Gearóid Ó Cólmáin has some sympathy for the modern-day pirates of Somalia
Most of us grew up with stories about pirates. And even today, the Pirates of the Caribbean films have brought piracy back into public consciousness. But the fictional accounts in children’s stories and films bear little resemblance to the historical phenomenon of piracy. It is important to remember when one hears reports about the current problems at sea off the coast of Somalia.
The word ‘piracy’ came into English around the 13th century via the French pirate, itself derived from the Latin pirata, meaning sailor or sea robber. The root of the word goes back to the Ancient Greek peirates, from the Greek verb peiran (to attack, make a hostile attempt on). But another Greek term from the same root, empeiros, gives us the English word ‘experience’ in the sense of a trial, risk, experiment or danger (its root is also an Indo-European cousin of the Irish word for vigilance: aire).
Keeping in mind these notions of vigilance, trial, risk and danger, I ask: who were these pirates, and what did they do?
In his book Villains of All Nations, Prof Marcus Rediker of the University of Pittsburgh explains the historical causes of piracy. Pirates were predominantly poor and abused sailors of many nationalities who worked for a pittance on the international trading ships of the French and British empires. Far from the covetous, one-eyed barbarians of folklore and fiction, pirates tended to be highly skilled sailors who rebelled against the tyranny of their imperial masters.
Once they had procured their own ship, articles were drawn up governing the conduct of the pirates. These rules were remarkably egalitarian: they saw, for example, that the captain was elected by the crew, and that profits from shipping raids were distributed evenly. Far from being criminals, the pirates of the 17th and 18th centuries developed a unique form of distributive justice. They were, indeed, proto-communists.
In many respects, today’s pirates off the coast of Somalia are similar. They too have deep grievances with European countries. Why? Because since 1991 European companies have been dumping nuclear and toxic waste in their waters – polluting their fishing grounds, scaring the skin of their children, spreading cancer among their people and destroying their livelihoods. To add insult to injury, whatever fish stock left that is safe to consume has been looted by ships from Europe, Russia, India and the far east.
The EU talks about the disruption of aid to Somalia due to the actions of the pirates. But to the people of Somalia, as in other developing countries, EU aid is simply the payoff to their client regimes for our looting of their resources. Letting them starve, after all, would be bad publicity.
This is the reality of the Somali piracy crisis. The Somali fishermen have organised a hitherto effective resistance to the international looting of their waters. To their credit, they have also made a huge contribution to their local economies, extracting just ransoms in exchange for the western terrorists who patrol their shores in our name. They treat their hostages well and often pour the ransom money back into their villages, buying generators for electricity and building up the local economy, while the barbarians from the USA shoot and kill them with impunity.
In one of the world’s poorest countries, these Somali pirates, these vigilantes of the people, these intrepid combatants of international criminality, are worthy heroes.
