The "New" Age of Piracy

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

Much ink has been spilled over the last few weeks over piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean, off the coast of Somalia. It took a U.S. naval vessel to rescue one American ship from Somali buccaneers.

That still hasn’t stopped other pirates from capturing ships and holding them for ransom. In a lawless place like Somalia, this is one of the few ways left to make money.

Elsewhere, in place such as Afghanistan, most profitable enterprises too, are based on criminality, especially the growing of poppy seeds for the production of heroin.

We call these places failed states. They have no functioning central governments, as in the case of Somalia, or else regimes that only survive because they are propped up by western troops, as in Afghanistan.

But actually, these are not so much failed states, as fake states. They only exist because imperial powers, back in the 19th and 20th centuries, drew up maps with boundaries, and gave such places names.

By the end of the Second World War, however, imperialism had come to be considered an unmitigated evil, and colonial powers withdrew from their Asian and African colonies and protectorates.

But the states they left behind were artificial and flimsy constructs.

The boundaries and names remained, but these entities have become increasingly meaningless to most of the populations that live in them.

They may have flags and UN seats, but in reality they are fake states.

Pre-imperial political formations, based around clans and tribes, have reasserted themselves in these places. Those are the true locus of identity and loyalty. The people we refer to as “warlords” are in most cases simply the leaders of such tribes or clans.

Western powers conquered some parts of the world for the profits they could bring to the home country – think India or French Indochina – or as areas of settlement – Australia or Canada.

But others, such as Somalia, Sudan or Zanzibar, were occupied to rid the globe of evils such as piracy, the rule of fanatics or tyrants, constant warfare between enemies, and the slave trade.

Much of what we today call “peacekeeping” was part of the task. This is the lesson we are learning all over again.