We began this series with a question – why is it that we are happy to allow our children to go to pirate parties, and involve themselves in all sorts of pirate-related nonsense, when these are basically no more than violent thieves? We don’t put on GBH or Aggravated Robbery parties.

We have seen since that pirates function as shadows of ‘blocked’ societies: that they emerge from the detritus of capitalism or imperial Christianity. Initially seen as heretics, their activities actually hold within them the key for unblocking that society, and thus for retentive orthodoxy to be reinvigorated and liberated – to emerge from the shadows.

So, to complete the circle: why is it that children are fascinated by pirates – and, connectedly, why are we as parents so happy for them to engage in piracy? I believe it is because every parent knows that one day their child will have to make their own way. Every parent knows that for a child to individuate they must, in some faithful way, rebel and commit heresy. Pirates offer our children a taste of this journey, and thus carry with them a hope that heresy will change both parent and child, and that liberty will result.

Perhaps the best example of this process is in the story of Peter Pan. Ostensibly about ‘the boy who never grew up,’ it is really about Wendy, ‘the girl who realised that she had to grow up.’ Peter Pan comes to Wendy and her siblings, and they fly off away from home into the night. On arriving at Pan’s home, Wendy immediately takes on the role of mother figure.

But Peter Pan is really just a vehicle, a way of getting Wendy into a situation in which she realises the role that she has to grow into. And who is it who really disturbs the system and forces her to see that she must return to London and stop being a child? Captain Hook and his pirates. Moreover, it is a crocodile with a ticking clock in its tummy – what more obvious symbol could Barrie have come up with for her bodyclock? – that drives the action forward too.

Wendy does return to London, but Pan and the ‘lost’ boys will not stay with her and become adults. In a later edition to the play, Barrie inserted an epilogue that showed that Pan came back to take Wendy’s daughter away, and had also taken her mother too. The cycle will go on for ever: children must leave their parents, commit the heresy of abandoning them, and go with Pan to be taken by pirates… But in this heresy they begin to see that they too must return home and become the new orthodoxy. It is the cycle of life, and without pirates, it would be neutered.

So, finally, where does that leave us with our modern-day pirates? What does that suggest about our attitudes towards Somali pirates or the DVD rippers? Put simply, it suggests that we should reflect on our own society that has spawned them, and try to see where it is we are ‘blocked.’ For their heresies are simply natural reactions, designed to challenge our dying orthodoxy, and reinvigorate it with new life. Where there are pirates, there are shadows to be examined.

Thanks for travelling.

In the previous two posts I’ve been trying to build an argument that piracy functions not as the enemy of all mankind (hostis humanis generis) but as the shadow of mankind: umbris humanis generis. As rebels against a social order that is oppressing them, those who turn to piracy are critiquing the economic and political systems that have seen them disenfranchised. It was precisely in the emerging capitalism of the 17th and 18th centuries – in the golden age of exploration, where empires fought to expand their dominions and wealth by exploiting colonies – that we saw the golden age of piracy too. Fed up with making greedy princes and merchants rich through plunder, they decided to rob from the plunderers.

Somali piracy can be read in this light too, and one interesting episode is worth noting here. The French luxury yacht Le Ponant was captured in 2008 by a group of pirates. Le Ponant was the picture of the good life: a mixed crew of young men and women, sailing a fabulously luxurious boat to the Med to pick up passengers – with a good chef and plenty of wine on board. When captured, the crew hid the women of the boat in the bows, but, unable to last out they emerged after a few days. The pirates were furious, as William Langewiesche described in his article for Vanity Fair:

“We do not touch women! We want money!” Referring to himself and his men, he said, “Robbers! Not terrorists!” Ahmed escorted the group aft to the luxurious lower lounge, where he ordered that the women be provided with water and food. When the water arrived, he sent it back for being lukewarm.

The picture-perfect scene that the pirates had disturbed was not quite what it seemed though. Le Ponant was registered in the far-flung French protectorate of Wallis and Fatuna. This meant that they could fly the French flag – very nice for the tourists – but didn’t have to abide by any French employment or tax laws. As Langewieshe describes conditions for the crew:

The wages were low, the hours were long, and no retirement benefits were provided. During rotations ashore there were no wages at all. These terms were non-negotiable. They stemmed from the culture of a global shipping industry which over the past 60 years has pursued profit and efficiency in part by ridding itself of labor unions, and more fundamentally by freeing itself from the constraints of the nation-state and its laws.

So, although they initially feared for their lives when attacked, one could even push it a bit and say that the crew were in some respects more free during that time of occupation than they were under the oppressive regime of their employers. Either way, this leads us to a clue about why pirates remain so fascinating to us: they offer us a life that is more free.

The pirate life was a short one by all accounts, but it at least had the advantage of liberty – and merriment. For those living in the shadow of St Paul’s cathedral in London, reading Captain Johnson’s bawdy book on pirate exploits was an escape from the drudgery of their pretty grim lives. Working like dogs, with the twin powers of the merchants and the priesthood ready to pounce of them if they stepped out of line, here was a breath of fresh air – a short and merry life by proxy.

This then is also why pirates are equally hated by the establishment – and suffered such brutal punishments. They represented a sniggering critique of the system, a heretical, subversive alternative existence which threatened the very hierarchies and power-structures that kept them rich and comfortable. If the poor couldn’t be made to behave, they might have to do some work themselves.

And so it is to this idea of piracy as heresy that we will turn next… noting as we go that today a band of subversive musicians were found protesting at the government’s plans to go hell for leather after music pirates. Why would musicians not want piracy stamped out? We’ll try to answer that later in the series.