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| “Last Battlefield,” 47 years later, StarTrek.com, January 10, 2016 |
© October 23, 2023, the Griot Poet
January 10, 1969,
“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” premiered in,
The third and last season of the Star Trek original series,
Arguably, Trek is at its best, or WAY too simplistic and
heavy-handed.
The premise:
Bele, a constable from the planet of Cheron, pursued a political
dissident named Lokai,
Lokai’s people were the pariahs of Cheron‘s planetary caste
system:
Bele, the “superior race,” was black on the right side of his
body and face.
Lokai, the despised, was black on the left side, his mirror
image.
Science Officer Spock logically postulated that they descended
from a monochromatic common ancestor.
“Change is the essential process of all existence” is still
one of the most classic lines Leonard Nimoy, the grandson of Ukrainian Jewish
immigrants fleeing the Nazi pogroms, in character, uttered.
Both men scoffed and tried to kill each other with their
pyrotechnical powers,
They put the Enterprise in jeopardy of destruction.
The faster-than-light chase had been long: 50,000 years of
anger, animosity, bitterness, hatred,
Based on a duo-chromatic caste system,
Predating humanity becoming a spacefaring species,
They had been at war since we emerged from the caves.
The powerful beings hijacked the Enterprise, forcing it off
course in orbit to Cheron,
Finding it a lifeless planet, radiated buildings, charred
surfaces and bodies, climate utterly disrupted, and no sentient beings to
convene a trial or mount a defense.
The inevitable consequence of the Hatfield and McCoy feuds is
mutually assured destruction.
Bele and Lokai, the last beings of their kind, beamed down to
complete the genocide.
*****
January 10, 1969,
“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” premiered in,
The third and last season of the Star Trek original series,
Seven months after the assassination of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Sr.,
Nine months after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
One year and seven months after the Six Day War between
Israel versus Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, the only one since that Israel arguably
“won.”
Whether you believe scripture,
Israelis and Palestinians are the descendants of a common
ancestor.
Their religions are monotheistic,
They are imago alterius of one another,
They are kindred.
They are sisters and brothers.
Trying to kill each other with physical pyrotechnics,
Fighting a duel that started thousands of years ago.
Which is the chosen nation?
Which is the child of promise?
Which is the more excellent sacrifice, Cain’s or Abel’s?
Cain and Abel. Brahman and Dalit. German and Jew. Catholic and
Protestant. Hutu and Tutsi. Ukrainian and Russian. Ishmael and Isaac. “Black”
and “White” and all shades in between America created for its racial hierarchy.
Quoting a Facebook meme:
“We were all humans until:
“Religion separated us.
“Politics divided us.
“Wealth classified us.
“And race disconnected us.”
All inhabitants of the same planet,
All members of the same human family,
What will it matter?
How will we call this “The Holy Lands” if you reduce it to
ashes and cinders?
An example of negative impacts:
The wholesale slaughter of Native Americans changed the
climate of the planet!
What would the departure of Israel and Palestine trigger?
Know this: World War Three will have no sequel.
I figure that the only resolution is a two-state solution,
Or a 50-50 framework for shared powers of an egalitarian
representative government.
News flash: NO ONE is going to like it!
It’s called compromise: What you should have learned in
kindergarten.
But returning lands seized would look and sound a LOT like
reparations,
Which would have repercussions in the United States’
hierarchical system of government.
England, France, and other European nations would have to return their mineral wealth to the nations and peoples on the African/Akebulan continent.
Exodus 11:2 states:
The Hebrews left captivity after 400 years carrying Egypt’s
gold, silver and jewels on their backs.
Star Trek’s self-proclaimed number one fan said: “The
choice today is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either
nonviolence or nonexistence.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Last lines of the last act of “Battlefield”:
SULU: But their planet’s dead. Does it matter now which one’s
right?
SPOCK: Not to Lokai and Bele. All that matters to them is their hate.
UHURA: Do you suppose that’s all they ever had, sir?
KIRK: (Ruefully) No, but that’s all they have left. Warp factor two, Mister
Sulu. Set course for Starbase Four.
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