Dateline April 26, 2008

Nairobi, Kenya – The Pirate Coast

The coast line of Africa was the hunting ground for throat slitting, cut throat, pirates during the time of empires on the planet Earth, and brazen criminals answering to no law or man and taking what they want from life. Until they dared to want and seize too much, resulting in the combined weight of empires being thrust against them and the final-curtain falling on their easy existence, at the end of a well turned hemp rope.

Times haven’t changed much along the coast of Africa as Somalia’s 3,000 kilometre coast has in recent years been the hunting grounds of a modern type of swashbuckling criminal. That has found a good life stalking the country’s lawless coast, seizing boats, negotiating ransoms for profit and living the pirate dream.
The good times could be about to come to an end for these free living criminals as the United States and France have been making the international rounds in the last few months trying to drum up support for making a move against these modern pirates. Including, a recent drafting of a UN resolution that would allow countries to arrest pirates, which comes after a recent series of expensive attacks against a Spanish tuna boat and a cargo ship flying a Dubai flag bringing food into the desperately hungry country.

About time, would be the first thing that comes to mind, what made them all of a sudden notice the loss of life, limb and property of some of the poorest people on the planet? The pirates most likely live and obviously work in Somalia, and have for some time now been, like many of their fellow humans, being taking advantage of a bad situation to make things better for themselves and worse for others, I can think of no lower life form.

The only way to really stop these individuals is to capture them while they are at work, once at home in Somalia, they will be impossible to find and capture, the Somalian government doesn’t have the resources, power over its own society, and often will to effect positive change. In fact, I’m willing to bet the pirates are currently better equipped, funded, and organized then the Somalian government, which will require financial, emotional and organizational help from international parties if they are to overcome this internal menace.

Unfortunately, for the poor and hungry of Somalia, food and water for the poor, isn’t as high on the list of international needs of the rich industrialized countries as the price of gas and food for those who already have more then enough.

“The cycle of life goes on.”

In times of want, the needy store away for a rainy day, while the hungry, just get hungrier. If wealthy Somalian’s will watch while their fellow Somalian’s slowly starve to death, what hope do these poor, hopeless, souls have that we in the industrialized nations will do more then just enough to dissuade our personal conscience, not much I’d say from the majority of people I talk too, and international actions in regards to helping the Somalian people in recent times.

The sad truth is that a vast majority of the starving and hungry in Somalia are probably beyond the help of any power on the Earth, being in a state in which death has already knocked on the door, their just too tired and hungry to get up and answer it. The next generation of Somalia needs to be cared for if the country and its people are to live in any kind of cultural and social sanity, we need to help them find away to help themselves.