Why Klingons and Romulans can never truly become friends... [one comment]

Ok, ok, I admit: they have always cooperated, fought together now and then and even entered into an alliance. But they were never really friends.

Real Star Trek fans also know why this is: both are simply too different in orientation, both peoples are not exactly known for their diplomacy. Ergo: the probability that one of the two peoples will make a diplomatic misstep and that the other people will not forgive it but respond with anger is quite high.

Well, they do have certain similarities, but it's exactly those similarities that actually drive them even further apart. This is how Memory Alpha [ 1 ] (encyclopedia about Star Trek) describes it:

Similar to the Klingons, Romulans are more likely to die than admit defeat - but if they can avoid it through trickery, for example, they are more likely to go this route, unlike the Klingons.

Yes, they have a hard time, these two peoples. Only when things got really tight and both were seriously threatened did they find their common denominator: their existence!

Only when both of these powerful peoples were critically threatened (Dominion War [ 2 ]) did they work together. Their sheer survival turned hereditary enemies into an alliance.

Why that now?

All the nonsense about the Romulans and the Klingons popped into my head after I read the press release about Lionel Messi and his soccer shoes [ 3 ]: in an interview on Egyptian television, Lionel Messi donates a pair of his soccer shoes.

At first - and especially to us - it doesn't sound bad and actually quite nice: the proceeds from the sale of these shoes can definitely be put to good use. If there wasn't this ethnic problem... there wouldn't be a very specific cultural difference:

The importance of shoes!

What was meant as a nice gesture by Lionel Messi is NOT a nice gesture where he applied it. In Islam, shoes are generally considered unclean and must be removed when entering a mosque. And then this Messi comes and gives shoes as a gift!

As a Central European you can now shout: what are they doing! Correct. From a Romulan perspective, one will never understand why Klingons react so aggressively to their own behavior. And if you're honest and just take a step backwards (you just shouldn't always jump straight forward), then you can look at the whole thing from a distance:

Unfortunately, no one had previously told Messi that he could make a (diplomatic) faux pas here. Perhaps a Messi who WOULD have been informed beforehand would have given away his jersey or a captain's armband. On the other hand, perhaps a few riot-minded people should have just kept their mouths shut and accepted the gesture for what it is: a friendly gesture from a man who doesn't know local customs.

El presentador de noticias Said Hasasin se saca un zapato y dice “Acá está mi zapato, se lo dono a Argentina” pic.twitter.com/YOWOBqdBd0

— Rashid Ali Garcia (@RashidAliGarcia) March 28, 2016

Left-wing, green-good guy

I can hear them all the way here, the people who are now accusing me of being a left-wing green-gooder because I look for solutions on both sides instead of blaming the evil Muslims.

No, I don't wear politically alternative sandals or similar footwear and I am clearly of the opinion that one could have simply accepted that Messi gave away his shoes. Damn, because in his culture (and ours) there is no shame in that.

But what bothers me more:

I'm really tired of this stupid noise! Really, can't everyone just take a step back, shift down a gear, take a preemptive look to the other side? I just don't want us all to become forced friends at some point when our very existence is threatened. I want to be quiet in front of this theater beforehand.

Maybe we should all remember other virtues from Star Trek and focus not on confrontation, but on peace.

Commentator: Andre, Mimikama.at

Pictures:

Larysa Ray / Shutterstock.com
Szente Akos / Shutterstock.com