By Shoji Matsumoto
Expert in African Studies

The pirates off the Somali coast are entirely different from the pirates of the Caribbean from 16 to 18 century. Infamous pirates or the privateers possessing ‘letter of marque’ were Europeans like Wooden Leg, Drake, Blackbeard, Mary Read and Anne Bonny who related in any way to European imperial states[?], while the pirates who take hostages for ransom money off the Somali coast are youths in a failed state.

The Somali society consists of nomadic pastoralists, agriculturalists and coastal people. Among costal people are urban residents and fishermen. More than half of the population is officially guessed to be nomadic, mostly camel herders[?]. Moreover, urbanized nomads have dominated the modern state since the independence from Britain and Italy in 1960. The Somali life as a whole is influenced by nomadic pastoralism originated in camels.

Camels afford high-nutritional milk twice or three times a day and transportation for hundreds of miles a year, watered only once every 20-25 days in the driest season. The interests in camels are entirely pragmatic, not mystical in Somalia. Camels used to be paid as bride price and blood money, the best embodiment of wealth in the Somali pastoral society. As camel owners were prestigious, camels were targeted as prizes by another group of herders, perpetually causing inter- and intra-clan rivalries. Looting camels was, however, not prohibited as an illegal act. Looting other’s camels by force was justified and almost praised in a poem by Sayyd Mahammad Abdille Hassan, a respected poet and hero in the Somali history. Thus, the pastoralists qualified the looting as an act of honor and pride. They were so proud that they disparaged low-profile gigs like farming and fishing. Their wish was to get rich with rapidity, even illegally. As a result, fighting over camels has a long history in Somalia. Camel herders, therefore, had to cooperate to defend against the raids by other herders. That is why camels held clues for the clan and sub-clan ties[?]. Mahammad Abdille Hassan has described camels as “the mother of men” in his poem[?].

Until nearly a half century ago, Somalis had made much of oral poetry, even in conflicts. Somali culture’s most prominent achievements are found in it, not in plastic arts. It meets the need to travel light on camels. Somalis are said to be born talkers. As decisions were made on consensus at all levels of “pastoral democracy”[?], even in wartime, words were more useful to overcome the splits in the clan or sub-clan than arms[?]. Every elder was expected to hold an audience for hours on end with a sophisticated speech quoting proverbs, poems and sayings. Some elders were compared to walking encyclopedias[?].

Today, Somali pirates raid ships to take hostages for ransoms of many million US dollars off the Somali coast, following the robbing, raping and murdering by the armed gangsters instructed by warlords battling for the control of the state in 1990s[?]. Camels have been turned to US dollars. Instead of oral poetry, the pirates rely on AKM, RPG-7 or semi-automatic pistols. Successful pirates living in luxurious mansions are reportedly yearned for by younger boys in town, increasing their clouts by money and weaponry. Different from camels and oral poetry, ransom money and weaponry, however, cannot help but destroying the Somali society, finally the lives of the pirates themselves.

Why have camels been turned to dollar and oral poetry to weaponry? The causes extend from such natural causes as drought and ecological destruction, to such internal ones as the pastoralist tradition, clan or sub-clan rivalries and Siad Barre[?]. But the causes have been rooted in the soil of the world; colonialism, incomplete decolonization, the IMF/World Bank programs and the US/UN operation[??].

In the future, the pirates may change jobs to a more profitable and less risky business, e.g., a joint venture with European or Asian company for illegal fishing or dumping of toxic and nuclear waste, FX, hedge fund, future trade, etc. A question to be asked here is not on their career choice, but the role of international law. The role it has played is prevention or punishment, inducing supposedly to change jobs. Can it elucidate and eradicate the root causes of the pirates to reconstruct the Somali society? What lessons can we learn from reconsidering the role for international law in the Somali pirates?

The first and foremost lessen should be from within ourselves, for responsibility emerges as an ability to response for others from within self. Responsibility is incumbent on self for the faults and misfortunes of others[??]. We may investigate ourselves the illegal fishing and waste dumping, rendering the business model “high risk, low return”. Isn’t it a moral hazard to coerce the Somali people to comply with international law without investigating the alleged international illegal acts against them? The hazard may strike back in a globalized world. Without ethics and morality that intertwine self with others, any society cannot be reconstructed. What failed is not only the Somali state, but the world globalized by egoism ?? a failed world. As the world is only one, even the pirates and failed states are within the world, which is to be ethically reconstructed.

[?] Charles Johnson, Pirates, Conway Maritime Press, 2002.

[?] Abdalla Omar Mansur, “Contrary to a Nation” in Ali Jimale Ahmed (ed.), The Invention of Somalia, The Red Sea Press, 1995, pp.107-8.

[?] Ibid., pp.108-11.

[?] Said S. Samatar, Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism, Cambridge UP, 1982, pp.12-21.

[?] I.M. Lewis, A Pastoral Democracy, Oxford UP, 1961.

[?] Samatar, op. cit., pp.36-54.

[?] I.M. Lewis, Understanding Somalia, 2^nd ed., HAAN, 1993, p.19.

[?] Abdulahi A. Osman, “The Somali Internal War and the Role of Inequality, Economic Decline and Access to Weapons” in idem. & Issa K. Souarê (eds.), Somalia at the Crossroads, Adonis & Abbey, 2007, p.84.

[?] Mohamed Osman Omar, The Road to Zero, HAAN, 1982, pp.23-195.

[??] Abdisalam M. Issa-Salwe, The Collapse of the Somali State, HAAN, 1994. pp.96-108.

[??] Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being or beyond Essence, Duquesne UP, 1998. pp.9-11.