Why are the Somali Adventurers, stout-hearted men defending the territorial waters of their plundered country - with trawlers stealing their fish and other natural resources at one end while dumping toxic waste at the other end - called "pirates" while Robin Locksley and his Band of Merry Men, vicious highwaymen all, are revered as fighters against injustice and tyranny? You might ask if the Somali Robin Hoods give what they take from the obscenely rich and give it to the wretchedly poor. I don't know. Perhaps the "ill-gotten gains" go back into the Somali economy; perhaps it goes into the Merry Men's off-shore back accounts. But riddle me this: Why does former Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin, a terrorist who admits to blowing up innocent British civilians, have a Nobel Peace Prize instead of a war crimes tribunal? How much difference is there, really, between Hezbollah and Begin's terrorist cell, Haganah? And does that difference make much difference to the dead and dying?
Mosiday, Lavai 1, 10017
7 years ago
2 comments:
You have to be joking right? These ships (most of them) are traveling well into international waters (that is 200 miles off the coast), and you want to say that they are 'Merry Men?' Get real.
Fate.
No, I am not joking. I am dead serious. It is your argument that bares scrutiny. You speak of "international waters" ("that's 200 miles off the coast"
you helpfully provide for the maritime law impaired among us) which is interesting but not at all germane when speaking of the Gulf of Aden, the straight between Somalia and Yemen, where most of this "piracy" is taking place.
The Gulf of Aiden is less than 200 miles at its widest point and less than 50 miles wide at its narrowest point.
The language of this conflict is fascinating to me. In the news reports the Somalis are "pirates" and their skiffs are "ships" when they could easily be labled "adventurers" and "runabouts" - which would be closer to the truth.
Today, I even read a "legitimate" news report that spoke of capturing the Somali "Mothership" as if Somalia, a broken and ravished country, were somehow the Evil Empire. That is laughable on so many levels. Next they will be telling us that Darth Vader was aboard even as a hapless sixteen year-old captured "pirate" is
extradited to the good ol US of A for trial and imprisonment.
I suggest that if these Somali "pirates" were white they would be romanticized like Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow or Brad Pitt's Jesse James.
Anyone who knows the true history of pirates knows that, contrary to popular belief, pirate ships were actually egalitarian organizations where the captain was elected. Further all the pirates elected to serve aboard pirate ships.
Compare this to British naval and merchant ships which were manned largely by boys who had been kidnapped and pressed into naval bondage against their will.
Many pirates were former slaves, black and white, who had escaped their forced
servitude.
Lastly, almost all piracy is in reaction to the greater theft and predation of a larger, more confiscatory entity - be it a country or a corporation.
But let's dig deeper. Why is this story about pirates off the coast of Africa getting so much currency in the media? What are the powers that be trying to avert our attention from? This is some serious 1984 shit. What is really going on here? And what is it we should be watching while we are watching this largely manufactured drama that produces great American heroes - like the recently freed
Captain Richard Phillips?
~rave!
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