If I'm to believe the mainstream press and pundits (most disappointingly, Rachel Maddow,) there are bands of inexplicably evil men sailing around the Horn of Africa, pillaging ships and terrorizing sailors simply because they are pirates. And pirates are evil. End of story.
Except, that's a rather shallow interpretation of what's happening in the Somalian waters. Acts of piracy are acts of desperation, and not the acts of evil men. Of course, terrorizing civilians is never acceptable, though I would like to point out my own government is guilty of crimes against humanity that far exceed any acts of Somalian piracy.
In his excellent article, Johann Hari writes of a fascinating exchange between Alexander the Great and a pirate. The pirate was captured and brought before Alexander.
[Alexander] demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in today - but who is the robber?Hari went into further detail about Somalian pirates when I interviewed him for my show Citizen Radio. During the interview, he explained that Somalian pirates are actually poor fishermen. It was only after Somalian waters were poisoned by western nations, and the livelihoods of Somalian fisherman were destroyed, that civilians turned to acts of piracy as means of survival.
What happened in Somalia is that in 1991, the Somalian government collapsed and the country imploded. Two processes began in different parts of Somalia; bearing in mind it has a 3000 km coastline. A European shipping fleet, mostly Spanish, Italian and some British came along and basically started industrially fishing Somalian fish, which is one of the main sources of food in a starving country. Suddenly these tiny little fishermen with nets were being out fished by these industrial trawlers and the fish started just disappearing, so there was a massive increase in hunger in Somalia.Pundits (even our beloved Progressive pundits) adore simplicity, and the pirate coverage off the coast of Somalia presented to them an orgasmic, cartoonish stand-off between "noble seamen," and "evil pirates."
In another part of Somalia, industrial waste from Europe begun to being dumped just off the coast, because it's expensive to get rid of waste in Europe [whilst] it costs nothing to take it in a boat and dump it outside Somalia. The most incredible thing that was dumped was literally nuclear waste. So after the tsunami, barrels of all sorts of random shit started to wash up on the coast of Somalia, including nuclear waste that we now know [as a result] radiation sickness killed around 300 people but no ones bothering to count or check. That's [what] the UN special envoys estimate to me was, 300 died, could be far more, no one's looking, cleaning or doing anything.Imagine if this happened in Florida, imagine if the government of Florida didn't have any resources and suddenly Italians came, stole all the fish and everyone was going bust in Florida, and they started dumping nuclear waste. People of Florida would be calling for the nuking of Italy.
The Somalians with very limited resources sent what they called the 'National Volunteer Coast Guard' to try and stop these people, and the people we call pirates call themselves the coast guard. This is not that implausible when you bear in mind the context. It's absolutely true that the some pirates have committed unacceptable acts, I don't believe it's ever right to take a hostage, [but] they haven't killed anyone, harmed anyone, but they have taken hostages. That's not right, they do it to get money but they then in some cases give it back to [their] communities, which have been desecrated in several instances. So it's a good example of how something is presented as mindless insanity when actually it's actually completely different.
The truth is more complicated than that.
Somalians live in a shockingly volatile environment complete with stark poverty and religious fundamentalism. Their environment has been poisoned by the west, their source of food and income destroyed, and now desperate men are resorting to desperate acts.
To stress again: it's never acceptable to harm civilians, and hostage-taking is never a valid means of negotiation. Still, when considering the stress placed upon Somalia's civilians, it's actually pretty surprising that there hasn't been more violence, and that most nautical conflicts with pirates have been resolved peacefully. (Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, even admitted that "in most of these cases to date, [the] crews have ultimately been released unharmed.")
It's important not to demonize Somalians, even the Somalian pirates. When we demonize our enemies, they become less than human, and it becomes easy to apply such blanket rhetoric as "terrorists." Demonization (particularly by our media) allows hawkish figures an excuse to say that Somalia "must be invaded," that poor fisherman AKA pirates "must be destroyed," and that the "axis of evil" has a new peg.
Johann Hari's official website: http://www.johannhari.com/
Allison Kilkenny's official website is here: allisonkilkenny.com. Also available on Facebook and Twitter.
The big difference between the pirates and Wall Street is that the financial wizards don't use guns to extract their booty. April 15 is around the corner -- I've gotta pay my taxes so that some poor starving banker can get his bonus and continue to eat his Beluga and drink his Cristal. It makes me feel god just thinking about it.
to the guy who is quoting the Brititsh BBC.
Yes, things are getting out of control and criminals are joining the piracy fan fair,
but what started it is more complicated than some in the west would like to admit.
Nuclear waste dumped in the Somali sea is creating a whole lot of pain to
the most poor in Somalia, deformed children are being born in an alarming rate.
Adults are devoloping previously unknown deseases as well.
i do not condone piracy, but i think Mrs Alison the narator of the article and Mr Benton
the commentator are closer to understanding to this issue.
Cheers,
A concerned Somalian of the crime of Piracy, illegal fishing and waste dumping.
If The pirates will set up some form of government that can distribute money to the people in some reasonable way, we could start paying a "channel fee" every time a ship passes within, say 500 miles of the Somali coast, in exchange for being allowed to pass unhindered by pirates. That would solve the starving masses problem of Somalia while allowing international commerce to continue. I agree we have no right to plunder the resources of Somalia and expect them to just sit back and take it. But a pirate led government has yet to be effective for the mass of people.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7650415.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7650415.stm
You are setting back any dialog about how to address the many social injustices in Africa, particularly the disaster of Somalia by trying to paint the Pirates as some form of misunderstood victim. They are not, they are organized, cell phone carrying, well funded barbarians. They are well fed young men not the starving mothers trapped in refugee camps.
I will talk all day about the wretched conditions and the need for international efforts to relieve the mess of Warlord torn Somalia. I can not believe that conversation has anything at all to do with barbaric acts at sea. Your comments should be considered what they are, misguided, poorly thought out and indicative of someone who has a no grasp of the basics of civilization and the rule of law.
Rachel is right. Pirate=Evil
If I were President Obama, I would not send any aid to Africa.
In fact, Allison, if you go to ABC News, and do some research, you will learn about over 260 kidnappings ( mostly for ransom) in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2008.
There is as little reason to defend pirates as there is to defend terrorists. Actually pirates maybe even worse than terrorists because terrorist usually has some misguided grievance they acting upon.
Granted the pirates are human - there is no need to demonize them. But there is no need to defend them either.
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=43869