He was full of hope, with "a vision of a peaceful country, with schools, hospitals, libraries, where I can raise my children and live in peace". I first met Abdi in Nairobi, ground zero for humanitarian aid missions in Somalia. While there, he reconnected with uncles, aunts, cousins and the region's famous camels' milk. In January, Adeso arranged Abdi's first trip back to Somalia since he left as a young man, as an ambassador for their work. Instead, long-term programmes address policy, encourage civil rights movements, provide vocational training and pay communities to rehabilitate their ecosystems.
#ABDUWALI MUSE HEIGHT PROFESSIONAL#
The development agency recognises that charity can be demeaning – it's Somali founder, Fatima Jibrell, used to chastise herself for being "a professional beggar" – so only gives unconditional aid in emergencies. Last year, Abdi decided to use his profile to raise awareness of issues in Somalia, becoming a Goodwill Ambassador for Adeso. As for the pirate, Abduwali Muse – was he truly evil or was his fate sealed by the environment into which he had been born?īarkhad Abdi, second from left, won a BAFTA for his portrayal of Somali pirate Abduwali Muse in the film Captain Phillips. They said that the film's hero, Captain Phillips, was, in truth, a toad, who recast himself as the ship's saviour. In the US, the actual crew members of the ship in question criticised the film for hijacking the truth in favour of a simplistic 'good versus evil' narrative.
#ABDUWALI MUSE HEIGHT MOVIE#
When it came out, Greengrass's movie was criticised in Africa, for failing "to humanise the pirates by exposing the real lives of these young men, and the reasons behind the choices they make", as the Somali development organisation Adeso says. Seventeen years later, he turned to piracy to survive. Muse remained in Somalia as the country descended further into anarchy. The fates of these two Somali men, both infants when the ongoing civil war started in 1991, diverged the day Abdi escaped the country to Yemen and then Minnesota. But while Abdi walked the red carpets picking up a BAFTA and an Oscar nomination, Muse languished in a US prison cell, making history as the first person charged with piracy in an American court in over a century. Abdi's skeletal frame and protruding teeth made him the spitting image of the real-life pirate, Abduwali Muse. Somalian piracy got the Hollywood treatment in 2013, when director Paul Greengrass presented the 2009 hijacking of the US-flagged Maersk Alabama in a blockbuster film Captain Phillips starring Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi. If they're not, then it becomes an option. "As long as Nato is there, it's a dead end.
Our options are either to become a charcoal maker, a pirate, to join al-Shabaab, or to starve or beg." I ask if the rebirth of piracy is really an option, and he looks glum. "I'm jobless," Hassan says, "and I'm not the only one. The Federal Republic of Somalia has the longest coastline on mainland Africa, but now, artisanal fishing is not a viable income stream, according to residents in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland, the region at the tip of the horn of East Africa. By 2005, according to the UN, Somalia was losing $300m to illegal fishing every year. The conditions Hassan describes today are almost exactly the same as those 10 years ago that drove Somalis to attack foreign fishing vessels in an attempt to recoup some of their losses, giving birth to a multi-billion dollar piracy industry. Just as piracy was good to the fishermen of Somalia, Hassan says, Nato's $75m anti-piracy task force has been good to those foreigners wishing to plunder her seas. Piracy is now dead, thanks to a multilateral effort to stamp it out, and the unlicensed foreign fishing vessels are back. Hassan started fishing in 2000, aged 10 – it is all the only trade he knows.
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