[p2p-research] The War on (Somali) Pirates... and Italian Mafia

[marc fawzi]

There are two sides to this story.

The first side as about pirates having an egalitarian culture, which makes
sense to me if you think of content pirates today. That's the part that
relates to P2P.

The other  side of the story is about people who manage hospitals, factories
(somewhere in Europe it's alleged) making deals with Italian mafia to
dispose off nuclear waste and toxic material cheaply.

It's hard to tell if it's a true account but I thought I'd pass it on
because of it's interesting context.

"Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied
against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working
on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and
made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what
Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of
resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century." They even took in
escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed
"quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the
brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy." This
is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves."

"In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its
nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many
of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great
opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in
their seas. Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone,
mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia,
dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken.
At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then,
after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up
on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300
died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is
dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as
cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to
European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the
Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html

By Johann Hari, The London Independent (newspaper)
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