Somali Piracy

Everyone else seems to be talking about Somali piracy, so I may as well.

When I first heard about this, it struck me as a classic case of bored young men.

The practical thing that really puzzled me was, how on earth do ships get captured by pirates? What munitions do the pirates carry that allow them to capture a vessel the size of an oil tanker? Furthermore, the pirates may have these weapons, but can they actually aim them? It seems to me that from the elevated position of an oil tanker, you’re in a pretty good position to repel boarders.

Of course, there’s an answer to that: merchant tankers are not allowed to repel boarders. If they put armed men on board, they lose their insurance coverage. Insurance companies apparently don’t like covering ships that are likely to get into gunfights.

Gwynne Dyer has a beautiful article on the subject; the gist is that the Navies of the world lack the legal mandate to effectively deal with the pirates.

Most articles I’ve encountered seem to deal almost exclusively with the question of, “How do we make these pirates go away?” This is the same attitude I see taken towards terrorism, which is unsurprising. To be effective, piracy relies heavily on terror. Maybe we can enable our navies, maybe we can go through the UN and attack the pirates’ land bases, maybe we can sail around them…

These articles ignore the fact that as long as piracy offers the most attractive life for a Somali man, he will take it. It becomes hard to judge him for that, because his is basic human behaviour.

“Where can I find respect? Where can I make a name for myself? Where can I show the world, which doesn’t care about me, that I am something greater than they think?”

Defying the great world powers and collecting millions in ransom from them seems like a pretty good start. Given the opportunity to do that who wouldn’t? Sure, it suffers a few moral issues and there are a few personal risks involved, but they seem a reasonable trade off.

Of course, if you have the option to live a peaceful life that is fulfilling and satisfying, you may just pass on the chance to be a pirate.

I’ll bet they could use the Gospel.

If you insist on looking at piracy as an annoyance, and are only concerned with getting rid of pirates as quickly as possible, you’ll never hit upon the answer that really solves your problem.