Last year I finally watched all five seasons of Babylon 5, another sci-fi show, one I had thought of watching once in a while stretching back a couple decades. It isn’t as political or as progressive as ST but there’s some good stuff there- in fact, on one issue, a progressive take on the working-class and/or labor movement, B5 is better than ST. Because there is so little progressive material, I’m going to do one post for every four episodes reviewed, and only mention the episodes that have some progressive political stuff. I might ignore some of the more minor and/or less unique stuff about conflict resolution because from what I remember, it’s very common in this series. Also, although less so than is the case with Star Trek, multiculturalism is a big part of Babylon Five and I will also only be commenting on that when it goes further than usual. There are issues raised about telepaths- I’m going to completely ignore stuff about telepaths when reviewing these episodes. I also will probably say nothing about the conflict with the evil race the Shadows- sure, I could say Trump is as evil as they are or compare them to Nazi Germany, but that’s kind of silly (I’m sure there is nothing political about the Shadows, they’re just evil, like the Borg or the Empire). And I might skip most of the stuff about the conflict between B5 and the Earth government- I don’t remember it involving stuff like a strong capitalist agenda or racism or something.
**Season 4, Episode 18 “Intersections in Real Time”** See this for a plot summary.
At the end of the last episode, Sheridan is captured by Earth forces. This episode is entirely about him being questioned. They aren’t looking for information, but for a false confession that crucially includes him admitting to being led by aliens. Most of what the interrogator does is not torture (very little physical torture and none of the sort of non-violent torture that was also used at Abu Ghraib in Iraq). A good example of what his interrogator does is ask him first if he’s "controlled" by “outsiders” and then, before Sheridan answers, asks if he’s "influenced" by “others.” Sheridan says no, clearly (in my opinion) not noticing the difference between the two questions and/or thinking of the first question. But the interrogator then says that EVERYONE is influenced by others and Sheridan must be lying. Of course if Sherdian had said yes either at first or after being called a liar, the Earth gov’t would have taken that (recorded answer) as an answer to the first question.
**Season 4, Episode 19 “Between the Darkness and the Light”** see this for a plot summary.
There’s about five minutes that continue with an attempt to get Sheridan to say that the rebellion he led was really an alien conspiracy. About half-way through the episode he’s freed by Garibaldi, Franklin, and Lyta.
One other thing worth mentioning is that the Narn, the Centauri, and the League of Non-Aligned Worlds agree to militarily support Sheridan (more, apparently, than they already were). G’Kar says that since the Shadow war they “have begun working together as never before. In the past we had nothing in common but now the humans have become the glue that holds us together.”
On one hand it seems like the beginning of what we see very shortly at the end of the 4th season, which is the creation of something sort of comparable to Star Trek’s "the Federation." On the other hand, I don’t like the Earth-centric nature of these developments.
**Season 4, Episode 21 “Rising Star”** See this for a plot summary.
There are at least two political things in this episode.
First, the acting President of Earth says that Sheridan did the right thing the “wrong way.” That doesn’t make much sense. In his position, I’m not sure what else he could have done. I’m not saying that armed rebellion is the only way to deal with a dictatorship. There is always the option of mass struggle- getting people in the street, or sitting down in protest, etc. But, according to the acting President of Earth, dissidents on that planet felt like they couldn’t do anything. How could Sheridan have contributed to a non-violent resistance on Earth while in command of B5? He could have used non-violent methods ON B5 without breaking from Earth, but it seems to me that breaking away was more effective. It must have been more visible and inspirational to the rest of the Earth Alliance population than marches or non-violent civil disobedience on B5 (without breaking from Earth as they did (and which could have been more easily covered up in the media than what they actually did)).
The first battle with forces loyal to the President was kind of defensive in nature. I think that, considering there were other parts of the Earth Force that broke with the Earth gov’t, Sheridan, would have been doing the wrong thing if he had abandoned them. Then, the most immediate cause of him going on the offensive was the slaughter of civilians by Earth Force ships under orders from the President.
This reminds me of N. Ireland and the Provisional IRA’s campaign. I defend it in many places on this blog, but perhaps the two main things you should read are here and here. It would be kind of reasonable of people who disagree with me about this to point to the years where the PIRA’s campaign overlapped with the last 2-3 years of the Civil Rights Movement (1970-72) and say that the PIRA should have been on cease-fire during that time. First, as far as I can tell there was probably a majority and maybe a LARGE majority of members and supporters of the Provisional Republican Movement (what we call in recent decades, Sinn Fein and the IRA) that DID participate in the CRM. And during those years, even the Official IRA (the other side of the split that produced the Provisionals and the side which was fully in support of the CRM) was waging an armed campaign of some significance.
The Officials went on cease-fire in 1972 (not long after the CRM was kind of displaced by the PIRA’s campaign as the dominant answer to unionism and British imperialism) and have remained there since (well, until some time in the 1980s their cease-fire wasn't totally solid in different ways but it was close). I haven’t heard of the Officials organizing any large-scale protests and/or marches as a replacement for armed struggle, and they had the support of about 4% of the nationalist community in the 1970s and that went down further in the 80s and 90s. They were pretty irrelevant as an example of a better form of resistance.
The SDLP was getting a large chunk of the Nationalist vote. When looking at the 70s (when PSF wasn’t running candidates) and thinking about how much support they had in the Nationalist community, it seems unavoidable and reasonable to assume that they had the same level of support that they had in the 80s and 90s, which would have been about 60% (this is based partly on voting figures and population figures in the 1970s). But after the decline of the CRM, it looked like the SDLP were not organizing marches and rallies, etc. In fact John Hume, who was a very senior member in the 70s and was the SDLP’s leader in the 80s and 90s, was not a major advocate of marches during the time of the Civil Right Movement. He opposed three key marches during that time. And about 15 years ago, I read an article where a senior SDLP member poured cold water on the idea of organizing marches.
There are two more ways in which the SDLP didn’t represent a more populist, people-based and non-violently subversive response to what was being done to the Nationalist population. In general it wouldn’t hurt if you read this post about the SDLP. Items #4, #5, and #8 are especially relevant. #3 might also be relevant. As I wrote elsewhere on this blog:
In his 1998 book "McCann: War and Peace in Northern Ireland," NI socialist and trade-unionist Eamonn McCann writes, "the trade union movement is better placed than any other to purge the politics of this island of sectarianism. No other institution brings Catholic and Protestant workers together on a regular basis in pursuit of a common purpose which is antipathetic to sectarianism." McCann makes it clear that he doesn't think this potential has been tapped more than occasionally, and [Mark] Langhammer agrees with his analysis.
(Mark Langhammer is or was for a while a senior N. Ireland member of the Irish Labour Party)
I don’t know what SDLP members in the trade-union movement did or didn’t do along those lines, but the fact is they didn’t succeed in orientating that movement the way McCann and Langhammer suggested, and that might indicate that either A) they had almost no one in that movement and/or B) they didn’t try. As far as SDLP MEMBERS (not voters) go, they have been consistently described as being middle-class.
I don’t mean to totally acquit the Provisionals when it comes to this. Speaking of republicans in general, Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey called for them to do more work organizing people and less work organizing armies. What I said about the SDLP and the trade-unions might apply, to a lesser degree, to PSF. As a more working-class party they probably had more members in the trade-unions, (but maybe not since they may have had more trouble getting jobs- because they were more likely to have a criminal record). I also won’t deny that Protestant and unionist TRADE-Unionists were probably less interested in what SF members had to say than what SDLP trade-unionists had to say. And lastly, although I’m certain PSF made more efforts to get people in the streets than the SDLP did, they weren’t ridiculously successful with it (that is, outside the context of the prisoners' struggle around 1980 when they were massively successful).
For more info about mass struggle in the Troubles, see this.
The other issue is something that was said about the creation of the Interstellar Alliance. As far as I can tell it’s similar to the Federation of Star Trek, but less centralized. While announcing the creation of the IA and inviting Earth to join, Delenn talks about free-trade (probably not anything comparable to NAFTA), a code of conduct for interstellar relations, a reserved but possibly very useful armed component, and more. At one point she says: “this new alliance will help less-advanced worlds improve their conditions.” It’s at moments like this when I wish I was about 20 times more familiar with the EU than I am, but it reminds me of the sometimes-met potential of the EU. The EU has, as far as I can tell, done a lot about civil rights and human rights and civil liberties. At the very least they have some potential to redistribute wealth around the EU. The Earth joins the IA, which requires them to recognize an independent Mars.
**Season 4, Episode 22 “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars”** See this for a plot summary.
This episode is more creative than most, and kind of special. We are shown a current affairs TV show discussion about 2-3 weeks after Sheridan defeats the forces loyal to the President. Then a similar show about 100 years after that event, and then a recording made 500 years after Sheridan’s victory and lastly, a hidden recording about 1,000 years after that event.
The first discussion involves an obnoxious supporter of the deceased President whose grip on power was broken by Sheridan. There’s a lot of talk from him about Sheridan being unsuitable as a leader of the Interstellar Alliance (IA). First, Sheridan is criticized for firing on "his own ships." What’s intentionally ignored is that there was a civil war raging, a war that Sheridan hadn’t started, and a war that involved the late President’s ships firing on their former colleagues in the Earth military. Second, he says that Sheridan arranged for independence for Mars “at gunpoint.” This ignores the fact that Earth was keeping Mars under Earth control, “at gunpoint.”
* * * *
In the third part of this episode, we learn that one of two factions on Earth is preparing to launch a propaganda campaign aimed at weakening support for the IA by creating fake recordings of the top four Babylon 5 figures doing horrible things like summary executions, following speeches about how there will be no mercy. I am wondering how much of that is aimed at supporters of that faction, or undecideds, or the other faction. If it’s the latter, I guess it’s because they want to sow doubt and confusion about what the founders of the IA were really like.
Their motivation for this is that they feel the need and/or desire to colonize and conquer new worlds and the IA and it’s military (the Rangers) are obstacles. Which is exactly what they should be. The imperialist faction is also planning on launching a first strike, probably with nuclear weapons and aimed at civilian targets in areas their opponents govern. The virtual reality version of Garibaldi engages in some cleverness and warns the IA-aligned areas who strike at the military targets in areas governed by the imperialists.
