Cause and Action = Crisis

Hard to even begin imagining what it might be like to live within societal chaos, political anarchy, a country whose nationhood and national infrastructures have completely collapsed. No social structure remaining but those of clan and tribe, no governmental presence, no security, no real economy, nor trade, no educational system, no medical system, no freedoms but the freedom to desperately subsist.

With the breakdown of government agencies, society does not regulate itself well. There is a breakdown in societal mores, as the advantaged seek further advantage and the disadvantaged see little value in observing normal ethical and moral codes. Resentment and aggrievement, and power wherever it can be found, is brought to bear exploiting the truly ineffectual, weak and powerless.

Since the civil war in Somalia, the country has been in a state of collapse, with no effective central government, no security and safety, no useful means of livelihood, and much desperation, alongside a continuing political stalemate between a Western-installed and -supported government incapable of asserting itself, and an insurgent Islamist, al-Qaeda-affiliated group of thugs.

With no government there has been no instruments of government to protect the country's sovereignty. With the longest oceanic coastline in Africa, fishing that traditionally provided support for the now-indigent Somalians living in coastal Puntland collapsed as foreign-owned ships; French, Spanish, North Korean, Pakistani, Saudi Arabian, Sri Lankan, Taiwanese and Yemeni among others, overfished the seabed.

And then it became illegally, immorally customary for foreign vessels to dump their toxic wastes along the coast as well. A UN report found that as a result of nuclear waste dumping off the coast of Somalia, residents suffered "acute respiratory infections, heavy coughing, bleeding gums and mouth, abdominal haemorrhages, unusual skin rashes, and even death".

What population wouldn't feel resentful and aggrieved over this state of affairs? If responsible foreign governments ceased and desisted from depopulating the seabed, permitting Somalians to once again fish in their own coastal waters, their traditional livelihoods could be restored - along with a clean-up of the waste; uranium radioactive, lead, cadmium and mercury, along with industrial and hospital wastes.

In the absence of that intolerably irritating mediation, anarchy has turned itself to profit. Responding to the illegality of foreign nations' swooping their livelihoods and trashing their health, Somali youth have turned to what they consider to be a logical response; exacting their own revenge upon the international community that despoiled their coast and their livelihood.

Coastal Somalis have successfully and irritatingly created their new economy. An exacting, exciting, and very remunerative one. And suddenly, a very dangerous one. Not only to the hijackers, but now also to those whom they take into their custody. Knowing that their own lives will now increasingly be forfeit as a hugely angry shipping community begins to fend for itself with the assistance of international warships.

Particularly those from France and the United States who see nothing amiss in furnishing instant capital offence solutions to the infuriatingly frequent assaults on international shipping. As it becomes more common for youthful Somali pirates to anticipate they may lose their lives in the process of taking foreign ships into their custody to be redeemed for huge cash profits, they may become more liable to indulge in killing of their own.

The very act of boarding a vessel with the intent to violently compel the crew to submission, and bring the captured vessel into port at Eyl for ransom, represents an international crime. That the pirates are becoming increasingly aware that they have become targets for deadly assaults in retaliation, will only encourage them to hold the lives of their hostages somewhat less dear.

Particularly as they now have an eagerness to target French and American vessels to extract revenge in memory of their pirate compatriots who received the final 'lesson' in a casual interpretation of a latter-day Law of the Sea.