Tag Archives: somalia

Pirate Communities: Business and Governance

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Blackbeard knew branding: I think we get the message, yes?

[Editor's note: Sunday, September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day...I'm just saying.]

Last week two dear friends sent me two different articles about pirate prominence. The first was from Gumbooteer, Stewart Burgess (his pen name is s||A), and it discusses the rise of pirates-as-kingmakers in Somalia. The second article was sent to me by Director of UBC Career Services, Howie Outerbridge – actually, he sent it to my boss and apologized for encouraging me; the article that Howie sent, after all, was entitled “What Business Executives Can Learn From Pirates.” It’s always nice when my senseless rants about pirate communities being benchmarks for progressive ideologies are affirmed by those smarter and better looking than myself.

To summarize, pirates are leaders in governance and business. Here’s why…

Business + Pirates = Awesome

According to, well, me, pirate ships have historically been bastions of democratic principles, where the

interests of many were, naturally, aligned with the overall goals of the organization. Fazil Mihlar’s recent article in up-and-coming “newspaper,” the Vancouver Sun acknowledges what Kurt Heinrich has known since we began chatting about pirates: “since the pirate crew (shareholders/ employees) collectively owned the ship, they had to keep the captain (CEO/management) in check.” Mihlar – with Peter Leeson’s popular Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates as his muse – smartly delves into health care (in addition to democracy, pirate ships were also the first place to see health care benefits and compensation practiced) and corporate branding.

“Awesome” + Community = Governance?

NEWS FLASH: Somalia is in turmoil! The American-backed central government is on the ropes, with a few different warlords vying for power and an Al Queda supported Shabab militant group close to toppling the regime. Jeffrey Gettleman’s article points out the unfortunate situation of Somalia’s government: “Squished between the two, we have to become friends with the pirates,” Mr. Noor said. “Actually, this is a great

Seriously, this is an alleged picture of Mohamed Garfanji

opportunity.” There sure is a great opportunity: for the pirates to take both sides! After all, the most nefarious dude in the Gulf of Aden, Mohamed Garfanji, isn’t you’re typical pirate.  Remember the name, as his clever consolidation of power by creating a grassroots following of local (the community in the pirate enclave of Hobyo), regional (coastal communities pissed off at international fishers and polluters that have decimated Somalia’s coastline) and national (a central government that is teetering on the brink of destruction and needs people-power, firepower and cash) might just see the purple-rain-coated buccaneer become the next leader of Somalia. Like Mitch Albom says, “build a little community of those you love and who love you.” And then give that community millions of dollars and anti-aircraft guns and try your hand at governance in the worst place on Earth!

So, whether you’re teaching Business 101 or planning Phase 3 of your Tea Party Revolution, remember that you can always learn from Pirate Communities!

- JCH

Community From Chaos

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We take more than we give, consume more than Earth produces.

Too many I’s and not enough teams.

From me-to-we an unovercomeable struggle, it seems.

Confusion breeds ignorance, media is negative, and we’re out of excuses.

A bringer of change.

With myriad range.

The Gumboot’s recipe.

For you all to see.

Creative solutions for community!

So there it is. And here we are. I’m not gonna lie, it’s a bit bleak out there. I mean, Obama just brought healthy tyranny to the world’s most important democracy – times are scary. Sure,  “scientists” and “business leaders” and “David Suzuki” will tell you that melting glaciers, rising seas, catastrophic earthquakes, desertification, staggering poverty, and the decline of the honeybee present far more serious reasons for us to fear for – or just plain fear – the future, but some of those ideas are complicated and the words that explain them are hard to spell. Solutions need to be easier!

In the spirit of positivity and community-building, the Daily Gumboot is pleased to provide you, the people, with some fantastic options that you, the people, can consider as we lurch forward. Feel free to apply one, some or all of the options to your life and, most importantly, have fun with it!

Option 1. Embrace Chaos.

THE IDEA: A few weeks ago, I saw Career Development Phenom Jim Bright speak in Vancouver. His theory is Einstein-esque – simple, but nothing simpler – and here it is: there is no linear career path, as where we work has more to do with chaotically interconnected random events – both lucky and tragic – than with education, training, self-assessment, counselling, research, and/or the cultural landscape of our home town (though all these things are important). Our careers – like life – exist in chaos and we need to prepare ourselves for it. Here is the concept explained in video form:

OUR ACTION: Stop trying to plan and control everything, Batman/Kurt. You can’t organize the trillions of random variables – like fuel prices – that make up the enormously complicated fabric of our planet’s community. What we need to do is create both personal and community-based “adaptability toolkits” that allow ourselves and our neighbourhoods to roll with the punches that life throws our way. After all, every neighbourhood needs food-growers/makers, artists, leaders, accountants, builders, designers, fixers, and creators to collaboratively thrive within chaos. So begin preparing your “adaptability toolkit” today!

Option 2. Get to Know Your Business Community.

THE IDEA: Many folks will argue that business got us into this mess. And many folks, myself included, will argue that business can get us out of this mess. Mostly because it has to. Henry Mintzberg’s article, “Rebuilding Companies as Communities” outlines a from-me-to-we solution for the many wrongly-worshipped CEOs out there. “We are social animals who cannot function effectively without a social system that is larger than ourselves,” says Mintsberg. “This is what is meant by ‘community’ – the social glue that binds us together for the greater good.” Mintzberg cites several examples of forward-thinking, people-firsting companies who ‘get it’ – one such organization, federation of Basque super-cooperatives, Mondragon, definitely jives with a les Nordiques as co-operative notion, as told by Gumbooteer Martin Renauld. As it turns out, putting people first is really good for business!

OUR ACTION: All around the world – in business, education or non-profit and with volunteerism, neighbourhoods, families, and politics – the simple, age-old concept of “community” is being re-applied everywhere. So, whether you’re sitting at your work-desk, sipping coffee in your ‘hood, or chatting with your mouth full during family dinner, reflect on this very important question: “how is this activity- this one I’m doing right now – positively contributing to my community?” Because if your idea/action involved a plan to create a superawesome social networking community that specializes in volunteerism and philanthropy, well, Chris Hughes, of Facebook fame and who only 26 years old, stole your idea before you even had one. It’s called Jumo and, like Chris, it’s pretty awesome.

Option 3. Reset Ourselves to Natural Capitalism.

THE IDEA:Termed by entrepreneur and world-changer Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism seeks to solve the dirty, dirty problems being created by our outdated global system that is driven by Industrial Capitalism. Hawken argues that this can be done in four key ways:

  1. Radical Resource Productivity.
  2. Biomimicry.
  3. Service and Flow Economy.
  4. Investing in Natural Capital.

OUR ACTION: Make love to Mother Earth! Dig a hole in the ground. Put a little water in it. And go to town. No, wait, this is an inappropriate use of natural capital and, more importantly, such action has already been taken by Will Ferrell with great success. Anyway, we basically need to incorporate this stuff called “nature” into our economic formula, which currently employs a ridiculous equation that seems to assume our planet’s resources will keep pace with the exponential consumption of industrial capitalism. Be the change, people!

Option 4. Become a Radical Homemaker.

THE IDEA: Wency Leung presented the notion of Radical Homemakers in a recent edition of an up-and-coming print newspaper called the Globe and Mail. Again, a simple idea: give up the rat race and take care of your families and communities by growing local, organic and, more than likely, healthy food.

OUR ACTION: “In pursuit of a more personally fulfilling and ecologically sustainable lifestyle, these so-called ‘radical homemakers’ are relying less on monetary income and are, instead, picking up domestic skills such as vegetable gardening and cooking to help meet their basic needs,” says Leung. Accept the honest fact that a reduction in income does not necessarily equal a drop in your standard of living. If you need a place to start, check out a recent post by Pete’s favourite Correspondent, Katie Burns.

 

Option 5. Piracy.

THE IDEA: Forget the global community. Heck, forget everyone outside of your neighbourhood! This option is all about you and your closest friends/family/shareholders. Sure, people outside your immediate circle might vilify you. But, remember, it’s not about them, it’s about you and your very local community.  Somali pirates aren’t really “Somali pirates”, after all; according to over 70% of Somalians, they’re actually a necessary component of a patch-work coastal defense structure!

OUR ACTION: Find some friends. Secure a boat, truck, web server, and/or multinational corporation. Pillage things from people and places without asking and, if necessary, use force, coercion and, possibly, the Internet to do it. Sure, pirate ships were and are bastions of democracy at it’s truest, but they’re also pretty violent. So, any action taken by us, I hope, is conceptual and only literal if necessary.

Have fun with your consideration of such options. May they inspire us all to create many, many more!

- JCH

K’Naan’s Cultural Olympiad

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knaanpub1My birthday is coming up (it’s Saturday, February 27 and thanks so much for the card, by the by) and you can imagine my surprise when my Special Lady, Michelle, told me we were going to see K’Naan at the Orpheum Theatre. Needless to say, I was pretty darn excited.

Brief tangent: if you haven’t taken in a show or cultural event at the Orpheum, please do it soon. The place is as spectacular as it is intimate.

I will venture a guess and assume that 72% of visitors to this online news magazine know about K’Naan. Whether you do or not, the 10 minute video below acts as a pretty darn amazing introduction to one of the world’s most important artists. Enjoy!

Full disclosure. K’Naan is a sell out. Or so a handful of mangey protestors argued as thousands of fans excitedly lined up to see a young man who defines himself as “made in Somalia and raised in Toronto.” Recently, K’Naan signed a lucrative contract with corporate up-and-comer, Coca Cola – some folks argue this goes against his truly humbling, authentic, “man of the people” image. I will admit, combining a Coca Cola sponsorship with a stopover at the Olympics (the Cultural Olympiad is sponsored by Bell) amid chatter that artists are being “muzzled” by sponsors complicated my shining opinion of K’Naan.

When the protestors approached Michelle, though, things weren’t so complicated. Her argument went like this: Look. I’m not saying that you don’t have a point. But really, at the end of the day, K’Naan’s message is positive, empowering and inspiring. Through his songs he tells a story of forgiveness, respect, tolerance, and hope. Why wouldn’t we want this message to spread through any means possible, reaching individuals it otherwise would not have? Coke is powerful – take the example of GreenPeace, who tried for 15 years to have greener refridgeration technology approved in Canada. Coca Cola, in an attempt to be more environmentally sustainable, was able to get their climate-friendly vending machines and coolers approved for use in Canada in just one year, in time for the 2010 Olympics – opening the door for approval of green refridgerators and coolers. Instead of working against the man, it is often so much more effective to work with the man to effect change.

Michelle and I, being superawesome nerds, developed an evaluation rubric for the concert based on four categories – each category is worth five points. Here we go:

Edutainment

A good amount (like, 30) of parents brought their kids to the concert. In the lineup – amidst the inarticulate, yet passionate, protestors – I struck up a conversation with a little one (and her dad, because I’m not creepy) about the concert ahead. She said she was excited because her class watched a documentary about what K’Naan is doing in East Africa to raise awareness about women’s rights, child labour/poverty and the overall plight of people who live in “the hardest place on Earth.” He also told powerful stories and shook his ass like a maniac. Recent findings show kids love stuff like that.

Final Score: 5/5.

Dancibility

Rap concerts suck. There. I said it. Unless an artist has Timbaland mixin his pop-fresh beats live on stage, well, it all just sounds like muffled talking to the thump-thump of the base. And people can’t really dance to such sounds. Especially white people. And, let’s be honest about the crowd, this was/is Vancouver. But this was not a rap concert. It was a delightful hybird of rock/hip-hop/spoken word/stand up comedy with interludes of musical poetry. Whether he was whispering quietly to the audience or “lighting this mutherf*ckin’ joint” everybody could dance…to the best of their ability.

Final Score: 4/5

Creativity

Still moved by K’Naan’s amazing, humbling ability to wear his heart on his sleeve, this concert truly ran the gamut of sensation: from the hilarious and ridiculous to the tragically sad. Few people on this planet can honestly live up to the title of “Rapper, Poet, Philosopher, Storyteller, and Rock Star” – if he were the kind of guy to have business cards, K’Naan would have the best ones ever.

Final Score: 6/5

Authenticity

Here’s the deal. Sell-out or not, the part of the concert when K’Naan told the feeble VANOC official that he’s “not finished playing” – whether this came about because of his “mood” or his penchent for counterculture or his subscribing to African Time, this part of the show was delightfully authentic. I was not without my reservations, as K’Naan needlessly name-dropped Bob Marley and, to all the fans out there, here’s a piece of advice: when someone is singing/talking about their dead childhood girlfriend who left this world in the most terrible of circumstances, well, it’s not supercool to cheer about it. Idiots. Finally, Coke-fueled or not, seeing that many people sing to Wavin Flag was the most authentic thing I’ve seen during these Olympics. Building community through music? Check! Well done, K’Naan.

Final Score: 5/5

With a total score of 20/20 it’s pretty clear that K’Naan rocked the Orpheum. More importantly, though, in a world where most of us have lost faith in business – just ask Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management – perhaps it’s not such a bad thing to have K’Naan, a poetic champion of the people, as a collaborator with the biggest business on Earth. After all, change takes a community…

- Written by The Bornks!

Murdering Pirate Communities

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Members of the Somali Coast Guard, searching for illegal fisherpeople

Members of the Somali Coast Guard, searching for illegal fisherpeople

Leave it to Russia. Just when you think Somalia can’t get any worse, Russia takes things to an entirely perverse and morbid new level. At least that’s what this poorly translated story about the newest craze in Russian adventuretourism outlines.

The story goes like this. Tourists from The Motherland will pay thousands of dollars to hop aboard converted cargo ships and cruise the Gulf of Aden on the hunt for pirates. Perhaps a direct quote from the article will paint a more disturbing picture:

“Its business idea is simple: Its cruise ship is the seal for the pirates. If the genuine pirates try the apparently harmless ship too entern, the African experience their blue miracle. Instead of defenseless commercial sailors face them to Russian tourists armed to the teeth. A makabrer tourist fun.”

The trip goes from Dijbouti to Mombassa and, if history is any indication, it should be chalked full of many encounters with pirates. I mean, I know Barack Obama signed off on taking down pirates, but this takes things to a terrible new level. Read on…

“A submachine gun of the type AK-47 can be rented by the Russian cruise passengers on board for 9 dollar on the day. 100 shot ammunition costs 12 dollar. A grenade thrower costs 175 dollar on the day. In addition belong three shells, which are contained in the rent. The use one to the Reeling machine gun is 475 dollar would install firmly to cost.”

Are you kidding me?! The article goes on to outline the full breakdown of these cruise ships – these wolves in sheeps clothing. After all, these “toys” are provided for – ahem – killing people. Now, the team at Babel Fish (who translated the article) postulated that the piece might be in the vein of satire. But what if it’s not? After all, the article has been picked up by all kinds of reliable “sources” other than The Gumboot.

In an effort to put this ridiculousness in perspective, let’s talk about Somalia for a second. In his article, “You are being lied to about pirates,” The Independent’s Johann Hari examines the circumstances by which many Somali fishermen have been thrust into the world of piracy. After the fall of the country’s government in 1991, Africa’s longest coastline (Somalia’s coast spans about 2,000 miles) has been unprotected. This power-vacuum has provided a perfect opportunity for the international fishing industry to steal Somalia’s food supply and use the region as a dumping ground for nuclear waste (“yes: nuclear waste,” says Hari – cadium and mercury were also, allegedly, thrown in the mix). Hari interviewed Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, who claims that “there has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention” of such a gross example of pollution. They also don’t “fit” in the current economic system, which is probably why the independent Somalian news site, WardheerNews, found that 70 per cent of Somalians “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence.” Some even call them the “Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia”! And we can most certainly call them rejectors of an unfair system swirling in chaos.”

By no means am I excusing piracy or suggesting that Russia is solely responsible for the plight of the fish, fisherpeople and toxic coastal communities of Somalia – we’ve all turned a bit of a blind eye, in one way or another. But is an adventuretourism enterprise that provides well-to-do people from the Northern Hemisphere the opportunity to kill people from one of the poorest, war-ravaged places on Earth.

Sure, this article that I stumbled across may or may not be true (Editor’s note: 98% of things on the internet are true, so why wouldn’t this one be true?). But I hope the story provided you with a unique insight into myriad capacities of the human condition.

I still have hope for us. Do you?

- JCH

Aboard the Editor’s Pirate Ship – Learning from Pirate Communities

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Welcome to Learning from Pirate Communities, one of the best-selling series here at The Daily Gumboot. Here’s the deal: we participants in humanity operate within a paradigm or framework or clusterf&$k of themes and ideas (gender, race and culture, environmental stewardship, ideology, weapons, business, entrepreneurship, art, tasty drinks, and fashion). Many people from many academic disciplines explore such themes from a myriad of perspectives. The Editor-in-Chief of this publication discusses such ideas through a lens of Piratology, because, hey, pirates represent an edutaining and approachable subject that interests people. Consequently, we can learn a lot from pirates. Just read more to find out!

Will clever commentary be backed up by accountable piracy?

Will clever commentary be backed up by accountable piracy?

Today we will be discussing tax, representation and rejecting an unfair socioeconomic system to, possibly, become a pirate.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’ve heard about the HST. Maybe you even have an opinion about it. From Bill Tieleman to Bill Vander Zalm to Kurt Heinrich to Kevin Milligan, people have opinions that run the gamut of sensation; from raging social injustice to practically good policy. Whether you despise taxes altogether or just hate this one, I have a solution for you. Become a pirate! Literally, if you like (I’ll get to that), but metaphorically is probably a better solution for all of us (at least until the puffy shirt factory starts pumping things out a little faster). Here’s the deal: many people feel unrepresented by the HST, just like many people feel unrepresented or cheated by the GST, income taxes, the Carbon Tax, exorbitantly priced Canucks tickets, lack of affordable housing, police, universities, Walmart, Translink, and talent agencies (honestly, I think you’re a great singer and were treated unfairly). We’re really good at complaining, but not as good at being accountable for our ideas – ideas like collectively changing and/or withdrawing from an unfair, broken, corrupt, and imbalanced system that seems to encourage and reward corruption, incompetence and general shady shenanigans. We can do better if we learn from pirate communities.Even the University of Chicago recognizes the power of pirates as educational tools!

People, our community is thoroughly more positive, intelligent and cohesive than this rather unequal, unrepresentative and restrictive paradigm of governance allows. Perhaps we can do better by rejecting the system and embracing our inner entrepreneur – or inner pirate. I understand if this scares you. But there are certainly models for change out there, too. First, let’s explore taxation and democracy in a historical and global context and then examine community and unfair political decisions from a piratical perspective:

Mad at being unrepresented? Maybe we should actually be a democracy.

A recent article in The Independent by Johann Hari suggests that modern

Embrace your inner entrepreneur and start asking questions about the system to which you belong.

Embrace your inner entrepreneur and start asking questions about the system to which you belong.

day pirates, like their historic brothers and sisters, have rejected today’s unequal, corrupt and punishing global “system.” Hari cites the last words of William Scott, a pirate hanged in Charleston, South Carolina during the Golden Age of Piracy: “What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live.” BC’s democracy makes me chuckle. Heck, our perception of democracy makes me chuckle. Democratically speaking, most of us don’t usually vote for the party in power (ie. the NDP in the 1990s – never more than 45% of the vote – and the current BC Liberal government – 46% of the vote – and Federal Conservative – 37% of the vote – government were brought to power with less than half of the popular vote, which doesn’t even account for the tens of thousands of people who didn’t vote because of their dissatisfaction with the system and the people steering it).

One hundred years before the French Revolution, pirate ships – or pirate companies – were run on the ideals of liberty, equality and brotherhood. It was the rule, rather than the exception. According to scholar and fellow Piratologist, David Cordingly, author of Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates, at times, it was difficult to even get a pirate ship going anywhere. You see, the crew actually voted on a destination before the captain set a course; arguably, this accounted for pirates’ time being spent in warm places like the Caribbean, Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Malacca. This whole time, we’ve been looking to France and the US for our democratic models, when we really should’ve been looking towards pirate ships!

Pirates drafted and signed “The Articles of Piracy” before each voyage. These  articles regulated the distribution of plunder, the scale of compensation for injuries in battle, and outlined basic rules for shipboard life (ie. no one is allowed to drink all the rum and/or wear the captain’s eye patch in jest) as well as punishments for those who broke the rules (ie. you wore the eye-patch in jest and now the captain, who turned out to be pretty sensitive, won’t come out of his cabin and, well, he’s got the map). After the articles were written, every pirate aboard signed them. Sure, it’d be tedious, but perhaps we need to re-draft our terms of agreement with our leaders before each election or major decision that affects so many stakeholders.

The Articles seem pretty darn democratic, and I wonder what we can take from these lessons on a pirate ship and apply to our system. After all, the crew aboard the Jolly British Columbian seems to be talking about steering the ship in a new direction with recent movements against the HST.

Seriously, we’re crying about the HST?

When things go bad here on the West Coast of Canada, I like to put them in a global perspective. How bad are they, really? From the BBC to CNN to Al Jazeera, the world suddenly became very interested in Somali pirates after they hijacked a Saudi tanker, the Sirius Star. They did what nobody thought possible and they got noticed. Like, really noticed. Oh, and they made $3 million from the ransom, too.  Sure, many – or most – of the pirates are gangsters. No, this doesn’t make hostage-taking okay and, no, this blog does not condone hostage taking (although, for the record, Theo Lamb is a fully trained hostage negotiator). But this article has outlined some of the ways that these seagoing thugs are dealing with a recessive global economy. “Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world,” says Hari. They didn’t like the rigour, restrictions and “oppressiveness” of the seafaring alternatives of, say, the Merchant Marine or Royal Navy, so they chose a more independent, democratic and risky life at sea.”

In his article, Hari examines the circumstances by which many Somali fishermen have been thrust into the world of piracy. After the fall of the country’s government in

Somali pirates or the Somali Coast Guard? You decide!

Somali pirates or the Somali Coast Guard? You decide!

1991, Africa’s longest coastline (Somalia’s coast spans about 2,000 miles) has been unprotected. This power-vacuum has provided a perfect opportunity for the international fishing industry to steal Somalia’s food supply and use the region as a dumping ground for nuclear waste (“yes: nuclear waste,” says Hari – cadmium and mercury were also, allegedly, thrown in the mix). Hari interviewed Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, who claims that “there has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention” of such a gross example of pollution. But one can also see how market forces have driven them to think outside the box, get creative, take risks, and work together in innovative ways in a new, community-based entrepreneurial system that exists beyond the one the world helped break.

In a recent Time magazine article, Ishaan Thardoor argues that “Somali piracy has metastasized into the country’s only boom industry. Most of the pirates, observers say, are not former fishermen, but just poor folk seeking their fortune. Right now, they hold 18 cargo ships and some 300 sailors hostage — the work of a sophisticated and well-funded operation.”Recent findings show that in excess of $300 million US in shellfish is being stolen from the Somali coast by illegal trawlers each year. They have no government to speak of. Organizations are dumping nuclear waste in their waters and on their land. Somalia just might be the worst place on Earth. Kinda puts the global recession and BC’s tax-shift  in perspective, eh? They don’t “fit” in the current economic system, which is probably why the independent Somalian news site, WardheerNews, found that 70 per cent of Somalians “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence.” Some even call them the “Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia”! And we can most certainly call them rejectors of an unfair system swirling in chaos.

Notice the clothes and "things" coming out of the character's pockets. Not everyone on Earth has things.

Well, this doesn't seem fair at all!

But, um, yeah. The HST is tough, too. After all, a study released by the Recent Findings Institute reported that the HST is “oppressive” and a “betrayal” of the BC people mostly because of the amount of nuclear waste in it.

Now. Obviously a good binary opposition can make any argument look ridiculous by putting it next to, well, something ridiculous. In any case, if you do in fact believe that, in the context of all things British Columbia, the HST is grossly unfair and a violation of our democracy, perhaps you might consider breaking from the system to which you are very connected. Find some friends. Find a boat. And change your life. Maybe start small, you know, by taking your illegal downloading of music one step further: download a movie or some software and then some tv shows and then, when you’re ready, overtake a ship by force and pillage its contents! BC has a lot of water, you know. Or perhaps you’d like to explore the ways in which your community (local, regional, online, or otherwise) can be used as a vehicle for positive social change within this HST-laden system of ours. Whatever the case, I encourage you to be a democratic, creative and entrepreneurial pirate. If things in BC are really so bad, there are some great historical and contemporary models of fighting injustice to explore, such as the inclusive and democratic experience aboard a pirate ship. Whatever direction you choose, be sure to exercise collaboration, safety and aim to have your community’s best interests in mind; sure, such ideas might seem matter-o-fact, but – every now and then – it doesn’t happen.

So there it is. Yaaarrrrrrrrrghhhhhh welcome!

- Sir John the Pirate Piratologist