The wrong history

History is usually written by the victors of human conflicts. On rare occasions it is written by the victims instead. With stories of piracy, some rule somewhere seems to say that the victims have to be of the right colour or nationality, though.

American Capt. Wren Thomas seems to be trying to go the Capt. Phillips way. Ransomed after 18 days of being held by Nigerian pirates in October last year, he has given an account of his ordeal back home in the US. Maybe the idea is, as in Phillips case, to graduate to a book, then the talk show circuit and a movie that is nominated for the Oscar- and to make a bucketful of money.

I don’t know if that conjecture is true and I don’t really care if Capt. Thomas skews the truth, like Phillips’ crew claims he did. What I care about is that the history of modern day piracy is being written inaccurately, because it is being written by victims who do not represent the typical seafarer hostage. It is therefore a false history.

While fully sympathising with Capt Thomas and his trying experience, I must point out that a typical modern day pirate story invariably involves Captains and crews from the third world. The typical hostage is not North American. A representative piracy story from Africa’s East coast includes seamen spending months- sometimes years- in captivity wondering whether the owners are going to break off ransom negotiations and abandon them, something that has been done often enough. It means daily torture and occasional death. It means seamen’s families running around from pillar to post back home, traumatised and effectively abandoned themselves by their governments, shipmanagers or owners. It means reconciling to the fact that nobody is going to pay a ransom in a hurry, and that nobody is going to come to rescue you.

The Phillips story- the Maersk Alabama hijack and rescue was all over in four days- is hardly representative of what Masters and crews suffer from piracy. And neither is Thomas.’

So far it isn't, anyway. Remember the Phillips story was embellished as time passed, when the book came out and the movie followed- and the crew took Maersk and Waterman (the owners and charterers) to court, claiming, amongst other things that Phillips was a villain of sorts and not the hero portrayed.

Will Thomas go the same way? The language coming out of US based media suggests so; some build up and dramatisation has already started, and a book deal or a Hollywood producer may soon emerge from the woodwork. Listen to this (out of Thomas’ article)- 

“Soon, 7.62-mm bullets from an AK-47 were spraying in, ricocheting off the walls, and sending the crew scrambling for cover. The jig was up, and Thomas knew it. He surrendered, and opened the door”.
And, “They treated us like animals. “It’s about as close as a person could get to being a POW.”
And, “I found my training as a Marine kicked in and provided me with survival skills,” Thomas said. “I knew not to piss off a Nigerian. Or worse, a Nigerian pirate, or even worse, a Nigerian pirate on drugs.”

Lots of drama. I wonder if Tom Hanks is free. 

Like I said, I sympathise with Capt Thomas; more, I feel solidarity with him. The pressures on him and his crew must have been tremendous. I also do not believe that his story- or that of Phillips- should be downplayed just because they are US citizens or because they cashed in- or may be planning to cash in- on the horror they must have gone through. I also do not believe their stories are less valid just because the US rescues- or ransoms- its pirate-hostage citizens quickly (I must point out that although the US State Department has not confirmed that a ransom was paid in Thomas’ case, and neither have Edison Chouset, the owners of his supply boat, it probably was).  Finally, it is hardly Thomas’ fault- or Phillips’- that other countries, owners and administrations treat their seafarers abysmally. (Note that I do not even waste my breath appealing that the industry in these countries ensures that a typical hostage seafarer story is heard, at least). It is not the United States of America’s fault that other countries abandon their citizens to torture and worse.

But the connection I feel with Capt Thomas is drowned out by the angst I feel at the fact that the overwhelming majority of pirate victims have no voice even after their horrific trauma. And that, with maritime piracy, the stories the world will hear today and the histories the world will read tomorrow will be, simply, the wrong ones. And that even the tragedies of most seamen will be forever discounted in a warped atmosphere of make believe.
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Captain Phillips and All is lost

I don’t know enough about either, but it is still a no-brainer; I know which of the two movies I am going to see.

In the much hyped corner is ‘Captain Phillips’, billed as the true story of the 2009 Maersk Alabama pirate hijack, and which portrays the Captain- Tom Hanks in the movie- as the quintessential all- American hero. The problem is that too many of the crew say that Phillips is a villain instead, and that the ‘true’ screen story is actually riddled with lies. 

In the understated corner is ‘All is Lost’, a movie that has just one actor in its entire cast- Robert Redford- and which is shot completely on the water. He has no name in the movie, and he is the only visible human in the viewers’ sight throughout the film. The story is about a man whose boat hits a shipping container in the middle of the Indian Ocean (yep, the same one as with Phillips) and who tries to stay alive thereafter. I did not read too much about the movie and risk spoiling it for me. It will have no dialogues, I think. It also promises to be infinitely more interesting. 

To be fair, I had decided to avoid “Captain Phillips” like the plague anyway.  I dislike hype and hyped movies. (I walked out of the ‘Titanic’ less than halfway, and you don’t learn anything the second time you are kicked by a mule).  

Also, this sticks in my craw: the seaman that is taken hostage today is more likely to be Asian, not American, and movies like “Captain Phillips” do nothing except repeat Hollywood stereotypes while downplaying reality. I find it distasteful that- like in movies about the Vietnam war- there is an overdose of ‘white’ heroes when a sizeable number of combatants are actually of a less sale-able colour. Unlike Bollywood, Hollywood’s tinkering with the truth is usually very subtle, but it angers me anyway that the world’s perception of seamen, Somali piracy and the perception of who the victims and heroes really are is going to be determined by “Captain Phillips” from now on in. 

(Will anyone even remember Korean Captain Seog Hae-Gyun, who was awarded the IMO Award for Exceptional Bravery at Sea in 2011 after pirates had taken over the ‘Samho Jewelry’? For six days he and his men fooled the pirates on board, zigzagging in the Indian Ocean, contaminating fuel and secretly communicating with the outside world, despite Seog Hae-Gyun having been beaten, legs and shoulder fractured. He was then shot four times when rescuers boarded the Jewelry, and was in a coma for a month after being transferred ashore. Now there’s a movie begging to be made.) 

To boot, “Captain Phillips” seems to promote the wrong hero. Amongst the numerous crew allegations against him- something that has created sufficient controversy in the US to enhance hopes of cash registers ringing loudly at the box office- are some that Phillips has directly or indirectly admitted to. For example, that he took the ship too close to Somalia despite repeated warnings on email. That he continued to hold a fire drill (changed to security drill in the movie) even as pirate boats approached the Alabama. That the media stories that claimed at the time- and now, in the movie- about his offering himself as a hostage to the pirates were actually lies. 

But there are other, equally serious allegations, about Phillips longstanding reputation for being arrogant and ignoring the numerous attacks on ships that had been reported in the same waters he was taking the Alabama into. Allegations that there were two attacks on the Alabama in eighteen hours, not one.  And that, as the pirates finally boarded, many of the crew decided to lock themselves in the engine room- a clear indication, if true, that the heroic Captain was not calling the shots on board anymore. A crewmember claims that Phillips had no real plan except to throw up his hands and surrender.

Chief Engineer Mike Perry seems to have been the hero out there, not Phillips. It was he who led the crew downstairs and locked them in. It was Perry who disabled the ship, then attacked the pirate-in-Chief and seized him, later trying to get the rest of the pirates to exchange the man for Phillips. The other heroes in my mind are the US naval men of Seal Team Six, who took out the pirates in the lifeboat leaving Phillips untouched. 

So pardon me if I seem underwhelmed by the Captain Phillips hype. 

I’d much rather watch ‘All is Lost.’ That seems to be more true to what a sailor’s life is all about- solitary, under pressure, sometimes battling to survive.  Then, it seems to be a thinking man’s movie; it promises to be understated and subtle, not melodramatic and obvious. It does not appear to be a movie where they can lie and get away with it. It is tough to lie to the ocean. 

“All is Lost” does not claim to be a true story, but I will bet that it will be more real than “Captain Phillips.” It will, I bet you, show the reality of life at sea more believably. The nationality of the protagonist will not matter, because all sailors will identify with him- this much I can tell without having seen it. It will also probably portray, to me, a truer and more authentic American hero; if we are lucky, a hero of the Hemmingway-isque mould.  It will tell us why true seamen treasure true solitude. 

And it will do so without all the drama I expect from ‘Captain Phillips.’   

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