Why did Kira call Innocent Cardassians who needed to be killed "Collaborators?"

[Bad Thoughts]

I've tried to communicate with you in good faith

If that were true,you would not have been parsing out my statements. You would have looked at the conversation I had with Charles Phipps in its entirety.

 

[Timo]

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.

This is quite true. It is also highly suspicious, as resistance fighters ITRW generally predominantly hit the soft collaborator targets. Might be the Bajorans were more successful in hitting hard targets. Might be they just like to talk about those, and not about the other sort.

Timo, that you enjoy making provocative statements, but this is offensive bullshit to real-world victims of occupation.

How so? Just about everybody on Earth is the victim of occupation: those as a rule never ever end. Most have learned to live with it. The ones who fail to have the learning experience either are no longer with us, or are making life difficult for us.

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.

I might ask the Palestinians later on. The Indians are currently occupied by wholly different folks, so for them the Raj most certainly did end - but it also most certainly was the Raj, rather than the mere military operation known as occupation.

Semantics is a battlefield. Nobody occupied Ireland - those who were there were ruling, and owning. Those folks are now dead, and others speak for and against them. Which is as it always goes. And Trek plays that game nicely, too. I'm just curious as to the exact score now that everything about Bajor is said and done AFAWK.

The Resistance is explicitly identified in the early episodes as the reason the Cardassian Central Command withdrew from Bajor.

By the resistance. Which Cardassian parties admitted to the Bajorans having played a role there? Dukat blames the Detapa Council. Marritza in his Dar'heel persona blames them, too - and when he lets slip the name of Shakaar, and Kira dismisses it as "he was an important military leader", Odo shoots that down, as the average Cardassian official would never have heard of Shakaar and his "achievements". (Which, oddly enough, included "liberating Gallitep", a decade before the Cardassians left, while the episode establishes Dar'heel in fact was there basically to the end - so what was Shakaar drinking, and sharing with Kira, when he thought of himself as a liberator?)

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.

Which then simply makes them criminals by the long-established rule of law, and a disruption to the normal order of things. Really, their utter failure is built into the duration and depth of their hatred. What's the point of not admitting to that failure?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tosk]

They stop calling it "the provisional government" after Shakaar is elected First Minister IIRC.

You remember correctly. If anything, they stop calling it that slightly before he is elected. They never use the term again after the episode Shakaar, thus it was gone for good less than half-way through the series' run.

 

[Charles Phipps]

It can also end with outright annexation.

Except the Cardassians already considered it a permanent part of their group. The Cardassians treatment of the Bajorans is based on the fact they are considered a permanent racially inferior slave caste.

Remember, they're partially based on the Nazis.

Which then simply makes them criminals by the long-established rule of law, and a disruption to the normal order of things. Really, their utter failure is built into the duration and depth of their hatred. What's the point of not admitting to that failure?

This is a dumb sentiment. The Rule of Law means nothing to the people it is being used to beat in the face.Ten years, twenty, a hundred, or ten thousand--if the goal is a better life for your children then they should keep fighting.

And from a retributive perspective, if you kill one Cardassian and deprive them of their benefits of slave labor, it's all worth it.

 

[Timo]

Except the Cardassians already considered it a permanent part of their group. The Cardassians treatment of the Bajorans is based on the fact they are considered a permanent racially inferior slave caste.

Remember, they're partially based on the Nazis.

...The Bajorans?

After all, they are the ones with the permanent caste system of inferiority and superiority and whatever. (Which Hitler's lunatics never did have, FWIW, being awfully flexible about whatever floated their slave galley.)

This is a dumb sentiment. The Rule of Law means nothing to the people it is being used to beat in the face.Ten years, twenty, a hundred, or ten thousand--if the goal is a better life for your children then they should keep fighting.

And that's the very point. In normal circumstances, say, after generations of stabilization, rule of law means good living. Fighting means bad living. To fight for good living like that is just raping for virginity.

And from a retributive perspective, if you kill one Cardassian and deprive them of their benefits of slave labor, it's all worth it.

That would presume that there's slave labor to be opposed, though, which is hardly ever the case in longterm occupations. So, what was the situation like on Bajor when Shakaar and Kira were active? There was Gallitep (until suddenly there no longer was, and the Cardassians didn't seem to mind), and there were both paid workers and entrepreneurs and forced (even if potentially paid?) laborers and sex slaves on Terok Nor, but outside those two spots, was there slavery?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[UssGlenn]

If anything, they stop calling it that slightly before he is elected. They never use the term again after the episode Shakaar, thus it was gone for good less than half-way through the series' run.

I'm glad to have been wrong about that.

 

[Charles Phipps]

...The Bajorans?

After all, they are the ones with the permanent caste system of inferiority and superiority and whatever. (Which Hitler's lunatics never did have, FWIW, being awfully flexible about whatever floated their slave galley.)

No.

And that's the very point. In normal circumstances, say, after generations of stabilization, rule of law means good living. Fighting means bad living. To fight for good living like that is just raping for virginity.

No conquered people has any need to ever submit to their conquerors. Part of what made the Cardassian rule so intolerable was the fact that they engaged in so many atrocities for no other reason than sadism. Gul Dukat was a moderate after all and states bluntly that many Cardassians wanted to just exterminate the entire Bajoran people (he's not exaggerating either) then colonize the dead world.

That would presume that there's slave labor to be opposed, though, which is hardly ever the case in longterm occupations. So, what was the situation like on Bajor when Shakaar and Kira were active? There was Gallitep (until suddenly there no longer was, and the Cardassians didn't seem to mind), and there were both paid workers and entrepreneurs and forced (even if potentially paid?) laborers and sex slaves on Terok Nor, but outside those two spots, was there slavery?

The Cardassians were very clear about never having any intention of incorporating Bajorans as citizens. It's not even a question.