Walking the plank

If you have toxic waste to dispose of and want to save money where can you dump it? During the 90’s the best place was off the coast of Somalia. Link As Somalia fell into civil war, the population lost their international voice. Dumping of heavy metal, nuclear waste and biohazards of all kinds began off the coast of Somalia with little fear of being caught. Oil tankers swerved into the coast to flush their ballasts of crude to save the cost of doing it at port. Local fishermen were horrified and began buzzing ships that were dumping waste in an effort to chase them away. Ignored, the fisherman took their complaints to whoever would listen and warlords began supplying them with arms in an effort to be taken more seriously and tax ships to compensate for lost fisheries and pay for the weapons needed to confront the ships. These facts never seem to make it on the mainstream news. We never get a balanced perspective about any issue that might threaten our status quo and the population is too stupid to question reports of ‘the sudden scourge of pirates on the high seas’. Mesmerized and hypnotized by cable news and reinforced by bigotry and ignorance, people imagine gangs of wild and savage black thugs raping and pillaging innocent shipping companies just going about their business. Lost in the sensational headlines is the fact the hostages are catered to in the best manner afforded by the circumstances and most importantly the root cause of it all, the total decimation of the Somalia fisheries by illegal dumping. During the tsunami, large amounts of toxic waste was washed ashore and was easily identifiable as coming from as far away as medical facilities in Europe. The locals suffered a variety of strange ailments and birth deformities soon followed. The headlines now reassure us that naval forces are on their way to sweep the seas clean of pirates. We are meant to be reassured and most will be. Not me. We are all sailing on the same ship, our earth. We have forced the Somali fisherman to walk the plank of resource depletion and while they turned to fight at the last step, they will be pushed over. We will follow our captain’s course to illusionary riches treating any caution or critique as mutiny …Just who are these pirates?