"While he [Gaddafi] may have done a lot to improve the welfare of his people, especially in education, health and social services, he failed the ultimate test by denying them of their dignity." – Segun Adeniyi in the piece whose URL Pius Adesanmi provided at the bottom of his post below.
So Gaddafi's life and leadership over Libya reflected a bundle of conflicting and contradictory characteristics. Some of these are crucial positive ones like the commendable expenditure of significant percentage of the national resources on social services and on social welfare policies, his running of his government on what seemed to have been a balanced budget, maintaining sound fiscal health for Libya, and his defiant claim of respect on behalf of Africa from the West. Also, until clear and convincing evidence surfaces to the contrary, he was very much less corrupt and ran a government less institutionally corrupted than what obtains in other African countries, possibly because only himself and his sons and perhaps a few cronies ever were allowed personal access to state funds.
These latter service characteristics, clearly some of the factors mostly responsible for Libyans' very high living standards compared to those of any other African nation, are sorely lacking in other African countries and in the services given by African governments and leadership. Their lack is perhaps the principal reason many African nations remain backward, crisis-riven, dependent on the West and lacking confidence in standing up to courageously demand and assert respect for Africa in their dealings with the world.
The other characteristics, negative, include Gaddafi's clearly personal, autocratic rule, and evidently oppressive responses to opposition – many in the opposition running into exile or just keeping silent. And he took this on in an era when despotism (however enlightened) is largely out of favour; for which reason he ousted the late monarchical government of Libya and was considered a revolutionary. Also, for long, there have been reports of Gaddafi's very erratic behavior and the possibility that he had serious undiagnosed psychological problems lurks behind quite a few dispassionate reporting of these behaviors at various meetings both within and without Africa. He clearly fomented war in Africa, especially among those he considered his foes; and the manner of his championing pan-Africanism was too conceited and self-interested and too autocratic in a context where divisions and multiple views needed to be carefully managed and harmonized if unity of Africa was really the only goal.
Hence, all the good that he did for Libya were done as a despot and though producing positive and enviable social outcomes for Libya, on the day of reckoning, when the opposition (whether it was some silent majority of eastern Libya or perhaps only a tiny opportunistic elite who managed eventually to get the support of opportunistic outsiders) arose to challenge him, it was his "political" misdeeds rather than his "economic" or "service" performance that were stacked against him. The Responsibility to Protect principle can only be invoked under conditions of "political" misdeeds, rather than those of "economic" mismanagement. Whether we like it or not, conditions of "economic" mismanagement, as are played out in Africa, especially fueled by corruption and dependency seem to pose very little challenge to the economic interest of developed countries or to the ethics of "global brotherhood" and human dignity to which the world powers assent compared to unmanageable "political" self-will by any African "Gaddafi", made worse if this self-will is married to local oppression of a section of his people.
Was the opposition foolish to have thus seemingly misevaluated Gaddafi's contribution to their nation and their lives? On the other hand, are many who highlight the stellar performance of Libya in the areas of social services and standard of living and debt free economy under Gaddafi relative, especially but not exclusively, to all other African states, wrongheaded? By what criteria do we judge? On what ethical basis? Segun Adeniyi's statement quoted at the top of this piece sums up what I consider to be one of the best ways to answer this one question. In fact it is, for me, one of the good answers to why so many horribly and criminally corrupt, patently visionless and abysmally ignorant and provincially minded leaders of Africa continue and may continue to be tolerated in many African countries.
Despotism, imagined or real, is considered to be the denial by the despot of the personhood or equal personhood of the people they rule over. The impact, especially psychological, is usually palpable and immediate. It translates to the despot denying the victims their freedom and liberty to be able to own their lives and even their physical bodies – to be able to go where they want and do what they want with their lives in a more direct person to person way. On the other hand, corrupt, kleptocratic and inefficient rulers, though, their actions ultimately produce great handicaps that include death (from lack of/ access to health services), immobility (poor transportation), fallen standard of living and loss of dignity (from great unemployment and great poverty), yet these are effected indirectly and are mediated rather through seemingly impersonal forces.
People living under a corrupt leader, (who nonetheless is not considered a despot) especially when those persons are ignorant or are deliberately misinformed or when they are not particularly given to much philosophizing have hope. They have the hope that with their personhood intact and their dignity preserved by their sense of independence, they can still effect change. On the other hand, those living under a despot (even when the despots' economic performance is stellar) are more interested in restoring their dignity, their personhood, a quality that allows them to own whatever their country produces and be jointly accountable for its progress or lack of it. They are simply making an ethical jidgment. They are simply saying that they prefer to be free than be well fed slaves on what is actually their joint patrimony, though managed by the slave lord. Now, it might be just a couple of rebels it was that had this feeling and that took up that song. But this is the song that caught fire among a willing choir. It was one that provided foreigners much sought for opportunity to pour in more fuel that they then quickly and actively help snuff out – a process that has killed multiple thousands includidng Gaddafi and destroyed much infrastructure in Libya, setting that country and its people back several decades.
The way Gaddafi was killed was horrifying, especially since it was done by those claiming better moral standards, and it now seems, in conditions in which they could very well have saved him and Mutassim, his son, for justice had they really wanted to. The precedent with many pro-Gaddafi elements who fell into the hands of the NTC rebels and increasing evidence surfacing now point to Gaddafi's murder been pre meditated. Also, the way the outgoing "prime minister" qued up with others to spectate at Gaddafi's decomposing body was most unconscionable. It also betrays a clear lack of judgment on his part and an absence of an appreciation or a vision of the difficulty or the need to heal a greatly divided nation. They could have simply quickly buried him, I would think –supplying the evidence to that effect later, rather than enact a ritual that might forever remain fresh in the mind of those in Libya to whom Gaddafi remains a champion.
So there was more than one Gaddafi. The high scoring Gaddafi – and I cannot fail to recommend this Gaddafi to other African rulers nor fail to ask that we use his positive characteristics to dialogue with the basis for our global, continental and individual ethics regarding what is good and bad government. On the other hand, there was the selfish, erratic and despotic Gaddafi, perhaps psychologically troubled, whose bad traits so tragically robbed off all appreciation of the many good he accomplished-- too many goods the possibility of enjoying which thousands of African youths are risking their lives fleeing the hopelessness they perceive to be creeping upon them in their own African countries.
------------------------
F. J. Kolapo,
(Associate Professor of African History)
History Department * University of Guelph * Guelph * Ontario * Canada* N1G 2W1
Phone:519/824.4120 ex.53212 Fax: 519.766.9516
From: "Pius Adesanmi" <piusadesanmi@yahoo.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 10:13:33 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: [GLOBAL-SOUTH] Libya -- strangling national freedom and self-determination
From: kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, 28 October 2011, 7:23
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: [GLOBAL-SOUTH] Libya -- strangling national freedom and self-determination
pablo, farooq, where is your account of the deaths he caused in this attempt to put down the rebellion? would you have preferred a brutal military dictatorship continue with his sons forever? how did you feel about abacha? would you have not sympathized with a rebellion aimed at overthrowning his regime?
ken
On 10/27/11 9:46 AM, Farooq A. Kperogi wrote:
Pablo,
Thanks so much for this, article! In Gaddafi's 42 years of tyranny, he killed far fewer civilians than NATO and its irredeemably racist so-called rebel forces did in just a few months. So much for saving "civilian lives"!
Farooq
Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.Assistant Professor of Journalism & Citizen Media
Department of Communication
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, MD 2207Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-969:
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/farooqkperogiTwitter: https://twitter.com/#!/farooqkperogi
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 1:57 AM, Pablo Idahosa <pidahosa@yorku.ca> wrote:
The evidence, if more be needed, is here and there, and now everywhere, for those who thought that the Africa Union's efforts to broker a some kind of negotiation was an impossibility in the face of next to no evidence about mercenaries, and even less about genocide, and who cheerled a so-called revolution over and to what-- this by NATO and these people?--
Well done; you deserve each other
Pablo
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [GLOBAL-SOUTH] Libya -- strangling national freedom and self-determination Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 22:42:11 -0700 From: Felipe Stuart C <fcstuartca@YAHOO.CA> Reply-To: Felipe Stuart C <fcstuartca@YAHOO.CA> To: GLOBAL-SOUTH@YORKU.CA
________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from this list, send email to listserv@yorku.ca in the message body type SIGNOFF GLOBAL-SOUTH To subscribe to this list, send email to listserv@yorku.ca in the message body type SUBSCRIBE GLOBAL-SOUTH FIRSTNAME LASTNAME You can request a manual change (addition, deletion, etc.) from ricardo@yorku.ca. _________________________________________________________________________If the Libyan war was about saving lives, it was a catastrophic failure
Nato claimed it would protect civilians in Libya, but delivered far more killing. It's a warning to the Arab world and Africa
- Seumas Milne
- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 October 2011 22.20 BST
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/26/libya-war-saving-lives-catastrophic-failure
Anti-Gaddafi fighters gesture to the crowds in front of a Kingdom of Libya flag during celebrations in Benghazi on 23 October. Photograph: Esam Omran Al-Fetori/ReutersAs the most hopeful offshoot of the "Arab spring" so far flowered this week in successful elections in Tunisia, its ugliest underside has been laid bare in Libya. That's not only, or even mainly, about the YouTube lynching of Gaddafi, courtesy of a Nato attack on his convoy.The grisly killing of the Libyan despot after his captors had sodomised him with a knife, was certainly a war crime. But many inside and outside Libya doubtless also felt it was an understandable act of revenge after years of regime violence. Perhaps that was Hillary Clinton's reaction, when she joked about it on camera, until global revulsion pushed the US to call for an investigation.As the reality of what western media have hailed as Libya's "liberation" becomes clearer, however, the butchering of Gaddafi has been revealed as only a reflection of a much bigger picture. On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch reported the discovery of 53 bodies, military and civilian, in Gaddafi's last stronghold of Sirte, apparently executed – with their hands tied – by former rebel militia.Its investigator in Libya, Peter Bouckaert, told me yesterday that more bodies are continuing to be discovered in Sirte, where evidence suggests about 500 people, civilians and fighters, have been killed in the last 10 days alone by shooting, shelling and Nato bombing.That has followed a two month-long siege and indiscriminate bombardment of a city of 100,000 which has been reduced to a Grozny-like state of destruction by newly triumphant rebel troops with Nato air and special-forces support.And these massacre sites are only the latest of many such discoveries. Amnesty International has now produced compendious evidence of mass abduction and detention, beating and routine torture, killings and atrocities by the rebel militias Britain, France and the US have backed for the last eight months – supposedly to stop exactly those kind of crimes being committed by the Gaddafi regime.Throughout that time African migrants and black Libyans have been subject to a relentless racist campaign of mass detention, lynchings and atrocities on the usually unfounded basis that they have been loyalist mercenaries. Such attacks continue, says Bouckaert, who witnessed militias from Misrata this week burning homes in Tawerga so that the town's predominantly black population – accused of backing Gaddafi – will be unable to return.All the while, Nato leaders and cheerleading media have turned a blind eye to such horrors as they boast of a triumph of freedom and murmur about the need for restraint. But it is now absolutely clear that, if the purpose of western intervention in Libya's civil war was to "protect civilians" and save lives, it has been a catastrophic failure.David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy won the authorisation to use "all necessary means" from the UN security council in March on the basis that Gaddafi's forces were about to commit a Srebrenica-style massacre in Benghazi. Naturally we can never know what would have happened without Nato's intervention. But there is in fact no evidence – including from other rebel-held towns Gaddafi re-captured – to suggest he had either the capability or even the intention to carry out such an atrocity against an armed city of 700,000.What is now known, however, is that while the death toll in Libya when Nato intervened was perhaps around 1,000-2,000 (judging by UN estimates), eight months later it is probably more than ten times that figure. Estimates of the numbers of dead over the last eight months – as Nato leaders vetoed ceasefires and negotiations – range from 10,000 up to 50,000. The National Transitional Council puts the losses at 30,000 dead and 50,000 wounded.Of those, uncounted thousands will be civilians, including those killed by Nato bombing and Nato-backed forces on the ground. These figures dwarf the death tolls in this year's other most bloody Arab uprisings, in Syria and Yemen. Nato has not protected civilians in Libya – it has multiplied the number of their deaths, while losing not a single soldier of its own.For the western powers, of course, the Libyan war has allowed them to regain ground lost in Tunisia and Egypt, put themselves at the heart of the upheaval sweeping the most strategically sensitive region in the world, and secure valuable new commercial advantages in an oil-rich state whose previous leadership was at best unreliable. No wonder the new British defence secretary is telling businessmen to "pack their bags" for Libya, and the US ambassador in Tripoli insists American companies are needed on a "big scale".But for Libyans, it has meant a loss of ownership of their own future and the effective imposition of a western-picked administration of Gaddafi defectors and US and British intelligence assets. Probably the greatest challenge to that takeover will now come from Islamist military leaders on the ground, such as the Tripoli commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj – kidnapped by MI6 to be tortured in Libya in 2004 – who have already made clear they will not be taking orders from the NTC.No wonder the council's leaders are now asking Nato to stay on, and Nato officials have let it be known they will "take action" if Libyan factions end up fighting among themselves.The Libyan precedent is a threat to hopes of genuine change and independence across the Arab world – and beyond. In Syria, where months of bloody repression risk tipping into fullscale civil war, elements of the opposition have started to call for a "no-fly zone" to protect civilians. And in Africa, where Barack Obama has just sent troops to Uganda and France is giving military support to Kenyan intervention in Somalia, the opportunities for dressing up a new scramble for resources as humanitarian intervention are limitless.The once savagely repressed progressive Islamist party An-Nahda won the Tunisian elections this week on a platform of pluralist democracy, social justice and national independence. Tunisia has faced nothing like the backlash the uprisings in other Arab countries have received, but that spirit is the driving force of the movement for change across a region long manipulated and dominated by foreign powers.What the Libyan tragedy has brutally hammered home is that foreign intervention doesn't only strangle national freedom and self-determination – it doesn't protect lives either.
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