Oh, I haven’t started anything, just trolling innocently around.
I see your point but as a Bulgarian, I have seen so many big powers come and go that the only thing that I can say is that all asymmetric relations are inherently unfair so it is up to the local structures to negotiate a good treatment for their nations. In this sense, local leaders either manage to keep the balance between a geopolitical necessity and national interests or not. A grudging symbiosis is preferable to a downright occupation.
Judging by this article written from a dispassionate historical perspective, it was inevitable, a big colonial power assimilating its periphery, not much different from our love affair with the Ottoman Empire. One should only bear in mind that we can’t change and judge history because whatever happened was relevant to the people who lived then. We haven’t walked in their shoes, it is just our afterthoughts.
http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/cra ... ed-irelandOur contemporary politicians comprise only traitors supported by international political lobbies, they work for foreign agendas and facilitate multinational parasitic structures. They did not try to mitigate the conditions or to scrounge any social benefits for my people and that is why they are hated and despised. Some of our previous occupiers had the decency to value us as workers or a sphere of influence and treated us as fairly as the circumstances or the historical period allowed for that. Our current Euro-Atlantic allies and their lapdogs suck in a big way.
I admire Cardassians for having a strong state that takes care of its interests, that is willing to do everything but to provide the population with resources, stability, and security. Dukat treated the Bajorans better than our politicians treat their own population, he fought and negotiated to the last and joined the Dominion out of sheer necessity, simply the Dominion was likely to win. He might have failed but our lousy politicians did not even try.
Religion has never been an issue here, we have some form of Orthodox Christianity but no one is interested, we are down-to-earth people. In fact, I am very happy that we are an atheistic society and we don’t care about any form of organized religion.
Basically, religious people are very traditional and capsulated and resist everything that goes against their beliefs. What is more, they always display this holier-than-thou attitude even if they claim that they are tolerant towards atheists or people from other creeds. The Bajorans believe that faith makes them worthier and more special than other species but in fact, it makes them only more stagnant and stupid.
Hunting, animal rights, gay marriages, feminism and veganism are not my forte. I am a horse-owner and I will do anything for my horse. Every day I deal with a large assortment of grooms, horses, dogs, cats, pigeons and rats. I love them all, especially the rats. Still, I believe people are more important than animals. When all people in my country have access to food, water, electricity, jobs, healthcare and accommodation, I might start crying over stray dogs and underappreciated housewives. I have empathy only for people who have busted their ass to achieve something against the odds, without crying. I can’t stand victims, mollycoddles and bleeding hearts.
Death penalty? The conditions in our prisons make death penalty quite a tolerable option. It is deadly to keep 8 prisoners in cells for 3 where they happily transmit virus pneumonia, tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis and STDs to each other.
Well, it is not only religion, people kill each other primarily out of economic concerns, religion is only a pretext. It is all about M-class planets, who will dominate them and who gets the resources.
The Bajorans can’t change the perspective, they have spent millennia contemplating their own navel. If they stop hating from victim’s point of view, they have to take responsibility for doing nothing to prevent it. Besides, nowadays victim playing is the in-thing, every idiot who can’t handle their life ascribes it to some social, political, economic, historical, ethnic, gender, or cultural injustice and cries for revenge and retroactive indemnification. Pop culture reflects this trend.