Of Pirates and Predators: Oh what a tangled web

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By Rowan Wolf (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

For OpEdNews: Rowan Wolf - Writer

The news of late has tracked the events of Somali "pirates" capturing a "U.S." ship carrying food aid to Kenya. The ship in question is the Maersk Alabama.

Pirates

Let us start with the central issue of human rights - the "pirates." If you listen to (or read) the news, then this all seems pretty straight forward. There are pirates off the coast of Somalia hijacking vessels and returning them to their owners when a ransom is paid. There was an effort to link the pirates to al Qaeda, but that failed. However, the reference still comes up from time to time. There is no known connection between the Somali pirates and any terrorist organization.

One has to ask "When is a pirate a pirate?" In the short view, we have roving bands of folks taking ships and crews hostage for ransom. Until relatively recently, companies and governments have paid up; the ships and crews have been released; and trade goes on. In other words, paying off the pirates was treated as the "cost of doing business." Now, after almost a year (in the U.S.) of manufactured outrage regarding the pirates (and coming to a semi-head with the capture of the Maersk Alabama) we have the U.S. sending war ships and the FBI to resolve the issue. It is highly likely that an international effort will soon be proposed to deal much more harshly and swiftly with pirates.

If one takes a slightly longer view, one runs into a much thornier issue regarding the Somali pirates. Namely, why they became pirates. The evolution of the Somali pirate starts with multinational fishing fleets engaging in uncontrolled "poaching" off the coast of Somalia. See, the people were fisherman, and the trawling fleets removed their livelihood - and destroyed a number of boats. This happened with no action from the "government" of Somalia, nor with intervention from an national or international body. So there sat the fisherman with no fish and no way to survive.

Piracy in Somalia began because traditional coastal fishing became difficult after foreign fishing trawlers depleted local fish stocks. Desperate fishermen started attacking trawlers until the trawler crews fought back with heavy weapons, leading the local fishermen to turn to other types of commercial vessels. The pirates prefer to call themselves the Somali "coast guard," noting that, prior to the recent spate of hijackings, they organized themselves to defend their communities from overfishing and, according to several accounts, to protect Somalia's coastline from toxic dumping by foreign vessels. ~ Somali Piracy and the International Response

Hmm .. "pirates."

In an article from the Guardian, a Somali pirate - Asad Abdulahi - offers a different perspective from the spin:

We don't see the hijacking as a criminal act but as a road tax because we have no central government to control our sea. With foreign warships now on patrol we have difficulties.

The Abdulahi interview also shows the escalation of the weapons of piracy. As ships and military vessels use increasing fire power, so too do the types of weapons that "pirates" employ. This is of course not unexpected - both history and research show that this escalation is inevitable.

Given the situation leading up to the career change from fisherman to pirates, perhaps "pirates" is a misleading label. After brainstorming with my life partner trying to come up with a more accurate label, we finally settled on "repirates." The Somali fishermen were robbed of their livelihood (it was "pirated"). They in turn shifted to a tax or duty approach to make up for what they had lost. Of course, they had (and have) no governmental sanction for such "collections," so they are acting illegally. But they are not "pirates" but REPIRATES.

Now this term leads to some interesting relationships.

If one pronounces it rē '- pirates, then they are pirates stealing back from pirates.

If one pronounces the word as rĕ - pĭ-rĕ ts' then it sounds more like reparations.

Either way the concepts more closely fit the situation than "pirates."

1 | 2

www/uncommonthought.com/mtblog/

Rowan Wolf is an activist and sociologist living in Oregon. She is the founder and principle author of Uncommon Thought Journal, and a Senior Editor for more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

Contact Author

Contact Editor

View Authors' Articles

Book Recommendations for "Economic Globalization WTO"

China And The Challenge Of Economic Globalization: The Impact Of Wto Membership

$104.95
Lowest New Price $72.00
Number of pages: 317
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe

China's Economic Globalization Through the Wto (The Chinese Economy Series)

$130.00
Lowest New Price $125.98
Number of pages: 225
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing