A Pirate’s Life for Me

The news has been ablaze in the past few days over the hijacking of an American merchant vessel off the coast of Africa by pirates from Somalia. After taking the American captain hostage, the small group was defeated by the US Navy, but pirates continue hijacking foreign ships in the area, then demanding large ransoms to further expand their operations. The pirates have declared an unofficial war on merchant ships in the area, not an idealogical one, but a war driven by profit.

The BBC piece “Somali pirates living the high life” exposes another side to war, the exploitation some people use war for. The article goes to talk about how in Somalia, these pitrates are almost like celebrities, living in luxury from the massive ransom payments they receive. So many wars are driven  by a hatred of a people or by political events, but this “war” is driven by one side looking to escape the impovershed conditions that exist in Somalia, where everyone is poor and there is no semblance of a national government.

While the civil war in A Long Way Gone is driven by one group fighting against the other, in the book it seemed to Ishmael that there was no real reason to want to fight the rebels other than survival. For Ishmael and the normal soldiers who were fighting on the front lines, the war was more about successfully capturing towns so that they could be looted, and hence give direct benefit to all the soldiers. There was less of an emphasis on fighting an immoral enemy, even though the leaders tried to use that logic, and more of a focus on short term gain. Even though there is a difference between the two fights, obviously the pirates are acting on their own choice, which the child soldiers were not,  but once war starts, profit, money and luxury become just as much of a factor as does beating the enemy for the sake of victory over one’s opponent.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7650415.stm

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