That terrorists deliberately target civilians, masses of civilians being the targets, rather than primarily military targets to try to force social change out of fear of further violence seems an objective and significant distinction from a group being, as with if they primarily went against military targets and civilians were collateral damage, just a rebel/guerrilla force.
Why did Kira call Innocent Cardassians who needed to be killed "Collaborators?"
- Thread starter WesleysDisciple
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That terrorists deliberately target civilians, masses of civilians being the targets, rather than primarily military targets to try to force social change out of fear of further violence seems an objective and significant distinction from a group being, as with if they primarily went against military targets and civilians were collateral damage, just a rebel/guerrilla force.
So, targeting civilians is the distinction? Does it only count if the civilian deaths are the point? The resistance must have attacked supply lines and the civilian infrastructure that supported the military.
By that distinction there’s a lot of rebels out there we call terrorists cause they are the same religion as famous terrorists.
And and of itself, no. However, the targeting of civilians tends to coincide with the strategic goals of terrorists: creating a general sense of unease and dread among the population at large.
We can only speculate about whether the resistance--which was not a singular, unified thing--attacked Bajorans who supported the occupation. There were references to the Konma, but no details. However, if a resistance group blew up the Bajoran factory that made shackles for the Cardassians, we could not call it terrorism in an unambiguous manner.
Ironically, the Bajorans not having a single, global, unified resistance movement is probably the only thing that kept it alive.
Cardassians are well known for their torrure and interrogations, so a few high ranked resistance members captured would cripple or even destroy the entire movement. It's a point Kira made when she was training Damar and his movement.
In the long run, it was better for them to not be unified. Though they all shared the same basic purpose... get them off their world.
Cardassians are well known for their torrure and interrogations, so a few high ranked resistance members captured would cripple or even destroy the entire movement. It's a point Kira made when she was training Damar and his movement.
In the long run, it was better for them to not be unified. Though they all shared the same basic purpose... get them off their world.
Those are good points that you made.
Kira mentioned that she and other Bajorans viewed Odo as a relative paragon of virtue during the occupation. Even though Odo was not Bajoran, Kira was nevertheless, profoundly disappointed, almost disillusioned, when she found out that Odo helped put to death innocent Bajorans, at least that one time if not more.
I think one of the points of the DS9 occupation story arc is that something as horrible as an occupation will wind up corrupting everyone way or another. It is something that is so insidious that anyone who lives through it, as Kira said, "had to get a little dirty". Overall, I would say that DS9 did a good job in its storytelling about the occupation.
I think there might have been the Stockholm Syndrome at work regarding Meru, as well as brainwashing of Meru by Dukat.
Meru mentioned to Kira that Dukat was not what she expected and that Dukat had made a case to the Central Command to reevaluate its policy toward Bajor. Kira told Meru it was all a lie. Maybe Meru was open to being lied to. In any case, Dukat effectively co-opted Meru.
During the video conference Meru had with her husband (Kira's father), Kira's father acknowledged that her life with Dukat was going to be permanent. There was no going back and he wished Meru well in her new life. Apparently, they both believed they were doing what they had to do for the family to make it through the occupation.
Maybe Meru did enjoy the perks of collaboration, but was that such a bad thing, really? when her children, including little Kira, got well fed and got their own perks.
I have to admit that I had sympathy for the Meru character. I can also understand the deep betrayal that Kira felt. But her attempt to kill her mother, that is hard core.
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Does one trade the misery of the whole for a little comfort for oneself?
My judgement is that Meru was a kidnapping victim, regularly raped, and forced to pretend to like her rapist so he family didn't starve to death.
And Kira can go quark herself for calling her a collaborator.
Mind you, the writers seem to have had moral ambiguity in mind for this despite using the name of the Japanese Imperial Army's mass sexual slavery and rapine.
And Kira can go quark herself for calling her a collaborator.
Mind you, the writers seem to have had moral ambiguity in mind for this despite using the name of the Japanese Imperial Army's mass sexual slavery and rapine.
Well, this is the interesting bit. Did anybody on Bajor ever really think that the occupation would end?
If not, then those who resisted would be the evildoers, as they were the ones decreasing the odds of anything Bajoran surviving, and those who cooperated would be the heroes, as they perpetuated the species and the culture and the customs, to the extent possible.
Since most of the adventures take place after the occupation has concluded, it makes sense for everybody to call it that: the Cardassians would not speak of a "conquest" because this would establish that they failed, while the Bajorans would not use "conquest" merely to gloat on the Cardassian failure because it would humiliate the Bajorans, too; the Feds would then have zero reason to deviate from that (although they originally considered Bajor "annexed" in "Ensign Ro"). So the big question here is, do the characters speak of "occupation" while it's ongoing, thereby implying nonpermanence?
* Odo uses the word once in the "Necessary Evil" past sequence, in a retort to Dukat; the Cardassian presence is far from fresh at that point, yet Dukat doesn't contest Odo's choice of words. Of course he doesn't have to: he uses his next breath to basically threaten Odo with execution anyway.
* Odo uses it again in "Things Past", but he is time-traveling/hallucinating there, and thus entitled to applying language he has learned after the Cardassians left. The Cardassian he addresses again spits back general venom, so "contesting the choice of words" isn't an issue.
* Yet it's in "Things Past" that we get a more objective statement, from said Cardassian Thrax:
So, not only does Thrax use the word, he believes the occupation will one day come to an end!
Then again, Thrax there is just the figment of the collective imagination of the heroes: while based on a historical character, it's a central plot point that he's not doing exactly what the real Thrax did. So, an anachronistic attitude after all?
What else do we have to go by?
Timo Saloniemi
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Yes. Every single person who became a freedom fighter/terrorist. That's what they were fighting for.
I think, from what I've read, it happens easier than you think. Also we all in the Western World are guilty of that to some extend, we trade the misery of exploited humanity for our comfort and prosperity.
Plus you have seen how Meru acted towards the food in her quarters; she immediately started to wolf it down, she has gone so long without what we consider the necessities of life that her behaviour is, to me, somewhat understandable. Especially since her compliance didn't just help her, but her family as well.
I think the Cardassians might have even officially used the word "occupation" to describe their presence on Bajor, at least during part of the ongoing Occupation. Maybe to make the Federation (and any possible parts of their populationt hat were sympathetic enough towards the Bajorans as to balk at a statement that the Occupation would become officially permanent) happy by presenting it as a non-permanent state of affairs.
I think officially, as far as Cardassian High Command was concerned, they were going to present it as a perpetual "temporary state of affairs", or at least until virtually everybody stopped caring about the Bajorans/until there were no Bajorans anymore.
The Cardassians are pretty Orwellian, and societies/governments like that are very used to giving their horrible practices "nicer" sounding names.
It can also end with outright annexation.
Timo is arguing that because occupation is spoken in terms of a military activity that is understood as temporary, it necessarily is a failure if applied. That makes no sense. The United States occupied West Germany after World War Two, transformed the country to its liking, and then ended the occupation.
Huh? I'm saying the exact opposite. If the Cardassians think they are occupying, then they aren't outright taking over everything, so whatever they achieve will by default be success. Be it creation of a new Bajoran regime, temporary exploitation of the planet, or preparing the planet for becoming an integral part of the Cardassian Union.
It's just that the only Cardassian who thought Cardassia was "merely" occupying the place was a piece of fiction. Admiral Kennelly, the lapdog of Cardassians, considered the situation an "annexation" while it was still ongoing. So what happened the night Dukat was told to abandon Terok Nor would have been considered a failure to keep Bajor annexed. And Dukat thereafter freely speaking of the past as an occupation negates that failure.
Then again, we do have reasons to think Cardassia always planned on leaving. For one, they did, even though we hear of nobody telling them to. (No, the resistance movement doesn't count; nobody ever considered them a factor there.) We also hear of the motivation to take over the place in the first place, that is, to stripmine it of precious minerals, and while we don't really hear of this being concluded, we don't hear of there having been an incentive to continue, either. Whatever got mined might still remain in quantity, but Cardassia might no longer have a pressing need for it, or the costs of mining what remains might be excessive, or whatever.
Do we have reasons to think Cardassia was there to stay? Well, the writers wrote themselves to a particularly tight corner there in the first season already, by making Bajor the next-door neighbor to Cardassia ("Tribunal" is probably the first episode openly guilty of this). Letting go of that place would mean exposing the Cardassian home system to the neutral space that was stated to surround Bajor. It's like Russia giving up Finland and the Baltic states and letting NATO come to within artillery range of St Petersburg.
Then again, that happened, too. And not all of it was dependent of Russia being on the verge of collapse. Was Cardassia ever truly badly off? The rants of Gul Madred don't exactly convince, given the context. How could the military be told to give up the only buffer planet the Union had, and how could the civilian government still stand, come morning?
Whatever the machinations there, the one thing they do is make the antics of the resistance look rather petty in comparison. Did any of the fighters really believe in their cause after generations of ongoing Cardassian oppression, whatever their name for it?
Timo Saloniemi
They stop calling it "the provisional government" after Shakaar is elected First Minister IIRC.
I think something to bear in mind is that the definition of the word "terrorist" has changed in the popular vernacular since 1993. Back then, "terrorist" was a word for anyone who engaged in asymmetric warfare. Post-9/11, the common definition of the word has changed to someone who primarily targets civilians in order to quite literally "terrorize" a population into complying with the terrorist's political agenda.
The Bajoran Resistance so far as we know did not primarily target Bajoran or Cardassian civilians; every attack we heard about or saw in flashback seemed to focus on military targets. They seemed to consider Cardassian civilians and Bajoran collaborators acceptable targets if they died during an attack on a Cardassian military base, but we don't hear of them primarily targeting either.
In "When It Rains...," Kira specifically says she killed Bajoran collaborators when necessary:
"ODO: The weapons depot on Adarak Prime is protected by only a single garrison and there's a weakness in their perimeter defences. A small group could infiltrate the compound and --
RUSOT: Adarak Prime is defended by a Cardassian garrison.
ODO: That's correct.
SESKAL: You expect us to attack our own people?
KIRA: If necessary, yes.
RUSOT: That's out of the question.
DAMAR: I agree. We'll limit ourselves to targets defended by the Jem'Hadar and the Breen.
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.
RUSOT: We're not Bajorans. We don't kill our own.
KIRA: Well then you might as well just give up right now. Because the minute that the Dominion realises that you will not attack your own people, they will station a Cardassian at every base they have.
ODO: She's right. The Founders won't hesitate to play your own people against you.
KIRA: Anyone who's not fighting with you, is fighting against you."
She also acknowledges that the Resistance sometimes attacked the homes and offices of Cardassian military leaders who had civilian or noncombatant servants and family members. She argued in "The Darkness and the Light" (bold added to specify her argument):
"KIRA: So you were wounded during an attack I carried out when I was part of the resistance, and I'm supposed to feel guilty? We were at war, Silaran. Fifteen million Bajorans died during the occupation and you want me to feel sorry for you?
SILARAN: No, I wasn't part of your war. I was an innocent. I wasn't even in the military. You know what I did on Bajor? I was a servant. I cleaned uniforms for Gul Pirak.
KIRA: Gul Pirak. Commander of the weapons depot at Hathon.
SILARAN: I'm glad that you remember. Now, do you remember what you did? How you put a plasma charge outside his bedroom window in the middle of the night?
KIRA: I remember he executed fifteen Bajoran farmers because they refused to display the Cardassian banner outside their homes.
SILARAN: Trentin Fala showed you how to circumvent the defence system. Latha Mabrin built the plasma charge. Furel and Lupaza stood guard outside while you crept up to the house.
KIRA: None of us liked killing. We were fighting for our freedom against
SILARAN: You vaporised the entire east wing! Twelve Cardassians were killed, including Gul Pirak's entire family. Twenty three others were crippled. Don't you feel guilty? Don't you feel ashamed of what you did?
KIRA: None of you belonged on Bajor. It wasn't your world. For fifty years you raped our planet and you killed our people. You lived on our land and you took the food out of our mouths, and I don't care whether you held a phaser in your hand or ironed shirts for a living. You were all guilty and you were all legitimate targets!"
Yes.
I know, Timo, that you enjoy making provocative statements, but this is offensive bullshit to real-world victims of occupation.
Nothing about the word "occupation" implies nonpermanence. Just ask the Palestinians today, or the centuries of Indians and Irishmen who lived and died under British occupation.
The Resistance is explicitly identified in the early episodes as the reason the Cardassian Central Command withdrew from Bajor.
Yes. And in the real world, it is very common for resistance fighters to retain such belief in their cause after generations, even centuries, of occupation.
And nothing you quoted disproved what I wrote. Kira advises Damar cannot shy away from attacking facilities even if the Dominion staffs them with Cardassians. Likewise, she says that she attacked facilities of Cardassians during the occupation of Bajor.
What does she not say? She does not advise Damar to attack Cardassians alone. She does not recommend he target Cardassians solely for being disloyal. She does not advise him to attack Cardassian military figures in their homes. Etc. and etc. She also NEVER ONCE says she or the Shakaar target solely Bajoran targets in their attacks. They never bombed Bajoran shrines or schools or marketplaces. Every target was a facility created or occupied by the Cardassian military, their suppot staff, and Cardassians who profited from the occupation. We can assume that there were Bajorans in the facilities. However, THEY WERE NOT THE TARGETS OF THE ATTACKS. There is only one Bajoran collaborator that Kira killed during those years, Vaatrick, but she was not targeting him for assassination. She was trying to steal information from him. There is not other time that Kira or Shakaar or anyone as part of their group said that they went out looking for collaborators to kill or they attacked Bajorans simply because. They were always those who were manning CARDASSIAN FACILITIES. And that weasel "The Darkness and the Light" was NOT A COLLABORATOR. He was an occupier and profiteer.
This isn't difficult, people.
Not everything I wrote was specifically meant to disprove what you wrote; much of it was elaboration on what is established in the series. Kira's reference in "When It Rains" does establish that she and the Resistance killed Bajorans more times than just the death of Vaatrik.
Okay, here's the source of the disconnect: I would not say that Vaatrik was "the only Bajoran collaborator that Kira killed." "When It Rains" makes it clear she killed multiple collaborators as incidental to her primary Cardassian targets. I think it would be fair to say that Vaatrick was the only collaborator who was primarily targeted by Kira for violent action (but that he was not, as you note, targeted for death).
Let's get our terms straight.
A collaborator is someone who is working with the forces occupying her/his country and, implicitly, against the interests of freeing the country. Someone who comes from without the country cannot be a collaborator.
An occupier is someone who is involved in the military oversight of a territory that is in a period of transition. Implicit in the process is that the military has overtaken the normal functions of government of that territory. The transition can lead to withdrawal, transformation, or annexation. Cases of civil excepted, they come from the foreign country and are not native to the territory under occupation.
Bajoran who worked with the Cardassians during the Occupation: Collaborator.
Cardassian who came to Bajor to work during the Occupation: Occupier.
Remember Oskar Schindler? The German citizen who went to Czechoslovakia and established arms factories but eventually saved a lot of Jews? He was not a collaborator.
A collaborator is someone who is working with the forces occupying her/his country and, implicitly, against the interests of freeing the country. Someone who comes from without the country cannot be a collaborator.
An occupier is someone who is involved in the military oversight of a territory that is in a period of transition. Implicit in the process is that the military has overtaken the normal functions of government of that territory. The transition can lead to withdrawal, transformation, or annexation. Cases of civil excepted, they come from the foreign country and are not native to the territory under occupation.
Bajoran who worked with the Cardassians during the Occupation: Collaborator.
Cardassian who came to Bajor to work during the Occupation: Occupier.
Remember Oskar Schindler? The German citizen who went to Czechoslovakia and established arms factories but eventually saved a lot of Jews? He was not a collaborator.
Holy fuck! Stop it. Read what I have already written. The Bajorans at any facility were never the reason why the target was selected. The targets were selected because they were Cardassian; killing the Bajorans who may have worked there was never described as the purpose of the attack.
ETA: Basically, Kira says that you should never let the little old lady who fluffs up the Commandants pillow stop you from blowing up some enemy shit.
Yeah, I've tried to communicate with you in good faith and you keep being condescending. Done engaging with you.
