Let’s be clear: Thugs hijacking relief supplies meant for communities starved by a genocidal despot is an awful, ugly thing. But I’ve watched with some amusement as Western shipping companies and the navies that support them have grown frustrated with Somali pirates in recent years. Pirates! But there’s more to the story than Johnny Depp jokes and calls for a War on Pirates.
The reality is that all the way back to the 17th century, pirating has been a form of resistance when government force has propped up private-industry predation. London Independent columnist Johann Hari says the same is true with today’s pirating troubles off the Somali coast. He wrote about it back in January, and HUFFPO reminds us of that column today:
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?
Back then, plenty of seafaring crime—the Atlantic slave trade included—depended upon the forced labor of poor, landless men rounded up (legally) by shipping companies. Many mutinied or otherwise escaped and became Robin Hoods of the seas—robbing ships, taking African slaves into their crews and spreading the wealth evenly.
What’s all this got to do with today’s Somali pirates? Among the many crimes against humanity unfolding in Somalia: Western companies dumping waste off the shore and plundering the coastline of seafood. The United Nations’ humanitarian news service IRIN reports that European fishing companies are also harassing local fishers and have convinced foreign navies to label them “pirates.” Hari reports that they’ve plundered $300 million a year in seafood. Further, he says
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."
[snip]
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.”
Shiver me timbers. Hari also cites a poll conducted by an independent Somali website, Wardheer News, in which 70 percent of respondents said they support pirates as defenders of the country’s coast. Now, clearly there are also simple thugs floating around exploiting the chaos. They need to be dealt with forcefully. But you know that part of the story. It's a shame how little we hear about the European thieves sailing the same high seas.
—KAI WRIGHT
BONUS: Don’t miss hypertalented Somali rapper K’Naan musing on "Why We Don't Condemn Our Pirates", also at HUFFPO.