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Recent events of piracy show us that history is indeed repeating itself. Ships making their way to Africa with food and supplies for the poor and starving of the region are being plundered. The pirates are holding up the ships and demanding ransom. Some shipping companies are paying the fee and this has not helped the cause of those who want to put a stop to this deplorable act. Just last month an American merchant ship captain was detained while the ship was robbed. It was on its way to deliver food and supplies to the poor of Africa.

The Captain was rescued by Navy Seals, a well trained minority military group that knows how to deal with such happenings. Now, more attention and effort is on stopping the piracy. Most of us living lives in our sheltered homes were sure no such thievery and crime were being allowed. Were we in for a shock! I, for one, thought that such shenanigans belonged only in the history books. Is this the Barbary Coast revisited, we ask? Below is what I once wrote about the kind of piracy found only in history books. Or so I blithely thought. Interspersed are thoughts on today's piracy.

The Barbary Coast in North Africa is where the notorious sea pirates ransacked the Mediterranean shipping area for several centuries. The practice did not end until the United States and Tripoli battled it out in 1815; and the British bombardment of Algiers in 1816. Before that if anyone got their ship through these waters they had to pay the pirates for permission to do so. This may have had something to do with the European Countries moving in and protecting their own interests, at least this makes a good excuse.

Somalia and its modern day pirates are bringing back these old time. We wonder if they are not listening to tales told of their old glory days when what they needed they took? After all, isn't that what other nations were doing to them? I have no proof that any of this thinking took place, but when dealing with unreality anything can happen.

Colonization annoyed Africans. Not all of them, however, went into piracy to get even, although they were against being colonized. Yet fairness must be brought in and if truth be told, both sides, the Europeans and the Africans both benefited by this arrangement. In other words, both good and bad came out of colonization. But where Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya, the Barbary Coast states are concerned, they naturally have a different story to tell. As will each of the European countries and

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