You are a Somali Pirate

[Woodchuck]

Anybody reading this forum can easily put themselves in the shoes of the crew of S/V Quest. Their capture speaks to some of our deepest fears as sailors.
The more difficult challenge that I offer to you is to put yourself in the shoes of a Somali pirate. The goal of this not to make some liberal, pacifist rant (though I am both liberal and a pacifist), but an attempt to understand both sides of the problem in the search for a solution. Because what we all really want is to be able to safely sail the Indian Ocean. Right?
Suspend disbelief here.
You were born in the coastal city of Obbia, the home of your ancestors. Saad, the name your parents gave you, means good fortune, though fortunate is not something you would call yourself. You were eight years old in nineteen ninety-one when the government fell. This does not mean much to you as you play on the beach each evening, waiting for your father and uncles to return with the catch of fish that has provided your family with a livelihood for many generations.
Soon after, you hear your Father and uncles talking about the large foreign boats that catch entire schools of tuna at a time. They fish close enough to Somali shores that you can sometimes see their lights from shore at night. The catch dwindles until the proceeds will no longer even buy the gas to go out and catch enough fish to feed the family.
In order to make some money for the family and have two less mouths to feed, your father sends you and your younger brother Amad away from the coast to be goat herders. You and Amad work hard and very much miss your family on the coast. You don’t see your family more than once or twice a year but you are very proud of the contribution that you and your brother make.
The foreign boats are long gone and the fish have not returned, though you still see lights on the horizon when you are home. When you ask your father about it, he tells you that these boats have been seen to dump thousands of steel barrels overboard but no one knows what is in them.
You are thirteen in 2004 and have been herding goats with Amad for five years when you hear of the great wave that kills hundreds of people and wipes out the town of Hafun on the coast. Your family is spared, though they lose a boat that they didn’t have money to run anyway. Some of the barrels dumped by the foreign ships wash ashore but they are broke open and empty. The symbols and foreign writing on the barrels offer no clues even to those few who can read in their own language.
Soon after the great wave you hear that a horrible sickness has afflicted your entire family and many others who live on the coast. By the time you and Amad reach home two weeks later there is no one left. You and Amad are orphans. It is said that anyone who goes near the beach becomes sick. You hear that a foreign doctor who came to help after the great wave said that it was radiation sickness that killed everyone. That those barrels that washed up were filled with toxic waste, dumped there by a European company. Without a government there was no one to stop them.
You and Amad follow your grief to Mogadishu, where you hear of some men who are fighting back against the foreign ships that emptied the sea of fish and filled it with toxic waste. They capture foreign ships and hold them until their foreign owners pay great sums to retrieve them. These men are heroes to you and everyone you know. They drive around Mogadishu in foreign cars and build great palaces with the money they get.
One day, you are begging for money to buy some food for you and Amad when one of these men asks if you would like to go to sea and try to capture a ship. You and your brother are slowly starving to death and this man has offered you the opportunity to have more wealth than you could ever imagine having.
What would you do if you were Saad ?

Yes this is fiction, but the scenario is entirely plausible from what I know about the situation in Somalia.

[callmecrazy]

There are dirt poor people all over this planet that are not kidnapping and murdering other humans to make ends meet.

[boatman61]

I'd probably say... "Lets go get those 'Honkey Ba$tard$'....
Damn sure the UN's a waste of space... they've done 'FA' so far...."

[joey69]

If he was 8 yrs old in 1991, how is he only 13 in 2004 ??

[Blue Stocking]

Originally Posted by callmecrazy

There are dirt poor people all over this planet that are not kidnapping and murdering other humans to make ends meet.

--but many are !!

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by joey69

If he was 8 yrs old in 1991, how is he only 13 in 2004 ??

Poetic Licence.....

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by boatman61

I'd probably say... "Lets go get those 'Honkey Ba$tard$'....
Damn sure the UN's a waste of space... they've done 'FA' so far...."

Hark...... did I hear a 'Red Flag' click up somewhere.....

Hoi n de Polloi's

[Just BS]

To try and justify their actions is rediculous.

I too would be a pirate if I didn't have a conscionse(sp?) or a soul.

They should be hunted down and punished like the thieves that they are.

Circumnavigation is on my bucket list. Hopefully these animals will be dealt with in this decade before my journey begins.

[boatman61]

[QUOTE=Just BS;623780]To try and justify their actions is rediculous.

I too would be a pirate if I didn't have a conscionse(sp?) or a soul.
QUOTE]

ROFL..... it always is when your looking through the big end of the telescope... then switch it round for your needs..

[Blue Stocking]

Originally Posted by Just BS

.
.
..

.. Hopefully these animals will be dealt with in this decade before my journey begins.

--perhaps you can select a year by which you would like to have this problem solved--or maybe, a month?

[joey69]

[QUOTE=boatman61;623784]

Originally Posted by Just BS

To try and justify their actions is rediculous.

I too would be a pirate if I didn't have a conscionse(sp?) or a soul.
QUOTE]

ROFL..... it always is when your looking through the big end of the telescope... then switch it round for your needs..

aye aye mateys

[MarkJ]

But the proceeds of piracy are going not to the local somalis but to Al Quaeda.

How do you justify that?

[joey69]

Their has to be a large sum of money involved before the U.S. will do anything.They have to analyze the cost/profit ratio.The Maersk was worth millions in trade,this boat,virtually nothing in comparison.

[four winds]

Apparently there are 35 ships and 700-800 people currently being held. I had no idea there were that many peoples lives involved.

A few days ago, NPR said 800.

Yesterday, BBC said 700.

In Dec last year a UK web site said 500.

It's many more than I had assumed regardless of the actual number.

[motion30]

I see now I had thought they were bad people doing bad things, now that you explained it, well I think we should take a collection and send them money