The 2009 hijacking off the coast of Somalia of the U.S. cargo ship MV Maersk Alabama and the rescue of its skipper, Captain Phillips, by Navy SEALS serves as the catalyst a la Hollywood for far-greater public understanding about modern maritime piracy and the threats it poses to international commerce. Its myriad facets of people’s behavior under extreme pressure buttress a story line not soon to be forgotten.
“Captain
Phillips” retells what happened when Somali pirates’ unsuccessful bid to hold
hostage the entire crew resulted in Phillips being seized and held in a
lifeboat for several days until maritime commando sharpshooters came to the
rescue. Interspersed in the unfolding drama are complaints by the crew that no
armed guards traveled with them, and that they even lacked firearms to protect
themselves while military help was nowhere on the horizon.
Focusing on
the hair-raising interplay between the Alabama’s Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks)
and pirate leader Abduwali Muse (Barkhad Abdi), the artistic dramatization
nimbly offers a narrative that commands thoughtful reflection about what
“courage under fire” really means.
The result
of two decades of internal conflict in Somalia, piracy in the Gulf of Aden was
beginning to focus international attention on the socio-political emergence of
the maritime marauders. The bleak circumstances faced by local fishermen made
these easy targets for warlords seeking impoverished and unblinking vassals to
carry out the attacks on the high seas.
Some 80
documented attacks on high seas in 2009 alone brought in their wake emergency
discussions on ransoms in corporate boardrooms, soaring insurance costs for
foreign vessels at a choke point of world shipping, and the tragic fate of far
too many seafarers—often from a handful of developing countries.
From the very beginning of “Captain Philips,” director Paul Greengrass (“The
Bourne Supremacy” [2004] and “The Bourne Ultimatum” [2007]) offers a gritty
view of frequently monotonous life at sea and how the sometimes-dull ship
routines can change in minutes with the appearance of pirates on the horizon,
denizens whose menacing unpredictability is often fueled in part by drugs.
The
overwhelmingly positive reviews of the “Captain Phillips” tend to focus on the
acting role by Tom Hanks, whose career—like that of James Stewart and Henry
Fonda before him—has helped Hollywood retain a claim to public interest in an
industry frequently criticized for letting narrative fantasy reign in both
history and current events.
It was Hanks
who won an Oscar in 1994 for “Philadelphia,” with its focus on AIDS—a subject
still considered taboo in many circles. It was his fictional “Forrest Gump”
(1994) character that reminded post-Vietnam audiences of the gratitude owned to
military veterans. And, on Veteran’s Day 1999, Hanks received the Distinguished
Public Service Award, the U. S. Navy's highest civilian honor, for his work in
the unflinchingly realistic movie “Saving Private Ryan” (1998) about the Allied
invasion of Normandy in World War II.
In “Captain
Phillips,” Hanks finds his acting ably supported by Abdi and three of the
Somali native’s friends: Faysal Ahmed, Mahat M. Ali and Barkhad Abdirahman.
"Barkhad just had a great charisma and a sense of menace," Greengrass
told the Los Angeles Times as “Captain Phillips” headed for theaters in
the United States. "But also something sort of different, some sort of
humanity in there too. You feel him in all his violence but also his
desperation, and that's good."
On screen,
Muse faces off with Hanks as forces beyond their control shared with them
center stage during April 8-12, 2009 hijacking and captivity.
Asked by
Hanks why, if one hijacking means millions of dollars in ransom, they
nonetheless seek new targets, one pirate flatly observes: “We all got bosses.”
The focus as
well of a recent World Bank/Interpol/UN study, “Pirate Trails: Tracking the
Illicit Financial Flows from Piracy off the Horn of Africa,” the movie helps
bring to center stage the fact that pirate financiers collect 30 to 50 percent
of total ransom. Their risk-taking “foot soldiers” typically receive just 1 to
2.5 percent of average ransom payments. At the same time, carefully crafted
emotional and sentimental sallies also help keep those vassals in line.
While
providing useful context, however, “Captain Phillips” does not dwell on
possible political science or sociology lessons. Its storytelling focuses
first, foremost and very effectively on what happened when the Maersk Alabama
was attacked and what one person, perhaps an unlikely hero, did to save his
crew.
As of this writing, a judge in the state of Alabama delayed a trial set to open
this week; the lawsuit brought by Maersk Alabama crew members against Maersk
and another shipping company claims the vessel sailed too close to the Somali
coast when it was boarded by pirates. They point out that at the time maritime
warnings stressed commercial and recreational ships should remain at least 600
miles away, and claim the Alabama was just 250 miles away when attacked.
Nine crew
members who filed the lawsuit say the pirate boarding caused them physical and
emotional injuries, some being held at gunpoint with Phillips and others hiding
in the Alabama’s engine room. The captain himself is not being sued, but
supporters of angry seafarers have repeated claimed that Phillips himself was
no hero, his conduct before the pirate boarding negligently endangering their
lives.
At an
October 10th press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.,
the day before the movie was released, Phillips demurred when I asked if he
considered himself to be a hero—a title willingly offered by others involved in
the real-life drama. “I don’t see myself as a hero.”
Asked about
whether he should have heeded the maritime advisories to stay well away from
Somalia, he pointed out that advisories are just that--warnings. “We
fight [piracy] all over the globe. Nigeria’s probably worse these days than
Somalia ever was.”
“We live in
a litigious society and everyone’s welcome to their own views,” he added,
saying that he thought Maersk “did a great job.”
Ask what he
thought of the celluloid version of his personal odyssey, Phillips responded
that, while he thought the film “did a good job of portraying the main points …
the actual thing was a lot worse because they can’t show everything that went
on.”
Perhaps a
sequel to “Captain Phillips” could show now many pirate victims are tortured
while held captive two or more years, left largely abandoned and without hope
of naval rescue, as their relatives are left alone to fight for their
liberation.
Martin Edwin Andersen is the former
editor-in-chief of Piracy Daily.
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