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)
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
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 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?