Wasn't Odo a collaborator?

For most of DS9's run, Odo's backstory was supposedly that he was chief of security on DS9, back when it was Terok Nor. For reasons that have never made much sense to me, when the Cardassians pulled out, Odo was allowed to keep his position and worked for Starfleet.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter if Odo never really committed any sort of war crimes. The fact is he was working for the Cardassians during the occupation. He was part of the problem.

The more I think about it, the stranger it is that, with the exception of the episode "A Man Alone", most Bajorans seem to give Odo a pass for this. It's especially puzzling on the part of someone like Kira, who takes a dim view towards pretty much anyone else who collaborated with the Cardassians (including her own mother) but not only doesn't seem to hold against Odo, but eventually enters into a relationship with him!

The episode "When it Rains..." is probably the most blatant about this. We see the Cardassians asking why Odo didn't resign in protest, and Kira gets defensive. Now, granted, they were only asking in an attempt to bait him and Kira, but it's actually a valid question. What's even more galling is that earlier in the episode, she was explaining the need to not be afraid to hit targets with Cardassians because they're collaborators.

Anyone else noticed this?

 

But then during the occupation, Odo let Kira off for being a resistance member and didn't look to closely into the case of her killing someone.

I think it's a case of they both know where the other one's coming from and why they do what they do.

He didn't work for Star fleet, he wore a Bajoran Militia uniform.

"Laws change depending on who's making them. Cardassians one day, Federation the next – but justice is justice."

 

Of course he was a collaborator. It also made no sense that the Bajorans were on board with him remaining in charge of station security. Seems like they would've been offended by him wearing a Bajoran uniform.

 

I don't know if that term can apply. Bajor was occupied and of course any bajoran who helped the occupying force would be a collaborator. But Odo wasn't to my knowledge a bajoran?

 

He worked for the Cardassians, but he didn't let that affect his investigations much. People who were innocent were almost never prosecuted by Odo. He didn't feed the Cardassians information about the resistance that he uncovered in the course of investigating a specific crime.

 

Quark "worked for the Cardassians" too. Like Odo, he was not a collaborator.

 

Odo wasn't a Bajoran, so he can't be a collaborator, he can only be an enemy solider. Over the Occupation, Odo gained a reputation for justice. A crime was committed, the Cardassians just wanted to find a scapegoat and didn't care who, but Odo wouldn't say somebody was guilty unless they really were. Kira was surprised to find out that any innocent Bajorans were executed on Odo's watch.

That's why he's not seen as a collaborator, because Kira's likely not the only Bajoran life he protected from Dukat.

 

Just to remind people: DS9 was not prestige appointment for either Bajoran Militia, security force, or Starfleet. It could be that no one was concerned about who took the post or to conduct an investigation of possible collaboration/exploitation/... during the occupation.

 

Odo was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He was stuck there and had to cooperate with the bad guys.

 

I liked the quote a poster made above about Odo being on the side of justice. You have your politicians and military personnel, but Justice is Justice. I think the Bajorans gave Odo a free pass because of what he was. Maybe Dr. Mora vouched for him.

 

Dr. Mora would be a collaborator as well.

I dunno. Maybe Odo stood up to the Cardassians in some kind of way that made him famous, they respected him for it and let him off the hook. Him being known for being "just" is fine but there kinda has to be specific examples of this to win the masses over. Maybe he saved a bunch of Bajorans in some kind of controversy known to all and thus became a righteous non-bajoran or something.

 

How do we know he wasn't forced into the position he held?

 

Maybe. But it doesn't seem that way. He works for a Bajoran institute, one that accepts assignments from the Cardassians. He's not some downtrodden guy in chains toiling in a Cardassian facility. I dunno, maybe he was given the bayonet treatment and compelled to do that stuff or maybe he was a collaborator who did things to help the resistance on the side and therefore got off.

 

It would follow from our knowledge from that later episode that Dukat may have appointed Odo to give him an excuse not to kill Kira for that reason. He looked into it himself, found Kira, knew any Cardassian would pronounce her guilty, and appointed somebody who wouldn't. But, the writers certainly didn't have that in mind at the time.

Not just any Bajoran who worked for the Cardassians was a collaborator. It's a particular type of work, Bajorans who rat out and help grind down other Bajorans.

 

You are really stretching the meaning of "collaborator." In the simplest sense, it is just someone who works with another. However, it means something more when matters of political justice are at stake. The guy who collected trash in occupied northern France was not a collaborator. The guy who rummaged through the trash on his route, looking for Allied propaganda and kosher food labels, was. It is the latter who carried out the specific policies of the occupier who would be judged a collaborator. With police departments and other arms of government, collaboration reflected participation in rounding up Jews, actively pursuing resistance members, etc. Even at his weakest, Odo could only be accused of taking a shortcut through justice: he made sloppy decisions when investigating the bombing on the station that nearly killed Dukat, but he was still pursuing justice. He's never shown actively pursuing members of the Bajoran Resistance.

 

Wikipedia defines Military Occupation:

"Military occupation is effective provisional control of a certain ruling power over a territory which is not under the formal sovereignty of that entity, without the volition of the actual sovereign.[1][2][3][4] Military occupation is distinguished from annexation by its intended temporary nature (i.e. no claim for permanent sovereignty), by its military nature, and by citizenship rights of the controlling power not being conferred upon the subjugated population.[2][5][6][7]"

Note the "intended temporary nature".

The longest military occupations listed by Wikipedia are the South African Occupation of Namibia for 79 years from 1915-1994, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories for 49 years since 1967, the Soviet occupations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia for 47 years (1944-1991), the Soviet occupation of Hungary for 46 years (1945-1991), the Allied occupation of Berlin for 45 years (1945-1990), the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyrus for 42 years since 1974, and the Moroccan occupation of Southern Sahara for 41 years since 1975. The list of past military occupations includes 82 that lasted five years or less and only 29 that lasted over five years.

Thus the Cardassian rule of Bajor for fifty years was probably a military occupation for only a short portion of that time, and Bajor was probably annexed by the Cardassian Union for most of that time.

Furthermore, by military law resistance to a military occupation is a military crime. So the natives of occupied territories have to draw the line between non resisting and collaborating by cooperating too much.

And when region A is annexed by region B it legally becomes an act of treason for a native of region A to resist the region B's rule over his locality. So the natives of an annexed region have to draw the line between non resisting and actively promoting the foreign rule.

And in many cases they do that by not caring about that line and by accepting the foreign rule as permanent and not being angry at anyone who actively supports in. And thus in many cases the natives of the annexed region become totally assimilated with the annexing group within a few generations.

So ask yourself what evidence is there that the majority of Bajorans were members of the resistance or supporters of the resistance in one way or another? Isn't it possible that because the writers of DS9 had romantic illusions about rebels and resistance movements most of the Bajorans seen in the series were members of the relatively small minority of Bajorans in favor of the resistance against Cardassion rule (not occupation, rule)?

Thus it is possible that only a tiny minority of Bajorans, members of the resistance and their supporters, would have been angry at Bajorans who actively supported the Cardassian government of Bajor, and called them "collaborators". And of course Odo was not a Bajoran and so probably very few Bajorans, even among resistance members, would think of calling him a collaborator.

 

Well, no. I've stretched nothing., I've asked the question.

Many of the most highly regarded resistance movements are lead by a revolution minority. When they win, they promptly mythologise about the majority being with them all along. There's noone around in such turbulent times with a clipboard testing public sentiment or anything like that. Nor do you have to be a militant or even active to harbour anti-occupation convictions. The occupation has been described as grim, savage and murderous where Dukat is regarded as a moderate figure in comparison. There's a distinct sense that's a two tier occupation, the Bajorans being the underclass, the Cardassians the overlords. Cardassians rule, Bajorans get the menial stuff. It's an occupations folks, clear as day and intolerable in the long run.

Odo's position is poor though. He's a Cardassian appointee mandated to carry out Cardassian law and steer convicts towards Cardassian punishments and is implicated in miscarriages of justice. Cardassian law is highly eccentric and disastrous as you get a trial only after you've been declared guilty. That's an intolerable tyranny right there. The writers kind of lurched into developing this aspect of the Odo character. They should've had him playing a double game not some straight- as a die type who is upfront with both the Cardassians and the Bajorans. That's not an equilibrium that's sustainable really.

And Odo is probably a Bajoran national even if he isn't Bajoran biologically. He wound up on Bajor as an "orphan infant", grew up and matured there.

 

It's an interesting point that we never really see what life is like for an average Bajoran during the Occupation and when it's over everybody romanticizes the resistance. It's like the movie The Conformist with people's attitudes toward fascism. During fascism the main character supports and goes along with his fascist orders, then when it's over he leads the mob against the fascists who gave them.

But let's not confuse legal right to rule with moral right. The fact that the Cardassians had the legal right to rule Bajor is no different from saying slave owners were legally in the right. Having law on your side never gives one culture the right to dominate, exploit or enslave another.