"Enemies of all Mankind"

In the 1600’s, the Barbary pirates operated in the Mediterranean, from Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. They were a threat and menace for European shipping in those days. Their reach was such that at times, they’d even raid the coast of Britain, loot and sometimes abduct the locals to be sold into slavery.

 

Africans abducting and selling white Europeans into slavery – that was like the worst possible crime in British eyes, writes Steven Johnson in Enemy of all Mankind. It qualified them as hostis humani generis – “enemies of all mankind”. This was more than just verbal grandstanding – it was also a matter of jurisdiction. By declaring the Barbary pirates thus, it gave the British legal justification to prosecute them anywhere in the world, not just for crimes committed in Britain. (The same principle was used by the US after 9/11 to justify any torture on those accused of terrorism – terrorists became the new “enemies of all mankind”).

 

But let’s go back to the 17th century. As Johnson says, it was the height of hypocrisy for the British to brand pirates the enemies of all mankind. Not only did Europeans kidnap and sell Africans into slavery, but some of the worst pirates in history were British, and as often as not, they operated under the “full endorsement of the Crown”. Reminds one of the Pakistan – terrorists nexus, doesn’t it?

 

Anyways, what we’d call pirates were either pirates or privateers to the British. The difference? Privateers had legal authorization from the Crown to attack vessels of other countries with which Britain was at war. In return for this “privilege” and exemption from prosecution, the Crown got a percentage of the profits. As you might imagine, the privateers never wanted a war between Britain and any country to end, because hey, then that country’s ships would not be available for attack.

 

The most famous privateer was Francis Drake, who even got a knighthood and returned home enormously rich and famous:

“Drake’s colossal success not only made him a hero, it made him a prototype – the standard by which all future pirates would be judged and by which they judged themselves.”

 

This then was how Britain operated – the Barbary pirates were “monstrous and beyond the pale” while their own chosen privateers were “worthy of knighthood”. It was a policy that would become untenable eventually when British pirates (not privateers) attacked the ship of an entity that was too large, too powerful, too rich and threatened to cut off trade with Britain in retaliation. That entity was the Mughal empire under Aurungzeb. But that’s a tale for another blog…

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