What I Don’t Understand Is Why Everyone Suddenly Cares?

 I find it interesting that this whole Somalian pirate thing has flown below most people’s radars until the past week or so.  I guess I must either enjoy listening to NPR too much, a sign of aging, or my commute in the morning is sufficiently long such that I hear enough news stories more than once that most, if not al,l of them stick.  Either way, I find the media attention…disturbing.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel for the captain and the crew of the ship.  However, what happened to them has happened to countless ships traversing this particular seaway.  This is a part of Somalia that has had no functional government since the early 1990’s.  There is no law enforcement.  There is no protective national military presence.  There are no utilities.  There is no commerce.  There is no industry.  The only economy is one of violence and theft.  This is a truly lawless land.  Some people say that these pirate clans took to the sea because there simply was nothing to steal on land.  None of this happened over night.  It is all just another sad example of life (and death) in Somalia.

The only reason we care now is because the media made us care.  

Don’t you feel a little used?  Don’t you feel a little like…sheep?  I said that I was aware of the pirate issue off the coast of Somalia.  I didn’t say it really moved me.  So, when I talk about feeling like sheep, I include myself.  For all of the morning NPR stories I heard, I still wasn’t emotionally engaged.  It was too distant a problem.  It was just another in a heap of indignities; it was just another assault on my human sensibilities.  I let it go.  Fast forward to yesterday, and, like a good little sheep, I’m mesmerized by the details of the Navy SEAL rescue.  Sharpshooters taking out three pirates at the same time from the back of a boat on turbulent seas.  It’s the stuff of movies.  They got me.  I’m a sucker.

Today, it occurred to me precisely what was done to me.  I was yanked by the chain and lead to the exact place they wanted me to go.  My question now is “why?”  Why did they decide it was time for you and for me to care?  What profit motivated them to blow this whole thing out of proportion?  And, more importantly, who is “they?”  I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist or anything, but I am truly and deeply perplexed as to why…why now?  Why this story, at this juncture in time?  Why?

What is it about Somalia that is worth this much attention?  I understand the human rights issues and the genocide and every other attrocity that gets reported from that place.  What I don’t understand is why everyone suddenly cares?