There appears to be more to the problem of piracy off the Somali coast than the media would want us to believe. I am strongly opposed to piracy in any form and think that the international community needs to come together to find a lasting solution. That solution must of course begin with addressing the decade long chaos on the land in Somalia. It is ironic that the Somalia has once again come on our radars not because we now care about the plight of the long suffering people in that country but because the chaos there now threatens international commerce and by extension the lifestyles of those who can make a difference. Reminds me of the truism that what goes around comes around!In a recent article in The Independent of London, journalist Johann Hari argues that we are being lied to about pirates. Some of these AK 47 wielding Somali men, he argues, are clearly just gangsters. But others are trying to stop illegal dumping and trawling. Not everyone agrees with Johann Hari but I think his effort to present the other side of this story, one that is clearly missing from the mainstream media narrative is commendable.
Johann Hari: You are being lied to about pirates
Some are clearly just gangsters. But others are trying to stop illegal dumping and trawling
Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy – backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China – is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labelling as "one of the great menaces of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell – and some justice on their side.
Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" – from 1650 to 1730 – the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage Bluebeard that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often saved from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains Of All Nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence...
Read more here...
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html
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