--which both Kira and Prin in their own ways refused to do.

 

[Tulaberry whine]

Needless to say I am one who thinks VERY poorly of people who refuse to assume the full responsibility for their actions--which both Kira and Prin in their own ways refused to do.

I disagree. I think Kira does accept full responsibility for her actions in this episode and in others. However, she believes the attacks were justified and is not apologetic as a result.

As far as she's concerned the Cardassians - all of them - were occupiers and they were therefore all legitimate targets.

 

[Navaros]

I find it impossible to tell if Kira is ruefully accounting for her own guilt over her terroristic former activities, or further impugning her kidnapper for his moral failings...

It's the second one. Kira feels totally justified in her terrorist behaviours, and the point of view presented by the show is the same as Kira's. That goes for both the episode you've named, and many other episodes too.

I find Kira herself to be the most disturbing thing in the episode you've named, especially since she doesn't even care that she is pregnant, and goes around recklessly risking the life of her baby. You say it's disturbing that the Cardassian threatens Kira, yet Kira is also in part culpable for leaving the station and putting herself in further danger in order to go try and kill the Cardassian.

And also because, as you point out, she justifies her own terrorism at the end, and doesn't care about any of the innocents she has killed as a terrorist.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I agree too about Kira risking the life of her unborn child. If we were talking about a species where the male carried the young, I would say the exact same thing. They might've been trying to look all "progressive" and feminist, but where another life is concerned, the childbearing gender ought to put the child's needs first.

But Cardassians who are civilians, who have no power AND may even be victims of the military not unlike Bajorans--should not be considered legitimate targets. Crossing that line makes her no better than the Cardassians who thought raping civilians was an OK way to frighten people into not attacking. I would forgive an attack on a military target that accidentally killed a civilian if she felt sorry about the accident and would have done differently if there'd been a way to avoid it. If she lost sleep about it. But that's what disturbs me: her remorselessness.

 

[DonIago]

So if you're kicked out of your home due to the actions of an army, and a family willingly moves into your home fully knowing it's in occupied and contested territory, they're blameless?

Hell, I guess the Cardassians should have just shipped their entire civilian population to Bajor. No legitimate targets then.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

No, the civilians would not be a legitimate target. The military still would be. Make no mistake, it would be an awful situation. But other tactics would have to be used, ones that did not involve killing those civilians. (Turning them towards your cause, however...that could be more promising.)

 

[DonIago]

I'm going to have to agree with Kira's position that a civilian who knowingly and willfully decides to live on lands that they are fully aware have been forcibly taken from others is making themselves a target.

I don't see how one can claim that because an occupying force is non-military, they are not a hostile force. Why should the Bajorans have to share their world with aliens just because the aliens don't happen to have phasers (of course, their bodyguards do)?

Of course, I would encourage the use of non-lethal force where possible, but I'm not going to tell the Bajorans they don't have a right to maintain control of their own planet.

Note that while I agree with that particular aspect of Kira's situation, running off single-handedly while pregnant was flat-out inexcusable.

 

[Tulaberry whine]

No, the civilians would not be a legitimate target. The military still would be. Make no mistake, it would be an awful situation. But other tactics would have to be used, ones that did not involve killing those civilians. (Turning them towards your cause, however...that could be more promising.)

How is terrorism going to succeed if you pick and choose targets like that? Its indiscriminate nature is what makes it effective!

And do I even need to point out what's obviously going to happen when the military realises the Bajoran terrorists aren't going to attack targets where Cardassian civilians are going to be injured.

 

[intrinsical]

It is really hard to create a weapon that can identify and kill only military targets and totally avoid civilian targets. Just look at our own weapons technology, up until the recent two decades, most weapons kill indiscriminately.

It is safe to assume that the Bajoran resistance, being relatively ill equipped and small compared to the standing Cardassian occupation army, does not have access to advanced weaponry. Asking the Bajorans to selectively destroy only military targets just isn't a viable tactic. In fact, its probably suicide.

 

[Harvey]

Outside of the fantasy of the Iron Man movies, our weapons (including so-called "smart" bombs) still do kill pretty indiscriminately. In an ill-equipped resistance movement like the Bajorans had this would only be more the case, as you point out.

 

[Distorted Humor]

Kira is not always a nice person. Both sides of the occupation have plenty of blood on there hands. The only thing that surprises me about the occupation for 40 years planet wide, 10-15 million is surprisingly light for something that was shown to be so brutal.

 

[Tuvoks_partner]

Needless to say I am one who thinks VERY poorly of people who refuse to assume the full responsibility for their actions--which both Kira and Prin in their own ways refused to do.

I disagree. I think Kira does accept full responsibility for her actions in this episode and in others. However, she believes the attacks were justified and is not apologetic as a result.

As far as she's concerned the Cardassians - all of them - were occupiers and they were therefore all legitimate targets.

I completely agree. Kira has said several times during the series she regret some of the things she had to do, but they had to be done. Cardassia was brutalizing the Bajorans, and it had to stop. Futhermore, not a single Cardassian, Military or Civilian had no business on Bajor. It wasn't their planet, their was no way to justify any of them being their. In essence, Civilians and the Cardassian Military invaded. The Bajoran had to to what they had to do to regain their home, freedom and start to rebuild their shatter lives caused by an alien invasion.

 

[david g]

I still think that neither DS9 nor VOY, if made today, would have had the terrorists-as-heroes angle. It was only possible pre-9/11, when such events around the world were only a rumor to most Americans...

 

[ClayHefner]

All right, look-you're a Cardassian roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia-this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits.
All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with phasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.

 

[flemm]

DS9 was onto a lot things before they became mainstream concerns in the American consciousness, which is one reason why it has aged so well.

The point of Kira's speech at the end of The Darkness and the Light, as I understand it, is that the two cannot be separated: there is no such thing as pure innocence or pure guilt once you become implicated in a situation like the Bajoran occupation. So, in effect, she is recognizing her guilt, but only to an extent.

Cardassian civilians on Bajor were part of a brutal occupying force and had no right to be there. That doesn't make them 100% guilty either, but that is the whole point of the episode. You can't cleanly separate the darkness and the light in a situation like that.