Silaran Prin morally justified? ("The Darkness And The Light")

[DonIago]

Cardassian due process determines the verdict before the trial. It's safe to say she would have been found guilty for something already. The likely problem would be Bajor would not extradite Kira. That would leave the victims with little choice but to settle for what they might consider injustice or do something about it on their own through vigilante justice like what Prin did.

The government was being run by a totalitarian military dictatorship. Maybe he wasn't given much of a choice but to be there. Cardassians occupied Bajor because their own world lacked many natural resources and made up for that by strip mining neighboring worlds like Bajor. Bajor would have been controlled by Cardiassia all of Prin's life where he would have been born into the idea of that world being just another world of theirs.

When I say "due process" I'm not really referring to the Orwellian system the Cardassians have in place.
It might have been interesting if Prin had tried going through legal channels though, even if it ultimately went nowhere. It would certainly come off better than him playing vigilante. I doubt even the Cardassian legal system would condone his actions, provided they were interested in being diplomatic at the time.

Also, we don't really have any evidence that the Cardassian government interferes with the lives of the majority of its citizens, just that when they want to do so, there's essentially nothing stopping them. If Prin was really coerced into being on Bajor, it would be a weakness in the writing of the episode that he never mentioned it.

 

[Tosk]

By today's standards it's wrong to punish individuals for the crimes of what their government did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment

Which doesn't apply to what the Bajorans did. They didn't target or punish the "innocent", they performed strikes which created collateral damage.

But interesting you should cite collective punishment.

"Historically, occupying powers have used collective punishment to retaliate against and deter attacks on their forces by Resistance movements (such as destroying entire towns and villages which were believed to have harboured or aided such resistance movements).

Which is exactly what the Cardassians often did.

 

[marsh8472]

Which doesn't apply to what the Bajorans did. They didn't target or punish the "innocent", they performed strikes which created collateral damage.

They don't say whether they were intending to kill Cardassians other than Gul Pirak. But there is dialogue from Kira which says that they knew they would be killing other Cardassians not in the Military and in some cases killing Bajorians.

KIRA: Believe me, I understand how you feel. During the occupation, I didn't want to attack any facility that had a Bajoran working in it. But I did it. Because they were collaborators. They were working with the enemy.

KIRA: We used to have a saying in the Resistance. If you're not fighting them, you're helping them. Half the Alpha Quadrant is out there right now, fighting for my freedom, but not me. What am I doing? Eating a full meal every day, sleeping in a soft bed, I even write reports for the murderers who run this station.

But interesting you should cite collective punishment. Which is exactly what the Cardassians often did.

Their government did that but because many people of a race are bad apples does not automatically justify killing random ones. Generally what I'm reading from multiple sources is that it is possible for vigilantism to be morally justified in cases where there are no legal alternatives and vigilantism is the better of two bad options.

 

[Tosk]

But there is dialogue from Kira which says that they knew they would be killing other Cardassians not in the Military and in some cases killing Bajorians.

Yes. How does that contradict what I said?

Their government did that but because many people of a race are bad apples does not automatically justify killing random ones.

Sorry, but I don't follow your train of thought here. What does that mean?

Generally what I'm reading from multiple sources is that it is possible for vigilantism to be morally justified in cases where there are no legal alternatives and vigilantism is the better of two bad options.

Sure, I agree that it is possible. Doesn't mean it applies in this case.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

In what way does that make it right?

He was just a servant...who still ate well and stayed warm at night while they stripped the planet of resources and worked the population to death.

Let's put it this way. If you heard a story about a slave who killed all his masters and escaped to the North, would you think the slave was evil for not just killing the ones with the whips?

Prin wasn't even targeted, he was collateral damage. If you're fighting for the freedom of your people from a race that's brutally enslaved them and murders by the thousands, it's literally impossible to fight back without catching a few not directly responsible support workers in the crossfire. If they know you won't kill support workers, they'll station them anywhere near any target of value.

It's war, and it's planetary self defense.

 

[marsh8472]

Yes. How does that contradict what I said?

I may be misinterpreting what you said. But the way I read it was you were saying that the intention of the resistance was to only attack Gul Pirak and other directly guilty parties and not non-military and children therefore it was not collective punishment. But I was disputing that by saying we don't know if it was their intention to kill as many as they did.

Sorry, but I don't follow your train of thought here. What does that mean?

I'm not sure where I was going with that. I agree cardassians did use collective punishment against the Bajorians like mentioned here in episode waltz:

DUKAT: So in my first official act as Prefect, I ordered all labour camp commanders to reduce their output quotas by fifty percent fifty percent. Then I reorganised the camps themselves. Child labour was abolished. Medical care was improved. Food rations were increased. At the end of one month of my administration, the death rate had dropped by twenty percent. Now how did the Bajorans react to all this? On my one month anniversary they blew up an orbital dry-dock, killing over two hundred Cardassian soldiers and workers.
KIRA: We didn't want a reconciliation. We wanted to destroy you.
DUKAT: So I had to order a response. But even then it was a carefully tempered one. I ordered two hundred suspected members of the Resistance rounded up and executed. Two hundred lives for two hundred lives. That's justice, not malevolence. Justice.

Sure, I agree that it is possible. Doesn't mean it applies in this case.

yup doesn't mean it doesn't apply either. That's where I'm at with this.

 

[Roundabout]

Kira said something intriguing at the end that I couldn't quite understand at the time when I saw it. I had to think about it for a short while to figure out what she might have meant.

A lot of what Prin said was spoken in poetry, using light and darkness as metaphor.

Kira summed up the experience by saying: "He wanted to protect the innocent and separate the darkness from the light. But he didn't realize the light only shines in the dark and sometimes innocence is just an excuse for the guilty."

In Prin's own mind, he was an innocent. What Prin failed to realize was that he was actually part of the darkness. Even though Prin didn't physically hold the whip (as another poster wrote) that brutalized the Bajorans, Prin was complicit in the crime because he was part of the Cardassian occupation force. Prin facilitated and provided the support for those Cardassians who did the actual inflicting of horrors on the Bajoran people.

If you think about it, Prin couldn't even plausibly use the "Good German" defense. Prin knew what was going on. He knew what the Cardassian occupation forces were doing to Bajor. The occupation and the occupiers were the darkness. Prin failed to shine the light on himself and his role in the occupation.