Talk:Occupation of Bajor

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Contents 1 Genocide 2 Startrek.com documentary 3 Completeness 4 Mirror universe 5 VFD archive for Cardassian Withdrawal (now a redirect) 6 Featured article nomination discussion 7 Peer review 8 Gul Dar'heel 9 Historical parallels

[edit] Genocide

I think it's unfair to characterize the occupation of Bajor as a "genocide". The most liberal estimate (one coming directly from someone with a vested interest in making the Cardassians out to be as bad as possible at the time) in the DS9 series (IIRC) was 10 million killed, in a 50 year occupation of an entire planet.

Now if we consider that reasonably to the historic genocides in human history, it just doesn't stand up. The Holocaust of the Jews by Nazi Germany, for example, exterminated 6 million people (a somewhat less liberal and more accepted estimate), when targetting an ethnic minority group over but a small percentage of the planet.

Is there any reason to believe Bajor is significantly less populace than early 21st century earth? If one considers, for instance, the occupation of Iraq by the United States. Now, consider that:

1) Iraq is about 1/250th of the population of the entire planet.

2) Iraq has been occupied for only 2 years

Now lets assume we consider Iraq to be a non-genocide situation (has anyone anywhere made the claim that this particular occupation is a genocide? I can't find an example and I study that for a living):

A liberal estimate (from 6 months ago I might add) from a human rights group was 100,000 deaths. At that rate the Cardassians would have killed over 625 million Bajorans in a 50 year occupation (assuming a starting population of 6 billion, as modern earth).

Even if we assume the very conservative estimates of 15,000 killed (which come from the occupiers themselves), a comparable Cardassian occupation would've killed just under 100 million.

Unless we assume that Bajor is very small and contained only about 25 million people at the time the occupation started, it is unreasonable to paint the occupation as any sort of genocide. It pales in comparison not only to the genocides of human history, but even to some of the less brutal occupations of modern history.

In fact, over the course of 50 years most human governments have proportionally killed more of their own citizenry than the Cardassians did under this "brutal" occupation. In modern society Gul Dukat might well have been elligible for a Nobel Peace Prize.

You actually had me nodding my head in agreement until you said that in modern society Gul Dukat might have been eligible for a Nobel Peace Prize-- that's significantly overstating the case.

I don't think the Bajoran Occupation's primary goal was to commit genocide, as the Cardassians were far more interested in enslaving the Bajorans and raping their planet than they were in killing every single Bajoran. But certainly there were instances of genocide that took place during the Occupation.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights defines genocide in a way that could lead credence to the view that the Occupation itself was a genocide...

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Note that it says that these acts must be committed with intent to destroy a particular group in whole or in part. And the Cardassians need not necessarily have committed all five of the acts to qualify-- any one of them would do. We know for a fact that A, B, and C were committed by the Cardassians, and it wouldn't strain my imagination to believe the Cardassians committed D and E as well.

There isn't necessarily a magic number that makes it a genocide, I don't think. In any event, even given the number of "only" 10 million Bajorans killed in a 50-year time period, that's still 200,000 Bajorans killed every year, or 547 every day. This translates to one Bajoran dying every 2.47 minutes. And all of them were killed by Cardassians directly, Cardassian collaberators, or as a result of conditions imposed by Cardassians. I doubt even the most liberal estimate would add deaths not caused in any fashion by Cardassians.

In some respects, comparing it to numbers from Earth, the death toll seems disproportionately low. But show me a tribe in Rwanda that ever controlled the entire world. In terms of sheer scope, the Bajoran Occupation (encompassing an entire sector of space) was larger than any occupation in Earth's history.

And while the #1 priority of Cardassia was to rob Bajor of every resource the Cardassians could use, they certainly killed a *lot* of Bajorans doing so. Ekedolphin 02:17, 24 Aug 2005 (UTC)

• Instead of arguing the merits of the word, you guys could just look at "Duet", where Kira says nothing justifies genocide and the Cardassian says, "What you call genocide, I call a day's work." Can you say duh? --BajoranBrouhaha 04:10, 4 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Startrek.com documentary

Startrek.com made a documentary about the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. It has some useful information that probably could be included if anyone wants to take the time to do so.

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/features/documentaries/article/12583.html

This documentary is actually very well put together. It doesn't tell us anything new, but it pulls all the information together in one place. Zsingaya ^Talk 20:10, 24 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Completeness

This article has so much potential to be a featured article, it doesnt mention the occupational government ("The Collaborator"), comfort girls and the like ("Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night"), the repercussions (portion of season 1, most of season 2), the turmoil that followed ("The Circle", "Shakaar"), Bajoran-Cardassian relations following the occupation ("Life Support"), the status of people like Odo ("Necessary Evil", "Things Past"), it could even mention Mullibok ("Progress"), and the significant parallels I forgot where it was but someone mentioned The White Man's Burden. It could be such a great article if bajor wasnt one of less popular topics, namely anything to do with big starships or battle scenes. BajoranBrouhaha 04:00, 4 Sep 2005 (UTC)

There could also be a section on Kai Opaka and the importance of the Bajoran faith and of course the Bajoran Resistance and actually TALKING about the people it lists as see also. Not to mention that one lame episode where the guy thought he was the Emissary because he was stuck in the Celestial Temple for hundreds of years and he wanted the people to bring back dejaras. There could be an entire SECTION on how one might argue that the occupation made Bajor stronger, Kira even admitted it somewhere I think. BajoranBrouhaha 04:05, 4 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and I forgot, this would be completely relevant since in [{e|Call to Arms}} either Dukat or Damar said first Terok Nor, then on to Bajor or something like that, in case anyone picks this up as a project, don't forget the way the Cardassians were back with the help of the Dominion and how if the Cardassians had their way it would be Occupation Part II. The details about the Dominion in that what was it a six part story arc, those might not be as relevant but it would be totally appropriate to mention the situation, like Weyounn said, Jake kept calling the Dominion presence an occupation in his news stories, but in Weyounn's opinion it wasn't. BajoranBrouhaha

Ehm, it's fine that you know what's missing in this article, but why you simply edit the article instead of writing this stuff on this page?

[edit] Mirror universe

I think the mirror universe occupation should be its own article. Jaf 20:21, 24 Sep 2005 (UTC)Jaf

• The mirror occupation, like the withdrawal, is probably best placed within this article... Unless this becomes 50kb long, in which case we can always split it up. :) --Schrei 08:19, 25 Sep 2005 (UTC)
  • It's not really about size. The mirror universe occupation is a different thing, involving powers that takes place in a different universe. Jaf 13:07, 25 Sep 2005 (UTC)Jaf
    • Hmm... Good point. Could you bring this up on the peer review page? Or at least say something on the peer review? I'm not sure if it gets ignored because nobody cares about this article or they just don't care/know about peer review. --Schrei 23:52, 27 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] VFD archive for Cardassian Withdrawal (now a redirect)

Cardassian Withdrawal

• Essentially a far weaker version of Cardassian withdrawal found on the Occupation of Bajor page. I would prefer to see it completely gone, but would reluctantly settle for a redirect. --Alan del Beccio 07:38, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)
  • This 'nomination' somehow got removed, so I've reposted it. --Alan del Beccio 03:04, 23 Sep 2005 (UTC)
• Redirect maybe? I'm not sure how useful that would be, but given that someone created this article thinking it didn't exist, maybe we do need a redirect to prevent another misunderstanding. --Schrei 06:14, 24 Sep 2005 (UTC)
  • Never mind, this was created when the occupation was a whole one paragraph, before I added... well... everything other than the intro paragraph. Still, a redirect couldn't hurt I guess. --Schrei 06:16, 24 Sep 2005 (UTC)
• Delete with redirect if it was referenced that way specifically onscreen. I mean if there were enough occasions where the phrase cardassian withdrawal was used specifically, then it does perhaps need a redirect. Makon 05:06, 25 Sep 2005 (UTC)
• ARchived --Alan del Beccio 06:40, 28 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article nomination discussion

I tried to arrange the pictures on there because I wanted to make my first nomination a good one. As I read it over, I couldn't think of anything other than some minor details (which I added) that should be on this page and isn't. Weyoun 00:36, 12 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Comment. You might've looked down that "The Collaborator and seen where Ben said: Hopefully this isnt like the occupation article where someone was working on it but not ready. Then again, it's pretty close to FA status. You (and the Vedek, judging from the page history) did a good job with the pictures. I'm not going to oppose it since I can't think of anything off the top of my head and don't have time to go through it with a fine-toothed comb. I'm sure someone will find something though. --Schrei 02:36, 12 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Well, the sections on Dukat and the resistance are short, but they have their own articles. There isn't really much more about labor camps that's not on Genocide, and I think the Terok Nor section sums it up well. It has the perfect amount of detail without being overly long. Weyoun 07:27, 13 Oct 2005 (UTC)

• Support. I just looked over this and I feel it's come a remakably long way from early revisions of the article. I believe it's complete and very well-written and informative.--Starchild 03:16, 13 Oct 2005 (UTC)
• Support. I cannot think of any more information that should be added. It's well written, very informative with well-chosen illustrations. Good work! Ottens 16:59, 13 Oct 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Support I remember a few months ago a decision on Ten Foward to make a community effort on this article. That's exaclty what happened. The history list is huge. Tons of people colaberated for this article. This demonstrates the entire purpose of MA and is clearly one of the best examples of our community work. Mabe we shoould make some sort of of collum like wikipedia's collaberation of thw week. That's essenatialy what this is, just unofficaly on Ten foward. Everyone should support this and it should be article of the week next week. Tobyk777 23:50, 13 Oct 2005 (UTC)
• Support. I too looked at the edit history and found that Schrei deserves credit for kicking this into motion. As one of his edit summaries stated, "just trying to get the information down - it can be organized later." We helped with the cosmetics, and I think it's perfect now, so stop being modest and support the article already! Toby: check "Memory Alpha:Refit of the Week" if you're interested in future collaboration. Vedek Dukat 02:35, 14 Oct 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Okay, point taken. It does look really good, and I can see what Weyoun means about the sections being fine as they are. :) --Schrei 04:08, 14 Oct 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. I think that some of these sections should be made into sub-sections and the content better organized. Definitely deserves to be an FA based on completeness and content, just think it could be slightly better organized. Logan 5 14:14, 14 Oct 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. That's one of the things I was unsure about, so I'd welcome any help/suggestions. My original plan would have involved splitting the "aftermath" section and possibly rearranging some of the others. Not sure if that's what you were referring to though. --Schrei 14:41, 14 Oct 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, my immediate impression is that Life During the Occupation should have an intro area, with the bulk of that entry put under some sub-head, and then Labor Camps and Terok Nor added to that LDtO as sub-heads. Then Aftermath and Post-Occupation made into sub-heads of Cardassian Withdrawal. But those are just suggestions. I'm also not sure where Gul Dukat goes...clearly important to the occupation so maybe under LDtO as a sub-head since he was the titular head of the whole thing. Mirror-Universe is fine as its own I think. Logan 5 14:51, 14 Oct 2005 (UTC)
      • Dukat does need to be integrated... somewhere. Or maybe the section headings should be changed? It's hard because, chronologically, they overlap. Vedek Dukat 20:57, 14 Oct 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Actually, it looks good the way it is right now. You have the prelude (I split that off actually), then life during it, labor camps, terok nor (built to facilitate ore from the camps), the resistance that popped up, Dukat (who became prefect when it was already a mess), then the withdrawal that happened under Dukat's command, the aftermath, and stuff that happened after the occupation. Coke 20:53, 16 Oct 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review

Occupation of Bajor peer review

[edit] Gul Dar'heel

The information on Gul Dar'heel is incorrect. The episode Duet (eventually) reveals that the real Dar'heel died in his sleep "six years ago". Therefore, he could not have ordered the slaughter of Bajorans on the final days of the occupation. That was part of the story that Maritza made up in his attempt to get himself incarcerated on behalf of Cardassian guilt.

[edit] Historical parallels

I've read somewhere that the occupation of Bajor and Bajoran freedom fighters were also based on Hungary's Soviet occupation and the | Revolution of 1956 and that's why Bajorans have a reversed name order like Hungarians do. Ltarex 15:49, 5 Oct 2008 (CET)

Any idea where you read this? --OuroborosCobra ^talk 20:11, 5 October 2008 (UTC)