Dodging bullets on the way back to my residence, it was the equivalent of house arrest for a month or so then a limited work regime until I was sent out of the country.
There was one quite ‘fun’ incident at work when the cross-eyed and skinny young janitor stole the security guard’s rifle and held us all at bay till his revolutionary ardour subsided enough for us all to sit down to have *chai* – tea.
It was a fearful time as the British were enemy number one. We would listen to the BBC overseas news and began to understand the difference between sitting at a home hearth listening, and being on-the-spot, where announcements brought people onto the streets decrying one’s nation with intimations of bloodletting! I have followed the exploits of this interesting fellow ever since.
Oil-rich Libya’s eccentric leader has held the country in a tight grip since he led that bloodless coup in 1969. The man, Gaddafi, is known for his eccentric style, rebellious public pronouncements and an insistence on wearing an ethnic garb, and nowadays for his female bodyguards, much more than for his repressive domestic rule.
In power since that revolution in 1969, Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is the longest-serving leader in both Africa and the Arab world.
He toppled King Idris, at the age of 27. Neither King Idris nor his designated heir, Hasan ar Rida, who was taken into custody at the time of the coup along with other senior civil and military officials of the royal government, countered with any strong intentions. Within days of the coup, Hasan publicly renounced all rights to the throne, stated his support for the new regime, and called on the people to accept it without violence.
It was a worthy revolution though as the country had rampant poverty and corruption. After the initial chaos – army personnel at road intersections were happily drunk as there was no prohibition prior to Gaddafi and mini-roadblocks were set up as villagers sought out felons guilty of local transgressions – he has since maintained tight control of his oil-rich country by clamping down on dissidents. Dissidents abroad were even hunted down and killed. The present unfortunately bloody uprising posed the most serious domestic challenge to his rule.
In the very early days the new government negotiated with the USA to remove its foreign base from Libya. The Wheelus base agreement had just two more years to run, and in December 1969, the USA agreed to vacate the facility by June 1970.
Among his many eccentricities, Gaddafi is known to sleep in a Bedouin tent guarded by dozens of female bodyguards on trips abroad. Very recently he was well publicised camping at billionaire Donald Trump’s park-like residence, handy for commuting to the UN show in New York.
His UN speech at that time was supposed to be 15 minutes, but exceeded an hour and a half. He tore up a copy of the UN charter, accused the Security Council of being a terrorism body similar to al-Qaeda, and demanded US$ 7.7 trillion in compensation to be paid to Africa from its past colonial rulers.
Gaddafi was born in 1942 – the same year as this writer – in the coastal area of Sirte to nomadic parents; his family belongs to a small tribe of Arabized Berbers, the Qadhadfa, stockherders with holdings in the Hun Oasis. Strangely, he was anti-Berber. I was born in Blaydon-on-Tyne of Irish-Scot ancestry and went to South Shields Tech, then joined the Merchant Navy. I quite like my own tribe, the Geordies. He went to Benghazi University and studied geography but dropped out to join the army. Our parallel development ended there. Clearly he was meant for bigger things.
After taking power, Gaddafi developed a pan-Arab, anti-colonial-imperialist manifesto that brought in aspects of Islam. He permitted private control over smaller companies, while the government controlled the larger ones. He was an admirer of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser when he was activating an Arab socialist- nationalist ideology across the Middle East.
The RCC made clear Libya’s dedication to Arab unity and support of the Palestinian cause against Israel. In this same regard I was active at the time in correspondence from Tripoli with the Palestine Liberation Organisation advocating their cause but denouncing the violence, proposing use of non-violence with PLO secretary a Mr Abu. His was a non-committal reply underscored with a simple, “Revolution until Victory” slogan, by his signature.
It is worthwhile recalling that in the earliest days of Palestine problem the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) had declared that its goal was to: ‘create a people’s democratic Palestine, where Arabs and Jews would live without discrimination, a state without classes and national oppression, a state which allows Arabs and Jews to develop their national culture.’
Gaddafi’s writing in the *New York Times*, January 21, 2009, is worthwhile reading on this topic to get acquainted with his interesting thoughts on how to resolve the problem – his ‘Isratine’ single state proposal.
Following the revolution in Libya the RCC showed strong uniformity in political and economic views and in dedication. Fellow members were loyal to Gaddafi as group leader not because of subservience to his dictatorial style, but because they were in agreement with him and with the revolutionary Arab nationalist ideals he stood for.
In one moment Gaddafi tried, though without success, to federate Libya, Egypt and Syria. A similar attempt to unite Libya and Tunisia ended in very poor relations.
In 1977 Gaddafi changed the country’s name to the Great Socialist Popular Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah (State of the Masses) and seemed to be allowing people to air their views at open gatherings. At a later date, around the world the term embassy was replaced by, Libyan People’s Bureau. However his critics dismissed his leadership as a military dictatorship, accusing him of repressing civil society and ruthlessly crushing dissidents.
Later shunned by a number of Arab states for his extreme views on how to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among others, Gaddafi’s foreign policy shifted from an Arab focus to an African focus.
In the West, Gaddafi is strongly associated with terrorism, accused of supporting armed groups including FARC in Colombia and the IRA in Northern Ireland.
How sad it is that Muammar Gaddafi did not take to the path of non-violence at some moment in his volatile career. He needed to recall the way King Idris bowed out. Pity, he had a lot to offer.
