Pirates

I just finished reading The Pyrates - by George Macdonald Fraser, Hollywood stalwart and creator of the wonderful Flashman books based on the caddish character from Tom Brown's Schooldays.  It's funny and clever and thoroughly entertaining.  Everything a good pirate book or movie should be.  Errol Flynn would have been totally at home as indeed would the Dread Pirate Roberts.

Then this morning I read in the papers about Rachel And Paul Chandler who've been held for a little over a year by Somali pirates and saw their gaunt and strained looking photos.  And it made me realise what an odd species we are.

We find boat thieves exciting and dashing.  Big time criminals  - Bonnie and Clyde, Capone, any number of Russian oligarchs, the American Robber Barons of the 19th & early 20th centuries - become heroes and the subject of movies not far short of a hagiography.

But when was the last time you went to a movie about the loveable and amusing social security cheat who held down a below minimum wage cash only job and claimed unemployment benefit at the same time.  To feed her kids and keep a roof over their heads?  Or the illegal housemaid working a 15 hour day seven days a week in order to send cash home and support the family.  I have seen government sponsored advertisements urging me to rat them out though.

But I don't remember seeing any government supported advertising on how we're going to rid the seas of the pirates.  Though I did see a very lighthearted story today about Max Hardberger a man who makes his living repossessing stolen vessels from the pirates.  And mostly not glamorous armed cutthroats either but much more often from the clutches of crooked officials and shady brokers.

What I didn't read about though was the hardship caused to the crews and the ship owners whose ships are stolen.  The story was more about the thrill of the chase.

I realise I'm just an aging hippy buddhist with a soft spot for the underdog.  But I don't care.  That's where everyone's feeling should lie.

The name says it all "cutthroat" is not a cool epithet.  It's a blood stained job description and we should not forget that. Ever.