“Old pirates, yes, they rob I, sold I to the merchant ships…”

Even before last week’s capture and subsequent rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips, reports of pirate activity off the Horn of Africa had been in the news for years. The International Maritime Bureau of the ICC maintains a real-time Live Piracy Map, which provides locations and information on attacks throughout the world.

While Somali seafarers are relatively new to the plundering scene, the Berbers, their Maghreb counterparts west of the Nile Valley, had a long history of menacing European vessels, and not only vessels but coastal towns too.

I was born in Co. Cork in Ireland, not far from the scenic seaside town of Baltimore, which, on June 20th, 1631 was the scene of:

“…one of the biggest single captures of innocents by pirates anywhere in Europe. The night-time raid was also seen as an audacious incursion on what was the King’s territory.”

In what became known as the Sack of Baltimore, 108 English and Irish villagers were taken away by Algerian pirates led by a “Dutch captain turned pirate, Jan Janszoon van Haarlem, also known as Murat Reis the Younger.” This was just one instance of European Christian slaves being captured by Muslim pirates and slave traders.

In his book Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800 Robert C. Davis, Professor of History at Ohio State University, claims that,

“between 1 million and 1.25 million European Christians were captured and forced to work in North Africa from the 16th to 18th centuries.”

Fast forward to the beginning of the 19th century. With increased maritime traffic in the Mediterranean Sea, the Barbary pirates (as they were known then) didn’t need to travel far in search of loot and hostages. Britain and France had agreements in place with the Regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli to pay “tribute” to ensure safe passage for their vessels.

“However, by 1783 America became solely responsible for the safety of its own commerce and citizens with the end of the Revolution. Without the means or the authority to field a naval force necessary to protect their ships in the Mediterranean, the nascent U.S. government took a pragmatic, but ultimately self-destructive route. In 1784, the United States Congress also allocated money for payment of tribute to the Barbery pirates, and instructed her British and French ambassadors (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, respectively) to look for opportunities to negotiate peace treaties with the Barbery nations.” - The First Barbary War

Negotiations failed, and with the United States deep in debt after a long and costly war at home, Adams and Jefferson decided they would have to pay up until such time they could rebuild the strength of their navy.

The first Barbary War started in 1801 when the pirates wanted a pay raise from the new Jefferson administration. The President balked, the pirates plundered and we had a bloody naval battle on our hands. In fact the Tripolitan War, as it was also known, was the United States’ first foreign war. After 4 years it ended in a draw, a prisoner exchange and a treaty. Here’s the part of the text:

“The Bashaw of Tripoli shall deliver up to the American Squadron now off Tripoli, all the Americans in his possession; and all the Subjects of the Bashaw of Tripoli now in the power of the United States of America shall be delivered up to him; and as the number of Americans in possession of the Bashaw of Tripoli amounts to Three Hundred Persons, more or less; and the number of Tripolino Subjects in the power of the Americans to about, One Hundred more or less; The Bashaw of Tripoli shall receive from the United States of America, the sum of Sixty Thousand Dollars, as a payment for the difference between the Prisoners herein mentioned.” -  Treaty Of Peace and Amity between the United States of America and the Bashaw, Bey and Subjects of Tripoli in Barbary.

There were 10 war-free years during which occasional ransoms were paid as opposed to regular “tributes”. Then in 1815 the Second Barbary War started and ended the same year. This time victory for the US was emphatic, with a little help from the British navy.

In the following decade and a half there were sporadic attacks against European and American vessels. However, a side effect of France’s brutal invasion of Algeria in 1830, was that piracy stopped completely. Somehow, I don’t suppose there’s much chance of Barack Obama ordering US troops into Somalia to weed out the pirates there any time soon.

Reigal: The African King of African Commenters

The more blogs and news sites I follow the more I find myself commenting on other people’s posts. By extension, I often spend as much time browsing the comments and commenters’ sites as I do reading the original article itself.

I love the way The Economist handles comments. All posters must register to comment and receive a commenter profile. Click on a commenter and you can see comments to other stories made by that individual. The end result is a vibrant commenting community mostly free of trolls.

I am a regular reader of the Middle East and Africa section, where “Reigal” is the moniker of one of its most prolific and insightful posters. He has recorded over 300 comments since registering in July 2008, and yes of course he is opinionated. What’s the use in being a serial commenter if you don’t have strong views on anything in particular?

It’s my March mission to find out more about this gentleman. I’ve set myself the goal of reading all 300 of his comments. I’ll attempt to build a profile of him in the coming weeks, and hopefully come with up something like a Top 20 of his comments, or Best of Reigal, in the process.

By the way, I have not even managed to confirm that he is male, only that he is African and immigrated to the UK (I think), so I must apologise for my continued use of the masculine pronoun. Unfortunate force of habit.

Here are some examples of his comments on articles published in the last 10 days.

On “Why Algeria is still dull and gloomy”:

“The survival of Algerian secular state in the face of an almost unimaginably violent Islamist onslaught is one of the most remarkable stories to emerge from the Islamic world over the last 20 years. It shows there is nothing inevitable about the success of violent political Islamism and it can be defeated with a combination of determined force and smart political compromises. Countries like Pakistan and Somalia should learn from Algeria.”

On recent anti-insurgency cooperation between Rwanda and DR Congo:

“The fundamental issues go much deeper than Nkunda and the Hutu genocidaires. It is about the inevitable and unstoppable failure of the Congo as a Nation State and the biblical overcrowding of Rwanda next door. You have a tiny but powerful nation state run like a well-oiled machine but with no resources of its own next to a vast, ungoverned, resource rich space which the nominal owner has no use for. Add the genuine Rwandan fears of the interahamwe threat and the temptation in Kigali to incorporate nearby regions must be overwhelming.

The solution is to let Rwanda run Kivu for ten years under a UN mandate perhaps and then give the people a referendum to decide their future. Why not? Afterall this was common practise in Africa till very recently. Namibia was handed to South Africa; Somalia to Italy; Eritrea to Ethiopia all under UN mandates in the 40s and 50s.

That way the Kivuns will have decent governance; the Rwandans room to breathe and resources to look after their people and Congo will not even feel the difference. It will still a be huge non-country. As long as Rwandans live cheek by jowl in few hills producing nothing more valuable than tea leaves there will be war and possibly other genocides.

But Europe will never contemplate allowing Africa’s borders to change. God only knows why because it is very happy for its own borders to change all the time.”

On the Somali diaspora and how little “Western experts” really know about the country:

“Sir I take exception to lumping the old and the noble Somaliland community in Cardiff with the refugee newcomers in all the other places you mentioned. There has been a small and thriving Somaliland community in Cardiff since the 1820s. It is one of the most remarkable
and least known immigration stories in Britain. Its patterns and features are the stuff of Sociologists dreams are made of.

For starters all the immigrants were young men. They were all from rural Somaliland. They were all seamen. A soon as their ships returned to Cardiff port they disembarked, stayed for few days and then went back home to the Somaliland desert. Not towns but the desert. They acted, looked and felt like any other rural nomad. They were almost untouched by the world they have seen in Cardiff and around the globe.

Almost none of them ever brought their families to UK. Some married local girls but most left their wives and children back home. Six months on ships six months in the deserts of Somaliland rearing (and sometimes raiding) camels.

Unlike the South Asian communities who aspire to bring their whole vilages to Britain the day they land, these people never saw Britain as their permanent place of residence.

When retirement came off they went to the desert never to return. When the British merchant navy died sudden death in the 1970s the whole community upped and went home. We are talking a community of several thousand disappearing within few months.

They only returned in the late 80s when Somalia next door attacked their villages and and tried to annihilate their whole clan.

The nobility and hard work of this community is in sharp contrast to the useless hordes of social security dependent refugees who flooded in during the late 80s and 90s.

The only blemish on this remarkable community’s history is the hanging of one them for murder in 1952, the last man ever to be hanged in Wales. His conviction which everybody knew was more like racist lynching was overturned last year.”

Stay tuned for more from Reigal…