Pour la défense de Tom Zarek

Richard Hatch a publié une lettre adressée à la journaliste Maureen Ryan après la diffusion de l'épisode Blood on the Scales.

En fait, Maureen Ryan disait: "Despite everything, Gaeta is not a bad guy man. He's mistaken and misguided but not bad in the way that Zarek is bad (in that sense, he's the Shane to Zarek's Vic Mackey from Shield. Both are culpable, but not in the same ways) ... As for Zarek, he really just wanted power, and he had no illusions about how he'd get it or what he'd do with it once he had it.  That what motivated him - The Cylon alliance just provided the opportunity he'd been waiting for." De nombeaux internautes soutenaient la thèse de Maureen Ryan mais un commentaire inattendu arriva: celui de Richard Hatch qui a pris le temps d'expliquer à Maureen Ryan la complexité de Tom Zarek. Voici la lettre en question:

La lettre de Richard Hatch

"First, having played Tom Zarek for the past four years I would like to say that never dit I play this character as a villain, not dit I think he was one and I still felle that way. After paying the price of twenty-five years in prison for standing up for human rights ans seeing both his family, friends and cohorts killed by a suppressive government on his home planet, he had every right to distruct the powers that be on Galactica that seemed to think that only they had the right to make decisions for the people.

And since Zarek was blocked illegally by Roslin and Adama at every turn, uncluding from winning a fair election, he had to resort to any leverage he could gain to assert some kind of voice in what had become an almost dictatorial government run by Adama and Roslin, who looked with disdain upno the Council of the Twelve and did pretty much what they wanted without consensus of people.
And after four years, Zarek had basically only two suits and hardly any money and the smart man he was from learning many lessons the hard way. Why would he want power for the sake of power? He experienced first hand what power could on his home planet and how it could corrupt. The only reason he would power, having been to hell and back, was to ensure that the people had a voice in their government.
Did everyone forget what democraty is about, or do we just shut our eyes when the government no longer listens to the democratically elected representatives of the people just because we love the characters? And by the way I love both these actors and the characters they play, too. The fact is they broke as many laws as they claim Zarek did.
The truth is, from everything I've read and from all the scripts I played, it was clear to me that Zarek's actions were always about making a positive difference, which is what his whole life was about. My god, he paid with twenty-five years in prison for it, and with his life. And, tell me, knowing what we know about the cylons and their programming, how could anyone ever trust them again? Even the human cylons themselves have no idea of what they're capable of doing because of their hidden programming.
Also Zarek was far for perfect, but tell me how in hell could he have accomplished anything in an honest and straight-forward way when he was blocked in every way possible and his reputation tarnished by Adama so no one would trust him? Adama had all the power and the military behind him, so he had to resort to whoever and whatever he could use to have any voice at all.
Does anyone forget that Zarek was in solitary confinement on New Caprica because he didn't go along with baltar's agenda? Is that the M.O. of a power hungry terrorist?
Did anyone ever read Zarek's back-story? Doesn't seem so. People only took what Adama said about him as God's truth, but if you really study his actions you would see that he never did anything that wasn't for the reason of supporting his idealistic vision of a true democracy where the government is accountable. And this government was definitely not accountable.
The government of Adama and Roslin, as much as we love these characters, broke every constitutional rul of law to stay in power and to assert their will. Regardless of their positive motivations, they had destroyed a true democraty on the Galactica. And yet Zarek is looked upon as the power-hungry bad guy because he was one of the few to stand up and challenge them.
And why? Because he believed that just because we have a 9-11-type holocaust, you don't shut your eyes and turn over your power to the government, because that's the surest way to lose you rights and what we as a people has fought many wars to protect. In my opinion, to say that Zarek wanted power only for the sake of power is absolutely wrong, and doesn't make any rational sense if you truly study this character's actions and words.
In truth Zarek, Adama and Roslin all wanted power for the same reasons _ to make a positive difference. But Zarek still idealistically believed that the government should always be accountable to the people represented in this show by the Council of the Twelve.
In closing, it's so easy to just write off Zarek as another power-hungry terrorist, but, tell me, where is this four-year story arc did he ever do anything that supported that belief? His words, his feedback, his words of wisdom, his actions, were always in support of his agenda to make the government accountable, and the reason for that was because he had suffered as much as anyone under a government that operated without accountability. And I hate to say it, this seems to be the direction the present government on Galactica is heading. You're telling me that only Roslin or the Adama family including Apollo has the right to lead and no one can challenge them? That seem to be the case here. Democracy is a fragile institution, and can easily be lost if we don't make our governments accountable, and for me this amazing serie BG has truly explored this themein a powerfully honest way.
I feel privileged to have been a part of this wonderful series and I truly loved playing Tom Zarek. One of the most flawed, complex and misunderstood characters I've ever played.

Richard Hatch"

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