You Are Being Lied to About Pirates

Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as "one of the great menace of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell -- and some justice on their side.

Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" - from 1650 to 1730 - the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage thief that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda-heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often rescued from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains of All nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence to find out. If you became a merchant or navy sailor then - plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry - you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off for a second, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked consistently, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.

Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century." They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy." This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.

The words of one pirate from that lost age - a young British man called William Scott - should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirating to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."

This is the context in which the men we are calling "pirates" have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a 'tax' on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas." William Scott would understand those words.

No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But the "pirates" have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking - and it found 70 percent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence of the country's territorial waters." During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America's founding fathers paid pirates to protect America's territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn't act on those crimes - but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world's oil supply, we begin to shriek about "evil." If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause - our crimes - before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia's criminals.

The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who 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?

Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent newspaper. To read more of his articles, click here. or here.

POSTSCRIPT: Some commenters seem bemused by the fact that both toxic dumping and the theft of fish are happening in the same place - wouldn't this make the fish contaminated? In fact, Somalia's coastline is vast, stretching to 3300km. Imagine how easy it would be - without any coastguard or army - to steal fish from Florida and dump nuclear waste on California, and you get the idea. These events are happening in different places - but with the same horrible effect: death for the locals, and stirred-up piracy. There's no contradiction.

Comments

[panelle]

Clarification: ... how to be helpful to the people of the region, some of whom may be/know/love pirates, others not. There seems to be a vast information gap about the people and cultures of Africa and we have a lot to learn.

[panelle]

Thank you for covering this story, and thanks to the HP for bringing some depth reporting to this issue. I've been following it through a Google News feed for awhile, but the stream of information has been thin and fairly shallow. We have a new administration, one we can trust to make an effort to undo some of the stupidity of recent years. This seems a good moment to get the pirates story out of the backwaters, so to speak, and try to get a better sense of what's going on, why, how to be helpful.....

[RavenWest]

The pirates are totally justified in their actions, no questions asked. I don't care who they pillage or plunder, it's only for their own benefit provided that we don't start killing them like the Israeli's did with the Palestinians.

The more crewmen they hold hostage, the more ransom they collect, the happier I feel seeing that the common peasant still wields a weapon over even the most powerful of governments and corporations.

You can't argue that they do nothing but paint a bad image for themselves. Only your impossible moral standards and brainwashing from the media tells you that.

[KCSumner]

"The more crewmen they hold hostage, the more ransom they collect, the happier I feel seeing that the common peasant still wields a weapon over even the most powerful of governments and corporations."

I am an American merchant mariner. I've sailed through the Gulf of Aden, and I've stayed up all night watching for them in order to protect my shipmates. The people being taken hostage are primarily mariners like me, who have no objective in Yemeni or Somali waters except to pass through to our destination. We haven't taken their fish or dumped toxic waste in their water. My employers are cargo ship owners and cargo ship operators with no affairs in Somalia except maybe delivering aid for the United Nations. You have just declared that you would like me, my shipmates, and my brothers around the world to be held hostage. You want us to be deprived of our freedom and wages, threatened with death, and kept from our friends and families for days, weeks, and months. All this, so that our captors can take money from companies that have nothing to do with the suffering in Somalia.

This isn't the solution to the problems in Somalia. Attacking innocent ships is no more noble or productive than hijacking random trucks because some deliver goods for Walmart. What Somalia needs is stability, local government, and economy. They need a lawful coast guard to protect their shores, and police to keep peace in their cities.

[the sentinel usa]

Excellent article. Thank you Johann.

[TiaL27]

Yet another reason to stop supporting the MSM. Thanks Johann Hari for enlightening us.

[seehowtheyrun]

Thank you Mr. Hari: Excellent article.

Wake up people, buy local, buy organic, demand higher standards for food and environmental safety. Greed is destroying the world: not just corporate greed either. Think before you buy that next cheap, jumbo pack of fish fillets. There are many ugly reasons why they are such a > bargain.

[Hoisin]

Wow. What an ability to spin complete BS this guy has. I liked how he claims Somali people own international waters and mentions Brits taking their food, while ignoring all the other countries fishing in the same waters who consume more then the brits do.

[shelsay]

come off it, if you think for 30 seconds England or the US would let foreign nations come to their shores and fish for free, you're dreaming.

[Brian Ross - Huffpost Blogger]

Actually, Shelsay outside of our 3 mile limit we see fishermen from as far away as Japan and Russia in Pacific waters, and from Europe in Atlantic waters. Since the fish don't carry passports, and know to stay in our territorial waters, they are here. This is why international treaties are so important on fishing and fisheries. Unfortunately Africa is a largely unregulated fishing ground because of the chaos on shore. Perhaps you should come off of it.

P.S. Mr Hari's article is complete BS. These folks are criminals, pure and simple, an extension at sea of the lawless chaos of Somalia on shore. Mr. Hari glamorizes them as Robin Hoods of the ocean, but they are nothing more than sea thugs. The pirates of the Johnny Depp brand worked under the aegis of the Queen of England to plunder Spanish ships laden with gold. When they finished serving their useful purpose to the Crown, and began plundering English ships from time to time, the English navy extinguished them with predjudice.

Prior to that, Pirates were no more than the sea thugs of earlier centuries preying upon ships coming up from Africa and Asia. They are largely the reason that England developed such a strong and swift navy: To protect commercial interests at sea.

[falco]

Thank you Mr. Hari. How on earth the "truth" slipped by the censors and you were able to point out this gross hypocracy in the MSM is beyond me. Thank you again. Now if we could just convince people that religions divide, and were created for such division, we could possibly stop the world wide misery that western nations impose on other nations.

[Clayton139]

Nuclear Waste - Taken Food Supply - Inhumane People !
Nuclear Waste is in our worlds waters now ! I will not eat any fish anymore !
Shame on the Europeans - Italians ! What are they going to eat NOW ?

[wrong]

You Are Being Lied to About Pirates by the author of this article
Who were the BARBARY PIRATES???
What did President Thomas Jefferson do about them???
What did he find out as to why they were PIRATES???
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied:
It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War

[Mikeeee]

Gee, that sounds like a really accurate description of Christians (there's only one true god ya know), just ask your fearless leader for the last 8 years. See: crusades ancient and modern, also see Inquisition, ancient and modern.

[PatCcj]

Thank you for such an enlightening article! When the Somalis pirated an oil tanker, it seemed (at the time) to be an incredibly insane, desperate act. In light of this piece it starts to make sense. It is TRAGIC that the mainstream media didn't give ANY coverage of the Somalis' side.

[JohnUSA]

thanks for the great article!

[Jimmyboyo]

Great article

[personalpolitical]

Very interesting article! You gotta love the typical hypocrisy and double standards of the West...just like how when we (or our Israeli proxies) kill an "enemy" it is fighting for "freedom and liberty", but when a desperate insurgent attacks us for occupying and destroying their country (and probably a few family members), they are terrorists. Killing is killing, piracy is piracy, theft is theft. We just do it more effectively in the US:

http://www.thepersonalispolitical.com/2009/01/you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates.html

[Fightnmad]

Thanks so much for your eye-opening blog. Your research is well appreciated, and it smacks of truth. Why else would these "pirates" be taking on armed gun ships in their fishing boats?

I've also wondered where all that nuclear waste is being dumped. Incineration is the way to go, but most nations find it too expensive, and with incineration, and (if I remember correctly), you still end up with a residual 5% toxic goo that has a 150 million year half-life. They have to hide it somewhere, and it certainly won't be in their own backyards. What a bunch of greedy, immoral, blood-sucking, short-sighted morons these European nations are, to poison the defenseless Somalia and the world in this manner.

Outstanding work, Mr. Hari.

[KCSumner]

They aren't taking on armed gunships. They're taking on unarmed fishing boats and cargo ships. Our defensive armament consists of fire hoses and axes.

[ifihadahammer]

I had no idea. Thanks for your informative and insightful work!