The United States and France style themselves Christian nations. On April 14^th, just after the United States had finished celebrating Christ's three days in the grave followed by resurrection, their armed forces gunned down three Somali people with sniper fire. France, just before celebrating Easter, on April 9^th of the same month, gunned down two Somalis and may have also killed a hostage with friendly fire, although unknown, in the same brutal fashion. We also know that these Somalis, and many others like them, have been taking ships a la pirates and demanding ransom, to feed and supply themselves and their dependents in the ravaged and largely ungoverned nation of Somalia. A question presents itself at this point. What is going on here? Western media presents these desperate men as "pirates." These people are not like the pirates of Western imagination. And, in fact, the Western imagination itself has little idea how nasty and cruel real pirates were, quite frankly. Comparing these Somalis to Blackbeard, for instance, is way off the mark. Blackbeard and his minions raped and pillaged Americans from the harbour towns on the eastern seaboard of the United States in the early eighteenth century, leaving a trail of shattered women and men behind them like so much flotsam. Blackbeard, and other brutish evil men like him, were the absolute bottom of the human moral food chain, and they revelled in it like blood crazed lunatics. If you are surprised at hearing this, you need to have a closer look at the accounts of their lives in the extant records to see how awful these pirates were.

These Somalis, however, are in a much different category, and any attempt to cast them in the same light as real pirates is both simplistically banal and woefully ignorant. Blackbeard killed and raped people, these Somali people have not killed one person, that we know of, and they certainly have not raped any of the hostages. The Somalis, instead, hold their hostages and feed them, and then contact their host nation for a cash payment, upon fulfillment of which, the captives are released. It is a system which has worked almost flawlessly for them up until recently. Being held hostage, though, even if you are not seriously molested, would be a terrifying experience in any event, and it is reasonable that the US and other nations are interested in putting an end to it. I could not agree more that the holding of hostages has to stop. Yet, if we put ourselves in the shoes of a Somalian, we are forced to see a whole different and compelling side to their story.

Somalia, having had no effective governing body for many years, is in desperate straights on a number of levels. Somalia's infrastructure has been in ruins for decades, and since the days of Siad Barre's regime collapse in 1991 until the present day, the country has virtually been in a long and unbroken nexus of war and internecine fighting leading to severe socio-economic consequences - collapse of the legitimate economy, extreme poverty and famine. To put it in perspective, one third of Somalia's estimated 10m strong population are dependent on international humanitarian aid shipments. Given this tragic context for Somali people, we now see that some of them have resorted to some less than tasteful means to acquire the money they require to feed their many dependents. On top of the devastation on shore, the Somalis are also faced with the deeply insulting behaviour of various nations, some "Western," who are taking advantage of the Somalis by stealing the marine resources off their coastline: and this within the two-hundred nautical mile limit of Somalia's territorial sea. France, Russia, and Japan are three of the many nations taking Somalia's fish resources. On top of this colossally embarrassing behaviour, there is the dumping of toxic waste, reportedly including nuclear waste, in Somali waters, which sometimes then gets washed on shore where the Somalis are left to deal with the very dangerous barrels of hazardous chemical and radioactive material. This is apparently being done by a number of nations, some European. All these crimes against Somalia continue.

In early April of 2009, the Christian nations of the world celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ with an Easter holiday. Two of these nations, the US and France, within days of this celebration, killed a total of five Somalis, and have a number more on trial in their respective jurisdictions on charges of piracy and kidnapping. A couple years ago many people in Western countries wore bracelets and necklaces with the letters WWJD, as in, "what would Jesus do?," presumably to remind them to use the teachings of Jesus to help them make better decisions. What would Jesus do, indeed. Is combating piracy addressing the disease, or is it merely allaying symptoms which will show up somewhere else down the road? Until the other nations of the world begin to work together to help Somalia stabilize on shore, it may be fanciful to think that offshore behaviour will change. Easter 2009, for Somalia, brought death and mourning to country who has been surfeited with the same for far too long. Somalia got death for Easter, but my question is whether their nation is ever going to see a resurrection? Let us all hope and pray for such an outcome.