"Means of Political Change": Zarek's backstory

[selenak]

Another Zarek-related post (I'm making likeadeuce happy these days, which is important as a bribe), and query/thought:

In Bastille Day, we hear Laura Roslin give us the following bit of backstory about him:

"I watched Adar offer to give him a full pardon if he'd apologize and give up violence as a means of political change, and he refused."

Most people when hearing Dee argue with Billy about whether Zarek is/was a terrorist or not focus on her statement that he blew up a building. Which probably associates Timothy McVeigh and Oklahoma for Americans, and for Europeans sounds more like "terrorist" as well. However: what kind of terrorist gets offered a full pardon if he says he's really sorry and promises not to do it again? Especially if pre-war society in the Colonies is meant to strongly parallel Western or specifically American one?

Of course later events in s2 and so far s3 show Zarek to be both a ruthless customer with a taste for power and have some principles, but I'm wondering about the backstory now, and the implication for Colonial society. Especially as Adar, given the glimpse we get of him in Epiphanies and the various tidbits revealed in dialogue, doesn't seem to have been the naive type - anything but. Or the type to do something which would have made him look really bad in front of his electorate, which pardoning a universally despised terrorist certainly would have.

So either the reason/cause Zarek blew up that building for must have been rather popular in the Colonies as well, and/or something was rather rotten in the state of Caprica even before the Cylons attacked. Thoughts?

Comments

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

Like likeadeuce, I've surmised that whatever Zarek did has to have been primarily nonviolent in nature; it would have to be for him to be offered a pardon and for the government to think that Zarek might be a persusive force in arguing for nonviolence. I think "Nelson Mandela" is way too far on one side, but I think "Yasir Arafat" would be way too far on the other.

And I strongly had the idea that the movement Zarek represented had considerable backing and some moral merit to it. The very fact that straight-arrow Lee had some admiration for the guy tells us that much. It's also possible that Zarek was fairly opportunistic in his embrace of the cause --certainly he can't be assumed to share in its highest ideals.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

No, though one has to consider that a) he was much younger then and opportunism usually grows with time and b) if he refused a pardon and remained in prison instead, he was willing to make quite a sacrifice to either the cause (whatever the cause was) or colossal vanity and the idea of himself as a martyr. Because without the Cylon attack, he'd have spent the rest of his life in jail. (Unless he was working on organizing the mutiny even before the Cylons attacked, and planned on a life underground after a successful breakout.) Lee in Bastille Day comes to the conclusion Zarek is enamored with the martyr image, and to a degree that was certainly true, but not as much as with a new shot at life and actually being in a position to affect/lead people, as it turned out. His newest prison stint is again something which might have been for the cause (no collaboration with the Cylons) or in a complicated long-term game (no one will ever forgive any politician who collaborated with the Cylons if the human race makes it out of New Caprica) or both.

Another reason why Zarek might have been offered a pardon: he seems to be good at organizing people and keeping them organized. The prisoners who after becoming ex-prisoners don't appear to go rampaging around in the fleet (and presumably the majority was not in jail because of a miscarriage of justice), the Quorum (he instigated the Vice President election, and later was basically the spokesman for the others when they dealt with Tigh), the black market post-Dreadful Episode Of That Name - if he has evidenced similar talents as a young man, Adar & Co. might have counted on him being able to convince the entire movement, whatever it was, to follow suit for good.

BTW, fab icon.*g*