The word pirate comes from the Greek word πειρατης which in turn comes from the verb πειραω meaning "to strive", "to try", "to try one's luck in adventure".
A pirate is a person who practices piracy. Piracy is the practice, as old as shipping, of attacking a boat with the aim of stealing its cargo, and sometimes the entire boat. However, the pirates were not only limited to other ships but sometimes attacked small coastal towns. The word "pirate" is attached to actions at sea without the approval of a sovereign nation, unlike corsairs, captains of private craft working on behalf of a nation or an important person in society. Maritime piracy reached its peak during the 18th century and then gradually disappeared due to the growing power of nations in all regions of the world. Many anarchists were inspired by the pirate philosophy of exile from any nation in order to lead a freer life.
Despite its maritime origin, the word pirate is mentioned in different contexts, such as "pirate the road", which used to be called "highway robbers".
By shift in meaning, a computer hacker designates an individual who engages in embezzlement carried out on the Internet, or copies of works without respecting copyright or copyright. There are other more villainous forms such as phishing, which consists of usurping an identity, most often Corporate.
We sometimes speak of pirates in the case of political and terrorist acts:this is the case of hijackers. However, this is a distortion of the meaning of pirate:the absence of the lucrative interest of a terrorist action means that we cannot really link these criminals to the real pirates.
History of maritime piracy
Piracy is a corollary of maritime trade and already existed in antiquity. All ancient civilizations that had a navy practiced it, the Phoenicians as well as the Mycenaeans.
Julius Caesar himself had to suffer from the activity of the pirates. During a trip to the East between the years 75 BC. AD and 74 BC. BC, he was captured by them, near the island of Pharmacuse, near the city of Miletus in Asia Minor. As soon as he was released for a ransom, he set out to take revenge. After hastily assembling a flotilla, he surprised and captured the pirates whom he later executed. Pompey became famous for clearing the Mediterranean of Cilician pirates.
Terminology
It comes from the Greek word peiratès, pirata in Latin, which finally gives pirate in French.
The pirates who raged in the Caribbean Sea were sometimes incorrectly called buccaneers. In fact, the buccaneers live without a leader, and mainly take care of supplying meat to pirates and buccaneers. They mainly hunt beef and pigs, which they place in quarters on branch racks (the boucan). They then light a green wood fire below and smoke the meat. Their favorite hunting grounds are northwest of Santo Domingo and in the Bay of Campeche. Occasionally, they get involved in an expedition, but this is not their main activity. Most buccaneers are originally either adventurers or deserters from various European nations.
The Dutch pirates were called "vrij buiters" (vrij meaning free and buit meaning at the same time acquisition, prey and game, this expression therefore means "free looter"), which gave by deformation flibustier in French and freebooter in English. It should also be noted that the terms pirate and buccaneer were globally equivalent until the 18th century.
But with the growing control of the great European nations over the Caribbean, some filibusters agree to line up punctually behind a royal banner, to obtain a certain legitimacy. This commitment is very punctual, and it must be distinguished from the status of privateer. Indeed, when they acted for the benefit of a great European nation, for example by sinking the ships of a country with which this nation was at war, the pirates had the superior status of corsair (in modern Arabic, قرصان and in Turkish, Korsan).
In fact, during the 18th century, the term pirate was no longer used except to designate buccaneers on the high seas, often Anglo-American, who remained independent and whose peak was between 1716 and 1726.
Corsair or pirate?
There is a huge difference between pirates and privateers. If the latter employed methods vaguely similar to those of the former, they were provided with a Letter of Marque and Reprisal or Letter of Race issued by a king or government, which authorized them to attack the ships of an enemy nation. The fearsome Barbarysques in the Mediterranean were corsairs, as were some Maltese sailors, who were licensed by the Order of Malta. The letter of marque was recognized by convention and saved the privateer from being accused of piracy, which was punishable by death, but it was not always enough to save his life. The most famous British privateer was Sir Francis Drake at a time when England was just beginning its maritime adventure (late 16th century) and when it had an interest in encouraging racing. Two centuries later, when the Royal Navy reigned over all the seas of the world, Great Britain had no use for corsairs, which had become useless and cumbersome. In France, following the severe defeat of Admiral de Tourville at La Hougue (1692), Louis XIV encouraged private initiatives. Jean Bart and his cousin Jacobsen, from Dunkirk, the Comte de Forbin, the Malouin Duguay-Trouin, the Nantes Jacques Cassard were encouraged by Versailles to amass considerable booty on the backs of the British and the Dutch. Following the French Revolution and the flight into exile of many naval officers because of their membership of the nobility, France suffered many setbacks on the waves, apart from the frank successes of a pack of adventurous corsairs who scoured the Indian Ocean between 1792 and 1815. One of them, Robert Surcouf, a native of Saint-Malo, thus won glory, honor and fortune at the point of his cutlass:he ended his opulent life as a Malouin shipowner at an age advanced. In the 19th century, after the Napoleonic adventure, the race gradually lost its importance. His last last stand was probably during the Greek War of Independence (1824-1830), where some sailors from the homeland of Socrates gave the Ottoman navy a hard time.
Seven nations agreed in the Paris Declaration of 1856 to abandon the use of letters of marque. However, the United States and Spain explicitly reserve the right, by their constitution, to still use it.
Social organization
Pirates of centuries past are imagined leading a romantic life of clever and cunning rebels, acting in groups apart from the rule of law and obligation as we know it today. In reality, few pirates ate their fill or became rich, most died young, as the supplies they took were infested with rats and other small beasts.
However, some aspects of the hacker organization are surprising. Unlike Western societies of the time, many pirate clans operated like limited democracies:leaders were elected and replaced, for example. The captain of a pirate ship was often a fierce fighter trusted by the crew, rather than an authoritarian leader from an aristocratic elite. It was often the master of the wheelhouse, nicknamed "the second" or "the bosun", who was responsible for the crew and who was responsible for maintaining order day after day, except during battles when it is the captain who gave the orders.
Many pirate groups shared all the loot they obtained, following a rather complicated scheme in which each man received the share reserved for him. Pirates injured in battle sometimes even received a special bounty. In addition, several books relate the very fair balance of power between the captain of a ship and the others during a victory. Indeed, the spoils were divided in such a way that the captain received as much as the others, at most 1.5 times or twice as much as the others, but never more.
Pirates had chosen to be banished from traditional societies, in particular because the life of a sailor was particularly painful, dangerous and discipline on board was particularly harsh. Many sailors had not actually chosen this trade, either being sold as cabin boys to a captain, or being forcibly conscripted by the press, a system widely employed by the British. It often happened that they freed slaves found in captured ships, incorporating them into their crew or setting them ashore.
However, these egalitarian practices were limited to very few aspects of the pirates' lives, and did not really alleviate the harshness of their way of life.
Pirates in the collective imagination
Piracy has inspired many authors and continues to fascinate the public over the centuries, conveying a number of stereotypes.
Stereotypes about pirates
* The pirate is often depicted with a gash on his face, one-eyed with a patch over his eye, and one hand amputated, replaced by a hook. He has also often lost a leg to gangrene or a cannonball, and so leans on a wooden leg.
* In the beginning, each pirate ship had its own flag, and the victims did not know what that meant. Gradually, the flags became general and they each had a different meaning.
* Pirates use a black flag representing human bones (like the Jolly Roger and its derivatives), because they are notorious for taking no prisoners.
* Pirates hide their treasure on an island and mark its location on a treasure map.
* Pirates are often accompanied by a parrot.
Pirate utopias
It is Hakim Bey, an anarchist figure, and specialist in the “pirate cause” who introduces notions of ideology and pirate utopia through his book TAZ. For him, the basic principle of the definition of the pirate is his autonomy.
Piracy and international law
In the field of international law, piracy is generally considered to be the oldest example of the use of the principle of universal jurisdiction. Looting ships on the high seas, blocking trade routes or endangering maritime communications was considered by sovereign states to be hosti humanis generis (crimes against humanity). Since piracy, by definition, is practiced outside national jurisdictions, prosecutions by sovereign states against pirates constitute an exceptional legal situation.
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
* Article 100:Obligation to cooperate in the suppression of piracy
All States shall cooperate to the fullest extent possible in the suppression of piracy on the high seas or in any other place beyond the jurisdiction of any State.
* Article 101:Definition of piracy
Piracy means any of the following acts:
* any unlawful act of violence or detention or any depredation committed by the crew or passengers of a private ship or aircraft, acting for private purposes, and directed:
o against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board them, on the high seas,
o against a ship or aircraft, persons or property, in any place outside the jurisdiction of the jurisdiction of any State;
* any act of voluntary participation in the use of a ship or an aircraft, when its author has knowledge of facts from which it follows that this ship or aircraft is a pirate ship or aircraft;
* any act intended to incite the commission of the acts defined in letters a) or b), or committed with the intention of facilitating them.