The Freedom Shop Sessions








Public Talk & Discussion on Political Issues



This is a series of talks and discussion organised by

The Freedom Shop.










Session Topics & Dates:




  • Nov 6th 'Pirates, coastguards & warships'



  • Nov 13th 'Introduction to Anarchism'



  • Nov 27th 'Pacifism & non-violence'








Location: 19 Tory Street, Central Wellington


Time: 6pm




A Report Back on 'Pirates, Coastguards and Warships':



Observations
of a farcical trial in Hamburg, where the might of Germany and its
plodding jurisprudence was set the challenge of annihilating a handful
of Somali pirates.



The underlying theme of the evening came as a
paraphrasing of what Slavoj Zizek said in a public discussion with
Assange: “let’s not be glib. You are a terrorist, technically, yes this
is true. But, and this is my point: if you are a terrorist, then my god,
what are they?!”



Lets unpack that: the Somali men and youths
sentenced to between seven and two years in jail are pirates. The
beginning of this modern piracy of the Horn of Africa started as a way
to claim some payment from international fishing ships plundering the
region. But the pirates have become more sophisticated and have moved
outside of the zone that once would have been called Somalia’s Exclusive
Economic Zone (SEEZ). Apparently a country loses this zone when they no
longer have a functioning government. And into these empty oceans came
the plunderers of marine life and the dumpers of chemicals and waste too
costly to dump elsewhere. There are documented cases of this reported
in the UN. What are these companies compared to the Somali pirates? What
are they compared to the Somalis being tried under terrorism laws right
now in Italy? We’re going to need a bigger word, a more villainous
noun.



The evening was full of brilliant contrasts. Compare the
Somali man who was blackmailed by a debt to a petty merchant and who
ended up in Hamburg, compare him with the might of the Nato fleets
patrolling the waters off the cape. Compare the relatively functioning
democratic territory of Somaliland, unrecognised in international law,
with the embattled state of Somalia, barely controlling Mogadishu but
ceaselessly favoured by the international community. Compare the Somali
youths in limbo now that they have served their two years, but have no
passport to get home, there are no direct flights (and no other
countries to allow them on flights) and the liberal sentiments in
Germany that mean no-one can be deported to a country involved in a
civil war with the carefree parting of the waters as ships cruise past
the Horn of Africa towards the Suez canal, parting the ocean with all
the ease fantasised about by the proponents of free trade.

Location: 19 Tory St, Te Aro, Wellington 6011, New Zealand

Comments

  1. Freedom Shop24 February 2013 at 11:44

    A Farcical Trial
    A Report Back on 'Pirates, Coastguards and Warships':

    Observations of a farcical trial in Hamburg, where the might of Germany and its plodding jurisprudence was set the challenge of annihilating a handful of Somali pirates.

    The underlying theme of the evening came as a paraphrasing of what Slavoj Zizek said in a public discussion with Assange: “let’s not be glib. You are a terrorist, technically, yes this is true. But, and this is my point: if you are a terrorist, then my god, what are they?!”

    Lets unpack that: the Somali men and youths sentenced to between seven and two years in jail are pirates. The beginning of this modern piracy of the Horn of Africa started as a way to claim some payment from international fishing ships plundering the region. But the pirates have become more sophisticated and have moved outside of the zone that once would have been called Somalia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (SEEZ). Apparently a country loses this zone when they no longer have a functioning government. And into these empty oceans came the plunderers of marine life and the dumpers of chemicals and waste too costly to dump elsewhere. There are documented cases of this reported in the UN. What are these companies compared to the Somali pirates? What are they compared to the Somalis being tried under terrorism laws right now in Italy? We’re going to need a bigger word, a more villainous noun.

    The evening was full of brilliant contrasts. Compare the Somali man who was blackmailed by a debt to a petty merchant and who ended up in Hamburg, compare him with the might of the Nato fleets patrolling the waters off the cape. Compare the relatively functioning democratic territory of Somaliland, unrecognised in international law, with the embattled state of Somalia, barely controlling Mogadishu but ceaselessly favoured by the international community. Compare the Somali youths in limbo now that they have served their two years, but have no passport to get home, there are no direct flights (and no other countries to allow them on flights) and the liberal sentiments in Germany that mean no-one can be deported to a country involved in a civil war with the carefree parting of the waters as ships cruise past the Horn of Africa towards the Suez canal, parting the ocean with all the ease fantasised about by the proponents of free trade.

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