Film Review: The Piracy of the “Pirates: On the World’s End”

By Arturo P. Garcia

What I enjoy with Hollywood is that it has a license to do everything with anything. Like the voyages of the pirates that went awry from Southeast Asian port of Singapore to the icy poles and to the sea of legendary Hades.

Another thing i enjoy is the idelism of progressive Hollywood against the capitalist side of Hollywood. It was expressed in the unity of the Bortherhood of Pirates against the evil capitalist group represented by the British East India Trading company privateers.

Again, the Love Story Lines...

The latest Pirates of the Caribbean tells love stories between a Pirate captains turned octopus –Davy Jones and kept his heart in a chest because of his of his love for a witch, Calypso and the the love triangle between Captain Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth and her lover, Captain Will Turner - a son who vowed to get his father out of a death spell.

If there were no love story for this film, maybe a lot of people will get bored with the magical high-tech effects like the sea battle between two pirates ships- the” Black Pearl” and the “Flying Dutchman” that ended uniting against the “Endeavor,” the flag ship of the capitalist East India Trading Company.

Racist Undertones Against Asians

This time, the Pirates of the Caribbean, traveled as far as Singapore and showed the Chinese pirates not as they are but again as what the White Caucasian sees them to be: pirates without honor and businesslike who will deal and wheel in an instant as their capitalist counterparts.

They should study their history very well. Many of the Asian pirates went to the sea, founded their own colony in small island to escape and defy tyranny and persecution in their main lands like China under the oppressive Emperors.

Out in the sea they lived as free men, longing for wetlands but happy living in the high seas away from the yoke of the Emperor’s oppression.Limahong, a Chinese pirate almost occupied Manila during the early years of the Spanish occupation of the Philippines and established a colony in Lingayen, Pangasinan.

AnotherChinese pirate Coxinga and Tayfusa, a Japanese pirate established their ports or colonies in La Union and Aparri, Cagayan. Filipino American history proved that Filipinos jump ships to America in Morro Bay, California and started settlements in the Unoted States.

But where are the Moro or Filipino Pirates?

Although the film tried to capture that there is an international brotherhood of pirates, they left out the Filipino or Moro pirates who became the perennial enemies of the Spanish empire in the Philippines. This is a clear insult to the Filipinos that produced one of the biggest numbers of seamen in the world.

There were Arab, African, Spanish and Chinese pirates in the film, but no Filipino pirates! The Moros defied the Spanish empire and were never conquered. They continue to attack Luzon and Visayas settlement by pirate raids until the advent of the steamboats in the late 1800’s that gave the Spanish navy the upper head in the high seas.

While it s understandable that they don’t know about the Moro pirates, there seem to be a deliberate about the English and Dutch pirates. While there is a mention of the “Flying Dutchman” a ship, there was no mention of the Dutch pirates. While it is established the Jack Sparrow was a pirate, the film was silent of the piracy of Englishmen like Sir Francis Drake who terrorized the Spanish merchant marine so Britain can be great.

All Quiet on the Grand Piracy

They were quiet on the fact by piracy, England and Holland built their empires on the skulls and bones of their victims at the sea. Try to visit Amsterdam and you can see the monuments to the Dutch pirates who colonized a lot of nations like Indonesia also called the Dutch East Indies for the Netherlands.

So the people may know, the Spanish navy based in the Philippines during the Spanish times, with the Filipinos as seamen and cannon fodders defeated the Dutch Fleet under Admiral Van Noort during the great battle of Manila Bay in 1646.

This became an event celebrated every year as a religious tradition called the “La Naval De Manila” until today, to honor the virgin of the most holy rosary that the Spanish fleet sailed for that day.

The United States, the mightiest naval power in the world, up to now deployed part of their fleet against the Abu Sayaff, the modern day pirates cum kidnap for rasom gang using top of the line Volvo outboard motors speed boats and kidnapped people including foreign tourist s in Malaysia and the Philippines.

This is a proof that the pirates are still alive in Southeast Asian while the other pirates fly the flags of their nations and do their thing legally and impose their will all over the world.

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