Angus Konstam's pirate blog

April 2009

The last few weeks have demonstrated that piracy is a serious problem, and one that won't go away unless the international community takes action. The dramatic rescue of Captain Richard Phillips followed the hijacking of the US-flagged Maersk Alabama in the Gulf of Aden. The truth is, these same Somali pirates have attacked more than a dozen ships in the past month. this one only made the headlines because it flew an American flag. Pirate attacks of this kind will continue, and worse still, they'll probably become more violent.

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A few years ago, most people assumed that piracy was a historical phenomenon, which went out of fashion with the likes of Blackbeard and Captain Kidd. For them,   the recent resurgence of piracy in the waters of the Indian Ocean was a wholly unexpected development. In fact the problem has been growing for years, and it will get much worse. A new breed of pirates is on the rise - men motivated by politics, by desperation and by religion, as well as by greed. For years the warning signs were ignored. However, over the past decade the number of piratical attacks around the world has increased dramatically, and the waters of the Philippines, Indonesia, the Malacca Straits and the coasts of East and West Africa have all become danger zones.

The truth is, piracy never really went away. After all, piracy is nothing more than the commitment of robbery on the high seas, and like any criminal activity, it thrives in places where law and order has broken down, or where opportunist criminals think they can get away with it. The trouble with our view of piracy is that the word has become romanticised. It conjures up images of Jack Sparrow rather than someone wielding an AK-47. The hard-edged reality of modern piracy involves murder, kidnapping, extortion and rape.  

Historically, piracy was best countered by a combination of naval patrolling and the enforcement of law and order on land. In other words, by increasing the pirates’ risk of capture at sea, and by depriving them of a safe haven. The state of near anarchy in Somalia makes the job of enforcement at sea all the more important, as the situation on the ground is so bad that few members of the international community would be willing to step up and help put the war-torn country back on its feet. After all, nobody wants a repeat of the events which were dramatised in Black Hawk Down. 

However, we need to learn from history. We need to see how outbreaks of piracy were quelled in the pasty, and look for ways we can use these historical lessons to sort out the same problem today. Of course, piracy isn't just limited to the waters off Somalia. Incidents take place all over the globe, with the worst troublespots being in waters of the Far East and the West Coast of Africa. This is a world-wide problem, and a growing one. We need to stop imagining pirates to be cartoon-like figures from history, and think of them as a real and present danger.

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A selection of pirate books by Angus Konstam:

Piracy: Frequently Asked Questions           Blackbeard: Ten Facts you mightn't know