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Title: Somali Pirates Author: Peter Lamborn Wilson Date: 2009 Language: en Topics: Somalia, piracy, Fifth Estate Source: Retrieved on 6th October 2021 from https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/381-summer-fall-2009/somali-pirates/ Notes: Published in Fifth Estate #381, Summer-Fall 2009
“The past is not only not dead, it’s not even past.”
— W. Faulkner
The second ship ever built was probably a pirate ship. When Sumerians
and Harappans and Egyptians sailed to “the Land of Punt” 5,000 years ago
seeking apes and ivory, gold and copper, no doubt some proto-Blackbeard
on a reed raft was already dogging their wake.
In the 17^(th) century, piracy in the Indian Ocean enjoyed a brief
golden era of pre-capitalist globalist excess when freebooters such as
Capt. Mission and Capt. Tew established their pirate utopias in
Madagascar and preyed on Mogul as well as European shipping. Colonial
New York City absorbed much of the loot, as did my rascally ancestor,
Gov. Cranston of Rhode Island, who hanged a few pirates and did good
business with others (including Capt. Tew), depending on what he could
get away with.
When I was a 10-year-old pirate fan digging the Jersey Shore for Capt.
Kidd’s treasure (another New York/Madagascar connection), I thought
piracy was dead finished, a romance of the distant past. But piracy
never dies. It has its classical periods, its romantic eras, and its
vulgar doldrums, but it never dies.
In 1980, when I was combing the beach on Koh Samui Island (off Siam in
the South China Sea), seven corpses washed up on the shore, victims of
certain rotten pirates who were then preying on the Vietnamese boat
people, poor refugees on leaking fishing boats and even bathtubs. These
sea-going scum habitually murdered all their victims to eliminate
possible witnesses. The Thai fishermen on K. Samui buried the bodies
secretly, unwilling to get embroiled with “the authorities” in a
hopeless case.
Thus, I learned that some pirates are merely floating muggers while
others could be said to have a “social” aspect, as with Capt. Mission’s
ranting and motley crew, or the virtually-anarchist buccaneers of
Hispaniola.
The idea of the “radical pirate” as rebel against nascent capitalism was
perhaps first mooted by British historian Christopher Hill, and then
taken up by a small crew of anti-authoritarian piratologists such as
Larry Law, William S. Burroughs, Marcus Rediker, Peter Linebaugh and
Stephen Snelders. I also added a volume to the “social” history of
piracy with my Pirate Utopias; Moorish Corsairs & European Renegades
(Autonomedia, 1995).
Our “school” proposed that although piracy can be seen simply as
primitive predatory accumulation, some pirates were nevertheless engaged
in forms of resistance against the State and in the construction of
egalitarian utopias on their desert islands and “floating republics.”
This is certainly a possible reading of the ur-texts of pirate history
such as those of novelist Daniel Defoe (who wrote as a “Capt. Johnson”
in the early 18^(th) century) and the Frenchman, Alexandre Olivie
Exquemellin.
In the 21^(st) century new world maritime order, 80 percent of the
world’s goods are now shipped in huge container vessels or tankers,
driven by computers and manned by tiny skeleton crews. Under such
conditions, some genius was bound to realize that a new golden age of
piracy is now possible, that a few determined desperados in a rubber
raft can capture and hold for ransom a ship worth millions. And, in
fact, such tactics are being used even now in such dangerous waters as
the Straits of Malacca or off the coast of Nigeria.
The ancient Land of Punt is now part of Somalia, a “failed State” that
has not had a functioning central government since 1991. According to
the mass media, Somalia is a violent chaos of contending warlords,
tribal coalitions, Islamist terrorists and corrupt local regimes.
Curiously enough however, not all Somalis seem to be pining away for the
lost days of central authority. One Somali visitor to New York City told
a friend of mine, “We don’t like governments and we just don’t want
one.”
Among the armed groups roaming around Somalia, no doubt the strangest
are five or six companies of good old-fashioned pirates who have
discovered just how easily a leaky dhow or motorboat-full of AK-47
toting ex-fishermen can hijack a huge container ship. These crews go by
such names as, “The National Volunteer Coast Guard,” and “The Somali
Marines.” The implications of patriotism and self-defense are not meant
as irony. The pirates believe they have a social role to perform, and
they have good reasons.
With the collapse of government in 1991, the unprotected Somali coast
began to attract two kinds of international criminals: illegal fishing
expeditions and illegal toxic waste dumping operations. Local fishermen
were violently shoved aside by high-tech armed vessels from many
countries; even the Italian Mafia got involved. Facing starvation from
highly depleted and poisoned fisheries, the Somalis felt forced to take
“law” into their own hands and resist the invaders. Then, once they
discovered how easy it was, they got ambitious.
A well-informed Kenyan journalist, Mohammad Abshir Waldo, maintains that
“Somali piracy” is simply a response to the international capitalist
piracy of illegal fishing and dumping.[1] But while the pirates are
condemned as monsters, nothing is done to protect the Somalian people
from wholesale depletion of fisheries or the pollution from toxic
nuclear and medical waste.
As one socialist in the European Union Parliament noted, the moral
outrage is all about “protecting oil tankers. Nobody gives a damn about
the people in Somalia who die like flies.” The Western media have mocked
this suffering with headlines like, “They Stole Our Lobsters, say
Pirates,” or simply ignore it.
According to the “pirate spokesperson” Suguli Ali, who enjoyed his 15
seconds of fame when his crew took a container ship full of tanks and
other military goods last year, “We don’t consider ourselves sea
bandits. We consider the bandits to be those who illegally fish and dump
in our seas.” While the pirates earn about $100 million a year in
ransoms for Somalia, the poachers and dumpers make about $300 million a
year, so the battle remains uneven.
For this reason I would argue that the Somali pirates have a distinct
“social” aspect to their struggle. Unlike the murderous S. China Sea
pirates, they rarely kill anyone (it’s so bad for business) and
generally treat their hostages well. “We eat spaghetti with them,” said
Suguli Ali. “You know, human type food!”
Although not all Somalis approve of the pirates, many do. “K’Naan,” a
Somali poet and rapper, said: “Can anyone ever really be for piracy?
Well, in Somalia, the answer is: it’s complicated…. the truth is, if you
ask any Somali if they think getting rid of the pirates only means the
continued rape of our coast by unmonitored Western vessels, and the
production of a new cancerous generation, we would all fly our pirate
flags high.”[2]
Several sources mention that many of the most beautiful young women in
the country are flocking to pirate ports such as Eyl (in Puntland)
hoping to marry pirates. Not only are they rich, they’re also romantic.
Eyl, which was a forgotten fishing village till the 1990s, now throbs
with Land Cruisers and big cars, fancy new houses, and even special
restaurants for the hostages serving “foreign food.” Most pirates may be
sincere about their protective role, but clearly they have no objections
to enjoying their fame and booty.
Naturally, the Western press has tried to link the pirates to “Islamist
terrorism” and Al-Qaeda, but this ploy backfired when Somali’s actual
Islamist militia declared war on the pirates after a Saudi oil tanker
was taken last year.
The Islamists are called al-Shabab, literally “the Youth,” meaning
chivalrous youth. A pirate spokesperson quipped, “We are the Shebab of
the sea and can’t be scared by the Shebab of the land. If anybody tries
to attack us, that would be suicide.” And, so far the Islamists have not
dared to attack.
After an American vessel, the Maersk Alabama, was captured this April
and its captain rescued following the killing of three pirates by U.S.
Navy SEAL snipers, and one wounded teenager, Abshir Boyah, “rendered” to
NYC for trial, with Hillary Clinton making war-like noises offstage, it
may be that the golden age of Somali piracy is about to pass into
history and/or legend. But then again, maybe not.
The basic trouble remains: it’s just so darned easy to capture a modern
cargo ship, so very difficult to escort and protect all the shipping
that passes within 500 miles of the coast, and so impossible to “invade”
the pirate enclaves. Moreover, so long as nothing is done to protect the
sea itself and its fish wealth, the basic social problem just isn’t
going to go away.
As I researched this article I was struck by the fact that no
journalists seem to have succeeded in making real contact with the
pirates in order to present the story from an insider’s point of view
(what a great book it would make!); with one notable exception. The good
old pinko London Guardian ran an interview with a real pirate,[3] and I
consider it such a rare and important document that it deserves to be
quoted (or pirated), in lieu of any lame conclusion of my own.
[1] “The Two Piracies in Somalia: Why the World Ignores the Other?”
1/8/09. wardheernews.com
[2] alternet.org
[3]