Aaarrrr! These bea a diffrunt kind ‘o pirate!

Images of Captain Hook and Blackbeard are what we typically see when the word pirate dances through our brains. Younger folks, who have never seen the great pirate movies of the past probably picture Johnny Depp staggering drunkenly across a desert isle.

That highly romanticized vision of pirates is no longer true, and in fact, never was true. The free, swashbuckling vagabond of pirate lore never truly matches up to what pirates really were: murderous, violent thugs, driven by either hate, coercion, or desperation to ply their trade.

There is only one all-encompassing truth when it comes to pirates, and that has to do with their lives, in general. That truth is that a pirate’s life can be summed up in three words:

Ugly, brutal, and brief.

Piracy is not the much-romanticized freedom that we read about and see on TV in the likes of Jack Sparrow. Piracy is an ugly, dangerous business that will just as likely result in the pirate’s death as it will his attaining his fortune.

Very few men in history voluntarily took to piracy as a career choice. Most were left with no choice by the tides, currents, and tribulations of a life lived on the shady side of the law. Many pirates of old started out as legitimate weapons of war; privateers were hired and paid handsomely for their efforts during the many wars of history. Once the war concluded, however, the pirate was left in a state of limbo. He had no honest method to earn his keep, and that which he was best at had suddenly become illegal.

Many others take to piracy out of desperation.

For the same reasons that I refuse to blame or condemn an individual immigrant that comes to America illegally to provide a life free of starvation and deprivation for his family (I would do the same thing to feed my family, wouldn’t you?), I have a hard time condemning a man in Somalia, a land plagued by ugliness, hatred, starvation, and greed, for taking to piracy to feed his family.

These pirates are created out of desperation. They feel that they have no other choice than to commit to these violent means in order to keep food on the table. Right, wrong, or indifferent, that is the truth. If Somalia were a thriving first or second world country, the piracy problem would not exist. It is desperation that is leading these men to violence.

This is proof, if anything were, that our foreign aid programs are not working. The United States has held itself out as the most generous, most philanthropic society on earth, and in many ways, we are. We give far more than anyone else to international concerns, by pretty large factors. Americans are the most generous people on earth, whether the money is given away by taxation fiat (which I am against*) or by direct, charitable donation (which my wife and I struggle to do as much of as we can every year, but after we give 38% of everything we earn to various governmental agencies every year, money is pretty tight to give to people that really need it or deserve it). We give away billions every year to Africa, a not un-sizeable portion of which goes directly to, you guessed it, Somalia.

Yet, we still have piracy.

“What has gone wrong?” a person may ask him or herself? And what has gone wrong, indeed, is that our foreign policy of aid to Africa has gone horribly awry.

Contrary to popular liberal belief, most Conservatives are not against helping someone when they are down. I, personally, am not against welfare, per se, nor any other sort of aid to help a person when they have stumbled on this treacherous road we call life. It happens. The problem arises when that help becomes entitlement, when temporary aid becomes permanent subsistence, and when the person on that aid finds themselves in a situation where it is easier to keep taking aid than it is to work to get off of it, for various reasons.

All of the above apply to Africa.

There is an old saying, that goes something like “if you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. If you TEACH a man to fish, then he will feed himself for a lifetime.” It is all about self-determination and responsibility. We have been giving the African nations fish for almost 4 decades, and during that time, they have eaten the fish that we have given them, but have not learned to catch fish for themselves.

I suggest we stop giving them fish, and start giving them fishing gear.

Several times, I’ve read articles in magazines, such as National Geographic, that talk about the fundamental problem with pastoral and urban society in Africa, and that problem is fatalism brought about by ignorance. We haven’t been teaching the Africans in Somalia about irrigation techniques in drought areas. The drought comes, their crops die, and the African mentality is to shrug your shoulders and prepare to starve to death. One of the articles that I read showed a lake, full of water, being fed by a year-round river not 5 miles from the site of a drought-induced famine. The crops died from lack of water. The Africans shrugged, and figured that since Mother Nature had not seen fit to provide enough water, that they were simply going to die. Not a single one thought about bringing water from the lake. Not one.

Why is that? I’ll tell you why. It is because instead of providing a pump unit, and teaching them how to get irrigation water from the lake to their fields, western society has been giving them food when their crops fail. Yet one more reason for the farmers to be unconcerned when the drought killed their crops. They would eat. In fact, why plant crops at all?

We’ve been giving to them for so long that they expect it, and therefore, do nothing to prevent crop failures and poverty.

When, due to evil regimes in power, the aid stops flowing, the desperation sets in, and piracy begins to look more and more inviting. Ugly, brutal, and short beats imminent death by starvation any day.

In the short term, shipping can be protected by allowing teams of security personnel on board ships in these danger zones. These security teams would be armed to the teeth and ready to fight to protect the ship. This isn’t about one ship, or even a dozen ships. It is about protecting the civilized world’s ability to peacefully trade without violent intervention, and as a result, we cannot allow even one more ship to be hijacked.

However, in the long term, this entire debacle can be eliminated by teaching the African people to fish, metaphorically speaking. Help them to develop economies of their own. Help them learn how to produce more than simply what they need to survive, and sell the excess for profit. Help them become educated, and to eliminate the same ignorant fatalism that has lead to famine and the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Help them to learn that their OWN fate is in their OWN hands, and that help is not one picture of a starving child away. What I mean is this:

Africa has everything it needs to stand on it’s own. Natural resources are abundant. Tourism opportunities abound. Personnel are almost infinitely available. All they need is the education to get started; to be taught how to fish on their own. If life in Africa met even a second world standard, it would be too comfortable and happy for the denizens of Africa to even consider the ugly, brutal, and brief alternative presented by piracy.