Reaction to the Somali Pirates

This is my journal about the Somali Pirates who kidnapped two individuals.
As I read about the experiences of Rachel and Paul, I felt very sad about what they had to go through at their age. They were old and just wanted to be with each other. They had done no harm to the Pirates. Why should they be treated with such disrespect? I couldn’t imagine being a hostage for 6 months. I would go crazy. I don’t know what I would do with all my time. To be taken away from my husband, and beaten would make me so angry and sad. I would have lost hope much easier than Rachel and Paul. I admire their strength. I was somewhat outraged by the fact that kidnapping was a business for the entire community. I find it hard to believe that people would be willing to make money off such inhuman behavior. However, I know that many people make money off of oppressing others. Businesses often pay people undignified amounts to their workers. Prostitution and trafficking is rampant even in the US. The victims are often silenced. Many people never even here of the oppression that is occurring in their neighbor’s homes. I wonder if the behavior of the Pirates was out of the good desire to survive and provide for their community—which made me think that maybe some oppression can be stopped by giving people opportunities to provide for themselves by using good means to fulfill the good desire. I also thought it was interesting that the British government has a policy of not paying ransoms. At first I thought that was a bad policy, because Paul and Rachel were citizens and should be protected. But, I realized that if the government started to pay ransoms with the situation of Rachel and Paul, they would feel responsible to pay for all future kidnappings. Not only might this action encourage more kidnappings to occur, but also might allow the kidnappers to raise their prices. In addition, choosing the limit for how much to pay for the life of a person is would be much more difficult for a government than an individual who has much smaller limits. This is partly why the Pirates settled for much less of a ransom than regularly, because they recognized that Paul and Rachel were not very rich. If the government were responsible for paying the ransom, then perhaps Paul and Rachel would have remained in captivity for much longer so the British Government could lower the ransom enough from its gigantic government. It is just an unreasonable responsibility to ask of the state, and would create worse problems for everyone.

I was very pleased to hear that Rachel and Paul were welcomed back to London and they arrived safely. I was also pleased to hear that the couple was able to regain most of the money they had lost and repay their debt. I wasn’t expecting a happy ending. I thought that Paul and Rachel were going to die because of their age and the conditions that they had to face. I also was surprised to hear that the couple wanted to go back to sea. I thought that Paul and Rachel would be afraid of going back on the ocean in their boat, but they didn’t give up on what they enjoyed and their dreams to travel and explore the world. There ending was happy, and that made me happy! I was sad to hear about how another woman was kidnapped. It reminded me that the solution to save Paul and Rachel was not the real solution to end the Pirate’s business. A real solution might have been to help Somalia rebuild and invest more in businesses, so that the people could have better opportunities to provide for themselves and their families instead of having to resort to such evil things. With their recent famine and rampant poverty, it is really sad that other nations are not helping them restructure their nations to work around those ills and invest in sustainable development for those who live in Somalia. Although the British government could not pay a ransom, they could work to the real solution—healing Somalia. It is also sad that the situation is getting worse, and more pirates are kidnapping and treating people like Paul and Rachel inhumanly. Somalia is an example of how a nation suffers from lack of rule of order, and lack of proper governance combined with natural disasters. Many Somalis are refugees because of the conflict and natural disasters that have impoverished Somalia. Rachel and Paul are examples of how the conditions of far off nations affect the rest of the world. We are all interconnected and should help each other.