The Peninsula Newpaper
Wednesday,16 March 2011 01:24
It is ironic that the building of the station accused of attempting to overthrow Gaddafi’s regime, as stated in Gaddafi’s recent speech, is separated from the Libyan Embassy in the United Kingdom (UK) only by a wall and a parking lot across from Hyde Park. On the side closest to the park, a passerby’s attention would be drawn to daily protests by a group of Libyan expatriates, including men, women, and children, against the continuation of the regime and resorting to massacres and bloodshed to suppress the people. One would also notice that the protesters are waving flags of independence with coloured ribbons, a crescent, and a star alongside the Al-Jazeera logo. I would not be surprised if the popular slogan of the sixties after the wave of independence, “nationalism, or religion, or leftism - democracy is the solution”, were to change into a new Arabic slogan, “media is the solution” to change the totalitarian regimes in the Arab world.
Behind the park, extending across the street where Harrods is located, there are more protests, demonstrations, and banners against Arab regimes’ dictatorship, authoritarianism, inherited power, and human rights violations. Every Arab country, without exception, has its share of attacks and criticism. From the Gulf, demonstrations of the stateless (“bidoun”) in Kuwait, the poor in Bahrain, and calls for change in Yemen, to Sudan, Algeria, and Mauritania. How the general scheme of things has changed in its entirety. Even the stereotypical image associated with Arabs in British newspapers is not the same, according to my observations in the past few days in the foggy capital, London. Several months ago, the same newspapers only focused on a particular class of Arabs; their disregard for traffic rules and laws, silly behaviour, and interest in trivial matters. What is known about the industry characterizing Arabs in a general sense is that they are not occupied by any real issue.
The Libyan regime suffers from the same cancerous symptoms suffered by other totalitarian Arab regimes, hitting them one by one. The state and its institutions have disappeared and critical decision-making has been limited to the hands of a few people who’ve reaped all the money, wealth, power, land, projects, and the nation’s resources. Their assets have grown and bank accounts boast billions at home and abroad, while citizens live in poverty, deprivation, misery, ignorance, underdevelopment, and disease. In order for their iron grip to control, the regime monopolized national political, economic, military, and educational forces in order to bask in their protection. Projecting messages upon men, women, and children, the regime condemns any one of them who steps outside of the sacred teachings of the green, red, and violet books as an infidel, heretic, and hallucinating drug addict who must be crushed and eliminated like a rabid animal.
The problem is not with Gaddafi as a person, but with the “Gaddafist” mentality and its Arab audiences who championed, encouraged, sponsored, promoted and praised it in various forums. These include leaders, commanders, writers and journalists, intellectuals, artists, scholars, and theologians who did not offer any regret, ounce of remorse, or apology. Some of them are no different from chameleons and changed their skin like those who did with the former Egyptian president and his Tunisian counterpart after their fall!
They praised the Colonel’s unmatched mentality as if he were an outstanding philosopher of his time for renewing the region, resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict with the “Isratine” theory, and expelling thousands of Palestinian workers to return to their new home after the Oslo Agreement. He was accredited for the rediscovery of the concept of democracy and for people’s rule not by the people but by Revolutionary Committees, which he called “permanent chairs.”
For them, he was the Commando hero who, like a cowboy, stared down Ronald Reagan, the President of the strongest country in the world, in a public square. He was considered a staunch advocate of genuine Arabism, carrying an Arabic tent with him wherever his convoy went in the world, whether to the United Nations building in New York, Elysees Palace in Paris, or the Arab League in Cairo. He was the rebel leader who defied imperialism and fought it by supporting armed separatist groups in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and the bombing of aircrafts such as the Lockerbie case. To them, he was a great Islamic scholar who called on hundreds of Italian women to convert to Islam, distributing copies of the Koran and the “Green Book” he wrote, referred to as “the gospel of the modern era”, along with 50 euro notes each! He was also the great social reformer, liberating women by putting his fate in their hands, and hiring some 400 guards to protect him. He required them to be virgins, not to marry, and exhibit a certain degree of beauty, strength, powerful structures much like that of men, and absolute loyalty!
During the revolutionary leader’s reign, which extends over nearly 42 years, one third of the Libyan people live below the poverty line, while his family’s wealth ranges between $80-$130 billion spread over 50 countries and concentrated mostly in Europe, some Gulf states, and US banks. The Colonel’s son manages these funds and has influence in moving the wealth, purchasing shares, and making transactions. Libya is the second largest oil producer in Africa, its reserves estimated at more than 45 billion barrels, and also has natural gas reserves estimated at 1500 billion cubic meters, occupying the fourth place in Africa. Gaddafi’s wealth, which he seized from the people, could meet the needs of the entire Arab world whose population is about 340 million people through food imports for 3 to 4 years!
While Nero’s Rome was burning in 64 AD, he was singing, playing the fiddle, and reciting poetry describing Troy. For over a week, Nero watched men, women and children as they burned. His tyranny and immorality also increased on those of them who lived, carrying out all imaginable means of torture and abuse upon them. Even so, the people rose up including his representatives against his power, leading to his death by suicide in 1968.
Considering his behavior, the Colonel is resurrecting Libya’s bloody colonial past through the bombing of Tripoli and other cities, whether by aircraft or artillery and other heavy weapons, the use of mercenaries, which include African soldiers from Chad, Niger, Somalia and pilots from Serbia and the Ukraine, against the people in a desperate attempt to stay in power. The regime threatens with death and prosecution without providing a single concession. Demands for political and economic reform, justice, equality, power sharing, and parliamentary elections have not been addressed. Nor is there any recognition of human rights fundamental to the rebels. There is no respect for human rights, freedoms of opinion, expression, and demonstration. Not even an apology for the hundreds shot dead by security forces and mercenaries! In one of his lame speeches, the Colonel said that, “the people who do not like me do not deserve to live.” The Libyan people deserve to live a decent living and the time to overthrow the autocratic regime that is rejected regionally and internationally is yesterday not today. I certainly believe that it is only a matter of days before he is cast away in the dustbin of history.
An amusing anecdote is that a Westerner asked an Arab citizen, “What are your future ambitions?” The Arab replied, “My ambition is to get a respectable job, clean housing, and a decent living.” Astonished, the Westerner responded, “It seems that you do not understand my question, sir. I asked you about your aspirations, not your rights!” Nero died and went into the dustbin of history, yet Rome has remained the capital of beauty and resilience, love, and life. The same will apply to Tripoli, which will remain the capital of the great Libyan people even after the Colonel
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