The Nature of Piracy

At first glance, it would appear that piracy is essentially the same the world over, and whilst the presence of a stranger suddenly wielding a knife on your boat at night can be deeply disturbing, the consequences are not always as dire as might be the case in other arts of the world.

One cannot write off pirate attacks in places like the Amazon basin or Guyana as so much waterborne burglary because they are criminal events nonetheless. However, I guess that if a potential hostage were to choose his pirate attack , it would be in these relatively quieter and calmer areas. The Straits of Molucca used to be a desperate pirate area until the Littoral States got their act together and clamped down on it.

Somalia itself will one day return to a more peaceful contented state although there is still a long way to go until that day comes. For now, the nihilistic entity which calls itself Somalia reflects its own agony and sense of despair in the activities of the pirates who only add to the vast pool of misery that surrounds that country. Imagine the clan rivalries that go on and imagine the lives of innocent villagers who are coerced into performing tasks that they have no interest in and then combine it with complete hand-wringing on the part of the world's government's in addressing the very real issues that face them and more particularly Somalians and you end up with a bleak sense of hopelessness that no one can assuage.