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).
“The Forsaken” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode, but an okay one. I hate to say this considering the role of the actor in the world of ST, but I’ve never been a fan of the Lwaxana Troi character which might be a small part of why I’m close to giving this episode one star instead of two. I’m not too interested in the awkwardness of Odo trying to fend off Troi who doesn’t take no for an answer. The other part of the episode, about the computer, is good, but I’m still tempted to go with one star. Having said that, I give it two stars out of five.
“Dramatis Personae” See this for a plot summary.
Another very non-political episode, but a good one. The way the crew start acting differently is interesting. I give it two stars out of five.
“Duet” See this for a plot summary.
This is one of my favorite episodes, I’ll say right away it gets five out of five stars.
It’s about a Cardassian who served as a military file clerk at a notorious forced labor camp where Bajorans mined for the Cardassians. He creates a situation where he is identified on DS9 as the notorious senior officer in charge of the camp. He does this so that his war-crimes trial at the hands of Bajorans will force Cardassia to confront the truth of what it did to Bajor.
When Kira figures out that he was only the file clerk and he describes how horrible he felt about what was done at the camp, they have the following exchange:
Kira: You didn’t commit those crimes and you couldn’t stop them. You were only one man.
Marritza: oh no, don’t you see, I have to be punished, we all have to be punished. Major you have to go out and tell them I’m Gul Darhe’el. It’s the only way
Kira: Why are you doing this?
Marritza: For Cardassia. Cardassia will only survive if it stands in front of Bajor and admits the truth. My trial will force Cardassia to acknowledge it’s guilt. And we’re guilty, all of us. My death is necessary.
Kira: What you’re asking for is another murder. Enough good people have already died. I won’t help kill another.
Later, when Kira is walking with Marritza on the Promenade, she says to him: “what you tried to do was very honorable. If Cardassia is going to change, it’s going to need people like you.” Right after she says that, a Bajoran fatally stabs him and says that he did it simply because he was a Cardassian, a justification Kira rejects.
Kira’s first and last lines and Marritza’s second line in the exchange are very good lines, as is Kira’s line right before Marritza is killed. Although it’s not a big surprise with Kira, it’s still noteworthy that she tried to make him feel better, recognizing that even though he was in the military at the camp, he was just a file clerk and he felt horrible about what happened.
What Marritza says in his second line, which is complemented by what Kira says right before he dies, is great. When one nation occupies or otherwise hurts another in a way comparable to what Cardassia did to Bajor (or worse), they also damage themselves. It invites an erosion of democracy, and also invites corruption and bigotry; and it harms that nation’s reputation with others. Once that has happened, the best way to deal with it is to be brutally honest. You can’t get rid of a problem until you admit that you have a problem- being honest about it will make it less likely that it will happen again in the future. The nation cannot regain the full respect of others until it is honest and does what can be done to right the wrongs they committed.
As far as something very comparable in the real world, it would be nice if more Germans with knowledge of the Holocaust had been honest about it- although some were, it wasn’t as many as we would have liked. But many did come forward with information about it. This also reminds me of how at the end of the war one American officer who liberated a camp forced the people of the local town to come to the camp to see what it was like, something which apparently shocked the townspeople.
Another good example of course is England/the UK and Ireland. I’m not too sure how much of the ancient part of that history Britain has acknowledged and apologized for. I know that in 1997 Tony Blair was the first British Prime Minister to apologize for British policy during the Famine. I also know that when that happened, republicans suggested that he should also apologize for London introducing sectarianism to Ireland as a way to oppress the indigenous population.
More recently, there’s been a lot of activity around looking into the past events in the conflict over the partition of Ireland. There’s the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, an investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombing (and allegations of British collusion in those bombings) and a lot of other deaths where the role of the security forces is an issue- either because it was the security forces who killed people, or they’re suspected of colluding with the loyalist paramilitaries. Although I’m not familiar with the details, various human rights groups have expressed concern about how the British government is setting up inquires and such into past events- it is setting them up in such a way that the government has a lot of control over the final product. There have been calls for an internationally organized inquiry into the past, comparable to S. Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation but organized by some international organization like the United Nations. There’s also a need to be more honest about the discrimination Catholic have faced, and about the conditions facing Catholics before the reforms of 1968-70. By the time the British government becomes honest about this, they’ll probably be politically ready to withdraw from Ireland, but in the meantime they can and should be pressured to go with an internationally organized look at the past as described above. Also, when the truth is more officially established or reinforced by new reports and statements by politicians, this will have an important effect on opinion among the Protestant population in N. Ireland. It will almost definitely nudge people towards being anti-sectarian if they have more reason to accept that Catholics have been treated very badly in N. Ireland. The ant-sectarian minority among Protestants will go from small to large (I’m defining anti-sectarian in the sense that they will take a stand and say something whenever inappropriate comments are made, that sort of thing). So, it’s not just the British that would benefit from someone like Marritza, but also the Protestants who are unionists in the North- if more of them would speak out against how Catholics have been treated and to a small degree still are being treated, that would be very beneficial. One part of why it would be beneficial is that eroding sectarianism would strengthen the broad working-class in N. Ireland, through the labor movement and other organizations that are pro- working-class.
Are there people more or less like Marritza in Britain or N. Ireland? Yes. there’s the Troops Out Movement in Britain, and lots of Labour, left, and some other politicians who say and do the right things. In the North, there are left politicians who more or less fill the role. One of Sinn Fein’s District Councilors is a Protestant who used to be a cop, Billy Leonard. In the late 1970s the chief of staff of the Irish National Liberation Army was Ronnie Bunting Jr. whose father was a notorious sectarian bigot. There are others who more or less fit the mold, in the sense that they are Protestants who have broken from Unionism and are part of and/or support the nationalist population.
Going back to the episode, I want to highlight Marritza’s powerful statement: “Cardassia will only survive if it stands in front of Bajor and admits the truth.”
Basically every aspect of the episode is great. Five stars out of five.
“In The Hands Of The Prophets” See this for a plot summary.
This episode introduces the character who, although I can’t stand her, is nonetheless a welcome part of the series. She’s vedek Winn, basically a priest, who is campaigning to be Kai, basically Pope.
In order to increase her profile and create a situation where her rival will be asassinated, she picks a fight with Keiko O’Brien who is teaching the children of the station. Winn objects that Bajoran religious beliefs are not being taught since some of the students are Bajoran.
I should say at this point that although I am mildly religious and fairly spiritual, I believe strongly in secular education with people of all religious beliefs and none learning together. Thus I agree with Keiko’s position that she won’t teach Bajoran religious beliefs and with Sisko’s opposition to creating a second school for the Bajoran kids. Keiko told Winn “I don’t teach Bajoran spiritual beliefs, that’s your job.” Later, Winn suggests that Keiko shouldn’t teach anything that conflicts with Bajoran beliefs. I can tell you that I was taught many things which contradicted the Bible, but it didn’t erode my religious faith. It is possible to learn scientific theories and facts that contradict your religion and still have faith in that religion.
UPDATE 12/27/15 I may have mentioned this elsewhere but I think it also needs to be mentioned here. I basically believe in Intelligent Design, but I don't believe it should be taught or even mentioned alongside evolution in science classes and probably no ore than slightly mentioned in school in general.
The idea of religious segregation in education reminds me, of course, about N. Ireland. According to Eamonn McCann, in April 1997, the Chancellor of the University of Ulster, rabbi Julia Neuberger, labeled the single-religion schools for Catholics and Protestants “sectarian” when she was speaking at the opening of an integrated school. Her statement caused an uproar, at least among large parts of the Catholic population. I think people should be careful using the term sectarian- it has two meanings in relation to N. Ireland and religion. First, a reference to DIVISIONS, and second, a reference to BIGOTRY. To suggest that the schools maintained by the Catholic Church are anti-Protestant is not accurate, but they do represent sectarian divisions. In the mid-1970s Seamus Costello of the Irish Republican Socialist Party said that he supported the continuation of separate education for Catholic children because in a united system, Catholic children would be taught the wrong things as far as Irish history and Irish politics (it would be Unionist). Costello made it clear that he didn’t like the Catholic Church controlling education but he felt that the alternative would be worse. That was before the development of integrated education in the early 1980s, years after Costello was killed. Today, especially with the Assembly set up so that education cannot be dominated by Unionism, I’d say that at this point, and for the last 11 years at least, integrated education is a good idea. It will erode sectarian divisions, has the potential to see some of the Protestant students won over to the Irish nationalism of some of their peers, and will weaken the political power of the Catholic Church, which is good for a lot of reasons (the social conservatism they promote and their support for the Social Democratic and Labour Party).
UPDATE 10/21/16 (my thoughts on the IRSP and Costello are found here (my high opinion of Costello is not reflected in my opinion of the Republican Socialist Movement since 1982) )
UPDATE 4/26/11 In early 2002, the then leader of the Irish Labour Party, Ruari Quinn, praised Martin McGuiness of SF for the work he was doing promoting integrated education as the N. Ireland Minister of Education.
Going back to the episode, it’s made very clear that Winn’s extremist, fundamentalist and conservative combination of politics and religion is a minority tendency in the Bajoran faith. The other side of Bajor’s religion, represented by vedek Bareil is very popular, both with the clergy and with the people. Which is more or less (in some ways less) how it is, in general, with religion.
Overall it’s a good story, although I have to take off a few points for how Winn annoys me, which brings it down to three stars out of five (without Winn I’d say three but almost four).
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