To talk of the pirate is to talk of the Zone. And before the Special Economic Zone, there was the Entrepot. Take for instance the great Sulu Sea, and the story of how it was integrated into the world economy, in conjunction with a counter-trade with nearby China. While, such amazing tropical goods were traded that even the birds nest and sea cucumber became sought after commodities (read: would be fun to make), expanding production gave rise to a new slave trade. At the time of conquest, the sea was home to many indigenous communities, many of whom belonged to the Sultanate of Sulu, and who for 400 years have fought subsequent rulers in an ongoing claim for autonomy. To the Spanish colonisers, these muslim pirates seemed all alike, so they called them the Moros, just like the Moors they had at home.
The Moro are famed for the Kris and the the Barong. This motif was taken up by the miltant islamic faction of the Moro, terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, who take thier name from the Arabic ابو, abu ("father of") and sayyaf ("swordsmith"). In a recent war, on the second front (out of sight and out of mind), this faction of Moro militant insurgents faced the well known multi-pronged strategy, called "Clear–Hold– Consolidate–Develop" and were forced to flee into the mountainous terrain of Jolo island.
There is a modern aphorism, not dissimilar from those of the past: "where the road ends, terrorism starts." Perhaps that's why some people are always so eager to build roads everywhere. To every man there are spaces that appear blank, either (seemingly) on a map or within themselves, and perhaps it all comes down to how one chooses to deal with those blank spaces.
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