A Pirate Renaissance

Something about the stereotypical pirate excites the base elements of most human beings. Something about the freedom of rejecting societal norms and standing up to empires and kings sparks humanity's love for the underdog. However, until recently the term pirate was relegated to those selling bootlegged copies of the new Harry Potter movie, or to some kid downloading the music of an artist who insists on buffering his or her albums' one-hit wonder with twenty not-so-wonderful songs. Now, the traditional pirate has made a comeback. In a way, they never really left, but they haven't been so in-your-face in many years. For ages, pirates have been operating in the Straits of Malacca, between Indonesia and Malaysia. And of course, there was the 2001 story of Sidney, B.C.’s Charlie Gillis, who miraculously survived a pirate assault on his pleasure craft off Mexico’s west coast; the pirates slit his throat with his own breadknife, and left him for dead.

At present, however, the tale of a Vancouver-Islander’s nautical ambush and the actions of some Indonesian fish-thieves have nothing on the ways of the modern-day buccaneers operating off Somalia’s lawless coast. This pirate renaissance was initiated by the brutal, and continuing Somali Civil War, which began in the early 1990s. The West failed Somalia then, and is paying the price for it now. Forget Iraq; get over Afghanistan; fear not North Korea; Somalia is the world’s most dangerous country right now. Not only does this danger apply to those seamen forced to navigate her economically strategic waters, but also to world peace as a whole. Somalia, unlike any other region in the world, is a civilization vacuum. Into that vacuum, the great powers of the world have reluctantly plunged their collective naval resources, and herein lies the dangers. Who is in charge of this international operation? What are the rules of engagement? Who knows?

The capture of the super-tanker Sirius Star so far out into the Indian Ocean and away from the usual danger zone of the Gulf of Aden, should be a wake-up call to the world. The tanker's cargo: one-hundred million dollars, yes that’s eight zeros, worth of black gold. The Saudi government, whose national oil company owns the tanker and its cargo, is presently in negotiations with the pirates for the vessel's release. The vicious cycle continues. As I write this article, a story has just broken that a $1.67 million dollar ransom had been paid for the release of a Hong Kong chemical tanker, and an undisclosed sum has been paid for the release of another. Pirates are now demanding $25 million for the liberation of the Sirius Star. That’s millions of dollars in cold, hard cash with which the pirates can buy more heavy weaponry, more bullets, more ships, and entice more young men to join their movement. It is also a psychological victory for a pirates and a moral loss for the coalition of international navies.

The lack-of-order in the region is the most dangerous part of the situation. If this motley international task-force can’t get the job done, eventually, some nation will step-up and step in. Russia almost did when a Ukrainian-cargo ship and its fourteen Soviet-surplus battle tanks bound for “Kenya” were captured. What happens when the ship is Russian not Ukrainian, and the cargo is state-of-the-art post-Cold War Russian military technology? What if Russia took matters into her own hands like what would have happened thirty-years ago? Replace Russia with China for an equally frightening scenario. Wars have started over much less. If an anarchist shooting a prince in a back-water Eastern European burg can draw the world’s nations into the thirty-year bloodbath now known as World War I and II, then this situation could prove equally, if not more, toxic. Too many powerful nations yearning to re-exert their lost power have too much at stake.

I don’t blame the pirates. If anything, they are victims in this case. These poor people sit on the beaches of their war torn nation: starving to death, dodging bullets from rival militias, and wishing for the goods of Europe and Asia that travel the oceanic super-highway just off their coast. There is not political intent behind these men. These are not members of some Al-Qaeda terror cell, hell-bent on disrupting the flow of Eurasian trade. All these people want is a piece of the pie, and, to be truthful, a very modest one. Imagine how you’d feel if your entire town was on fire, and the rest of the world did nothing, but continue to use your transit system. The situation off the coast of Somalia is a symptom of an illness at the very core of our modern civilization. In a unilateral world, where the only super-power no longer has the will or the means to exert global hegemony, others will have to step up. The question appears to be: will the move back to a multi-polar world be a peaceful one?