Tag: whoa

diversity-instarwars:

There are many striking similarities between Padmé Amidala and Satine Kryze, and I believe that is what the writers were attempting to portray.

These are both strong women who rose to power during a very harsh time for their planets and civilizations. They saw there was a need for peace and liberty and climbed to the top to help those in need. On top of that, both women were young when they came to power and faced difficulties in establishing authority and government yet for the most part they prevailed. And above all, both are huge advocates of peace, no matter how you look at it.

While all those similarities between

Padmé

and Satine are positive, I’d like to really look at the one negative one (well it is many but is centrally one)  that stuck out to me. And that is how their efforts of peace caused genocide or almost caused near genocide of specific cultures. And in both cases this near genocide was aimed at a certain group of people – Mandalorians.

So here, I am going to get into both

Padmé

and Satine’s belief that genocide of Mandalorians and Mandalorian diaspora (the clones) is seen as peace.

The fandom has already talked enough about Satine and what she did to the traditional Mandalorians, but I will briefly explain it here. Satine took an age old tradition/culture that had helped a planet and a system thrived and completely eradicated it. Prior to Satine’s rule, Mandalore was not only known for its warrior like traditions but for its diversity in both human ethnic variation and alien species. However after Satine came into power, the diverse population of Mandalore was either eradicated or banished leaving only white, blonde haired-blue eyed citizens. Those were seen as the “pure” or “real” Mandalorians in Satine’s eyes. Eventually, Satine’s own rule ended up crashing down and not even her own people liked her.

In short, Satine was responsible for both a cultural and ethnic genocide of the diverse, traditional Mandalorian population in the name of peace, and this genocide was praised by the galaxy. She was seen as a hero for it.

Many people may not know, but

Padmé

was a bill away from committing ethnic genocide of a Mandalorian population just as Satine did–and like Satine, Padme would have been praised for it.

In this case,

Padmé’s victims were the clones. Earlier in my post I mentioned that the clones were Mandalorian diaspora–they are Mandalorian, just not from Mandalore. They were initially

Padmé’s targets and scapegoats for the war and the Republic’s poor spending. In The Clone Wars,

Padmé

was one of the main, if not the main people who was calling for the end of cloning because she believed that the clone’s were responsible for prolonging the war and wasting the money of the Republic. In

Padmé

’s mind, wiping out the clones would achieve peace.

Let’s really look at how problematic

Padmé

s proposal was.

Padmé

is blaming the clones for a war they did not create and a war they are forced to fight in. She is blaming them for a financial burden that they did not cause instead of holding the Senators and jedi accountable for it. She is blaming them to the point where she is calling for an end to their production..

You “end the production” of tools, of objects that are inanimate. You do not end the production of actual living beings, who have a conscience, as if they are simple weapons. Furthermore,

Padmé

is smart enough to know that ending the clone production alone would not fit her ideal of “peace”. In order to stop a war, which she blames the clones for, she’d have to eradicate the living clones. She already sees these groups of marginalized men below her, has no problem blaming them for the war, and has decided that to achieve “peace”, they must be eradicated.

(rest under the cut – this got long)

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