This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.
I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)
Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).
“Second Sight” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode. And unfortunately, not a very good one. I give it one star out of five.
“Sanctuary” See this for a plot summary.
The alien race from the Gamma Quadrant, the Skreeans are a female dominated-society. At one point, the main alien character says that “men are far too emotional to be leaders. They’re constantly fighting among themselves- it’s their favorite thing to do.” When she says that all their leaders are women, Bashir asks her “ALL of them?” and Dax says “you heard her, Julian.” Then when it seems like O’Brien is offended, the Skreean woman says “please do not misunderstand- we love our men- REALLY.” All of which adds up to a fairly good statement on how women have been excluded from power and how men have spoken of that.
The other main issue that this episode raises is that of refugees and kind of immigrants/settlers. Quark and Nog don’t react well to the presence of large numbers of Skreean refugees, because they act odd (they’re from a very different culture) and don’t have any money and Quark thinks that they’re affecting his business negatively.
The Skreeans also run into problems when they come to believe that their mythical homeland is actually the planet of Bajor. The Bajorans seem to be concerned about the welfare of the Skreeans who used to be oppressed and are now free but homeless. However, Bajor says no, because their planet is in horrible shape after the Cardassian occupation and they feel that they can’t handle what might be a burden if, for example, the Skreean attempts at farming on Bajor don’t work out.
At the end, when it’s settled that the Skreeans will not be going to Bajor, their leader says to Kira, “Maybe we could have helped you, maybe we could have helped each other. The Skreeans are farmers, kira. You have a famine on your planet. Perhaps we could have made that peninsula bloom again. We’ll never know, will we? Fifty years of Cardassian rule have made you all frightened and suspicious. I feel sorry for you. You were right. Bajor is not Kentanna.” (Kentanna is the name for their mythical home world).
First, in reference to refugees I would say that these are people who have to go somewhere, they’re likely to die in their home countries. People in those situations should be welcomed. When it comes to the United States, often the government or corporations have had a hand in the conditions that force people to leave their countries, so people here should be even more welcoming of refugees. (I don't refer to immigrants as "economic refugees" (I think there has to be some kind of natural disaster and/or persecution to use the word "refugee") but I feel at least roughly the same way (or exactly the same way) about immigrants as I feel about refugees)
I’ve described part of my attitude on immigrants in this post. With that in mind, and the humanitarian arguments, and the fact that they usually have to pay their taxes, immigrants should have access to public services.
Going back to the episode and the Bajoran rejection of the Skreean and their leader’s response, I’d say that although they were wrong to reject the Skreean, they were not motivated by some kind of bigotry or xenophobia (well, some minority of those opposed to Skreean settlement might have believed in “Bajor for Bajorans”). Instead, they seemed to have an inaccurate sense of the pros and cons of having the Skreean settle on their planet., although it’s close. The area sort of available for the Skreean was considered un-farmable, although the Skreean leader felt that as a farming people they could make it work. Bajor also felt like it didn’t have the resources if the Skreean ended up starving and needed help.
Although it’s not exactly the same, this does remind me of N. Ireland and Ireland as a whole, both of which have seen a lot of refugees and asylum seekers and immigrants and migrant workers. In the Republic, such people seem to be sort of welcomed on average- I think there’s less hostility to them than you would find in America, although probably not much less. Same thing with the nationalist community in the North. And the nationalist community are dealing with a continuing occupation, although it has been significantly transformed through the Good Friday Agreement and the UK has a fairly good welfare state that nationalists benefit from. But they still face high levels of unemployment and the services that the refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants, and migrant workers benefit from are supported by the taxes of nationalists, and yet, unlike many of the unionists, most nationalists don’t express hostility to those foreigners in the North.
This positive attitude is at least partly because of what Irish people in Ireland know about how Irish emigrants were treated in at least some of the countries they went to, including America. They weren’t treated well, and most Irish people feel strongly about not treating these groups of foreigners that way.
Going back to the episode, it’s good, I give it two stars out of five.
“Rivals” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode.
One bit of politics is the news that some government requires people who want to mine asteroids to do a study on the effects of such mining on inter-system navigation. Although it sounds a bit different, it reminds me of environmental regulations. It’s presented fairly positively, especially when seen in connection with other environmentalist statements by ST.
Another part of the story is that although Bashir and O’Brien are still something like 10-20 episodes from becoming friends, the tension between them is highlighted and they spend a lot of time together, which sort of lays the basis for them to become friends later.
I give it two stars out of five.
“The Alternate” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode, but a good one, I give it two stars out of five.
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