The Pirates of Somalia_ Inside Their Hidden World - Jay Bahadur [93]
The short-term marriages Hersi was describing, known in Islamic jurisprudence as nikah misyar, or “travellers’ marriage,” are not unique to Somalia, but are widely used by Sunni Muslims as a loophole to circumvent Islam’s circumscription of casual sex. Unlike nikah, or traditional marriage, misyar does not carry the corresponding burdens of financial responsibility, co-habitation, or inheritance, and divorce can be pronounced simply by verbal agreement. Hersi was not the first Somali adult I had heard sermonize about the pernicious effects of travellers’ marriages on Somali society; the practice is becoming increasingly common amongst the youth population as a whole, eliciting the inevitable warnings about the corruption of Somali culture.
“Before, you would come to the girl’s family and ask for their daughter, and then give them money, or, if it’s a traditional bush family, some camels … But these pirates take them from their families. They come by in their Land Cruisers, the girls jump inside and they go get married in a hotel and fuck like crazy. They give them jewellery, introduce them as their wives, and then one month later, everything is done … Then they go back to their old wives.”
Once the attackers had had ample shore leave (or honeymooning, as the case may have been), they were required to report back to the ship in order to take their turn guarding the hostages. However, each had the option of hiring someone (usually a relative) to take his place on the ship for the duration of its captivity—much like buying one’s way out of a draft—in which case he would return only when the ransom was being delivered. In total, twenty pirates remained stationed on the Victoria at all times, taking turns guarding the hostages in four-hour shifts.
Hersi’s obnoxiously loud cellphone chimed to life, cutting in on our conversation. After a brusque exchange in Somali—of which I picked out one sentence: “What’s happened to my car?”—Hersi turned back to me.
“That was the guy in Eyl who’s looking after my Land Cruiser,” he said. “I’m getting ready to sell it to one of the pirate boys.” Then, smiling broadly, “It’s an old one … it cost me only six thousand dollars in Dubai. He’s giving me ten thousand dollars for it. Cool, huh?”
As he was finishing his sentence, Hersi’s phone rang again. This time it was his sister, informing him of the repair estimate for his Land Cruiser; evidently, something was wrong with its radiator. Hersi frowned, hanging up, before seamlessly continuing his previous train of thought.
“Imagine these young guys … twentysomething years old, no food, no life, with a wife to support. When you’re hungry, you’ll do whatever job you can get. Many of the pirates used to be police. I know five of them personally; [Mohamed Abdi]—the one who first boarded the ship—was a lieutenant in [former Puntland president] Adde Muse’s time, when he was twenty-five. Then they stopped getting paid. In Abdullahi Yusuf’s time, things were different. Whatever money he had, he would pay the soldiers first. Puntland was tough … security was good; there were no guns in the street, no shootings. Then Adde came along … he didn’t give a shit who lived and who died. So that’s when these guys turned to piracy. If they got good money, they would become police officers again,” he said.
If nothing else, this anecdote lent support to the theory that the near collapse of Puntland’s governmental institutions in 2008—particularly the security forces—had contributed significantly to the piracy outbreak. Hersi, however, was not short on explanations. “The problem is that they have no education at all,” he said. “They take