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?
Ashaday, Alkabar 25, 10017
9 years ago
