The two sides to piracy

One of the most interesting concepts brought to my attention about Somali piracy came up at the very end of lecture.   Professor Shirk posed the question, or really the observation, that this is one of the only cases where many in the west are stating that an environmental issue is not legitimate, and that a developing country is claiming that there is a large environmental issue at hand. This point of view is seen in the Hansen reading. Hansen seems to believe that other countries and vessels over fishing the waters is just a way to make the pirates seem locally legitimate, but that in all reality, piracy is profit driven.  

My issue with this view is that it separates the environmental and profit factors that may contribute to people wanting to engage in piracy. In my opinion, a combination of both of these is what drives people to piracy. I think that people started getting frustrated with the over fishing and dumping of waste in their waters. Because of the instability of their country’s government, people felt like the only way to protect themselves was to take matters into their own hands.  After protecting themselves in this manner for some time, people began to realize how profitable holding these vessels hostage could be for them. Therefore, environmental issues led to the knowledge of how profitable piracy can be, and I think that while Somali pirates are holding vessels hostage for the money, while they are doing this, they are remembering why they started in the first place.

As far as the actual debate as to whether the Somali’s are actually pirates, I agree that by definition this group of people is pirates. However, I do not understand some of the vapid opinions regarding the pirates.  My group had the Dave Cameron quote, and while I understand his anger and frustration that such a small group of people can hijack vessels from some of the most advanced and developed countries in the world, I do not think he should have spoken out so strongly against the pirates. I do not know the entire context of the speech, but those two sentences assigned to my group completely delegitimize any claims the pirates have regarding the environment. I think that to be working towards the worlds best interest, leaders need to be looking at the issue in Somalia and figuring out policies that can be put in place that make them feel safer and less alone.  Instead of just openly condemning the pirates, it would be much more effective to understand how and why the people turned to piracy in the first place, and try to come up with solutions to those issues.  While people in Somalia need to know that piracy is not the correct way to fix their problems, I do not think people will ever understand this unless they are given other solutions that just as effectively or more effectively fix some of their problems.  This is seen with the country's economy. In all reality, I do believe that right now piracy has to be boosting the countries economy. I agree with the argument that even if pirates are not directly giving money gained from hijacking to people, they will be putting some of the money into local economies that would not have been present in the past.

Finally, one of the arguments made in class that really bothered me the most was the opinion that they have no right to protect their waters because there is no legitimate and effective government in place in Somalia. To me this point of view just punishes the Somali people for things that are completely out of their control. If they do not have the right to protect their own waters, than who does? Should they just be told to let other vessels come through with weapons, dump waste, and over fish while standing by hopelessly because their government does not know how to take care of them? While I do not think that piracy is the way the Somalis should deal with their issues, I do not blame them for feeling like this is their only option. Many of us could not even fathom the awful things some of these pirates have been through, and while people can always make the choice to take the high road, I cannot imagine that taking the high road comes easily when you know that hijacking a ship will prevent you and your family from dying of starvation.