This conflict started only a few months ago. Yet some of us discuss it with an amnesia that is baffling. We analyze it as though it only began with the NATO intervention and pretend that nothing came before it. Where is our chronological awareness all of a sudden? Does the fact that Libyans, hundreds of thousands of them in different cities and regions of the country, came out to demand Ghadaffi's resignation mean anything anymore in these discussions? Or the fact that, the intervention, warts and all, came because Ghaddafi publicly threatened to "crush" the beleaguered and surrounded people of Benghazi if they didn't surrender their struggle and dignity? More importantly, is it of any analytical value anymore that many Libyans, Arabs and people of conscience all over the world actively called for and lobbied for the NATO action and the UN resolution that authorized it? Does it matter anymore that in fact many people in Libya, Africa, the revolutionizing Arab world, and the world over were beginning to accuse the Western powers of a Rwanda-type negligence and indifference as the UN and NATO deliberations that preceded the intervention dragged on and as Ghadaffi's forces used the delay to pound and starve the people of Benghazi?
For me the bottom line is that most of the Libyan people braved the dictator's guns to call for him to leave and that these demonstrations were peaceful until they were met with a scotched earth state reprisal. What the majority of the Libyan people want in terms of political change they should get. That is, for me, the basis of my difficult support for the NATO intervention. And if a dictator stands in their way and attempts to snuff out their demands with guns and artillery, they have a right to fight back, including mobilizing powerful international sympathizers to equalize the fighting field and dissolve the weapons and personnel asymmetries between them and Ghadafi's army.
Yes, Ghadafi built excellent roads for Libyans and, by all accounts, took care of Libyans in a "nanny-state" Welfarist system that those of us from dysfunctional African countries can only envy. In fact, as a friend and I discussed the other day, Nigerians would gladly trade their freedoms, rights, and other abstract dignities to have the life that Libyans under Ghadaffi had/have. That, however, is not the point. The point is that even if Libyans lived in a paradisiacal state and somehow, for reasons known only to them and God, decided that they were tired of their present superintendent of that paradise and demanded for a swtich to a more representational and participatory form of government, as the repositories of Libyan sovereignty, they have every right to have it. It is not for us to determine for them what they want or to summon our view of how magnanimous and efficient Ghadafi has been as a dictator to discredit that fundamentally legitimate and compelling demand.
Personally, I think the Libyan people who want Ghadaffi gone and who so fervently want to transition to the kind of democracy that is being globalized are naïve and somewhat delusional. I mean, look at what democracy has done to Nigeria; the country is being stolen blind in a democratized (pun intended) stealing field in which corruption is no longer named as such because every item of graft can be packaged as a legal bill and passed by "representatives" and everything can be backed by the force of law and legislated "democratic consensus," even retroactively, no matter how dirty and costly to Nigeria. If the bickering, gridlock, and rivalries that this democracy exacerbates do not destroy the country, the running cost of the democracy will. So, the Libyans, as far as I am concerned, have it so good they don't know what they are demanding. They may discover that Western liberal democracy is not all that it is advertised to be and that it is a massive scheme of gentrification and income redistribution from the bottom to the top. They may even find, as Nigerians have long discovered, that freedom and civic rights, the abstract staples of liberal democracy, are deeply curtailed in practice and that, where civic freedoms and rights are guaranteed, the price to society in maintenance cost can offset the benefits. But it is not what I think that matters and it is not up to me to decide what is right or potentially bad for Libya.
As the saying goes, people deserve and are entitled to the kind of government they desire. The Libyan people have made it quite clear that they have had enough of the Ghadaffi dictatorship and want a constitutional democracy, with all its freedoms, even the expensive ones. I can respect that. Not only because they have the right to desire democracy but also because I also recognize that, as a matter of logic, once a "magnanimous and/or effective dictatorship has run its course or succeeded in giving citizens a good standard of living and in producing a vibrant middle class to boot, the predictable, natural outcome is that the people would want more than bread and butter and would desire representation and civic participation—in short, democracy. That is for me a sacred demand that must be respected and enforced even against the wishes of Ghaddafi. It surpasses any pass I may give Ghadaffi for using his country's resources to give a relatively good life to his people (bucking a continental trend) even as he and his family built up private fortunes at home and abroad. By the way, if one wants to be pedantic, one could say that Libya's small population and the size of its oil reserve mean that Ghadaffi could simultaneously bankroll a good life for his people (buying their silence, essentially) and stuff his pockets; that it is not Ghadafi's possession of a higher morality or compassion that is responsible for the Libyan infrastructural and socioeconomic exception; and that other corrupt African dictators do not have the good fortune of low population and overflowing oil. Even if I had no quibble with Ghadafi for all the atrocities he bankrolled in West Africa (Charles Taylor and Chad come to mind), and the legitimate demand of the Libyan people (after 40 years of Ghadafi rule) would still be the deciding factor for me in what is indeed a complex issue that resists a simplistic, binary analysis. The Libyan people deserve their sought-for experiment and flirtation with democracy, period.
Surely a critique of NATO's hidden motive and of how the coalition has conducted its operations in excess of the UN mandate that authorized them is in order. But this critique cannot invalidate the clearly expressed aspirations of the Libyan people for a post-Ghadaffi future or erase the murderous response of Ghadaffi to his people's legitimate demands. Such a critique can and should coexist with an acknowledgement of the moral case for intervention, of its legality, and of the circumstances that forced Libyans and many people of conscience around the world to demand it on humanitarian grounds. Rejecting the imperialist undertone and opportunistic expansion of the operation cannot retroactively erase the dire humanitarian conditions and the disturbingly legitimate fears that compelled intervention. One doesn't become a supporter of imperialism by supporting the NATO intervention as a UN-authorized, Libyan people-demanded humanitarian action unless one also professes a belief in the imperialist component and clear opportunism of the unfolding intervention. And one doesn't become a Ghadaffi apologist simply by critiquing the way NATO is conducting its operations or the imperialist, opportunistic underbelly of the intervention unless one also professes an unqualified personal endorsement of Ghadafi and/or disavows the legitimate demands of the Libyan people. The issues are complex and must be assessed in that spirit.
As for the rebel's attack on black Africans, I would respect an argument that holds Ghadaffi equally culpable for actually and opportunistically exploiting black Africans' martial abilities and desire for paid work to build a cadre of "foreign," detached and desensitized enforcers; for not acting against the well-reported perennial massacres of black African immigrants; and for playing international politics of personal survival with their presence. I would take such an argument over one that that only blames the rebels and exonerates Ghadaffi and his supporters for the racist violence that has long been a dent on Libya.
Finally, even though I recognize that a commitment to puritanical consistency is neither attainable nor desirable if one is being guided by a politics of conscience and humanism, the recent discussions around Ghaddafi have exposed some rather jarring examples of discursive inconsistency. Some of those who urged and applauded the French effort in Ivory Coast to remove Laurent Gbagbo, hailing it as a humanitarian intervention and rightly shunning the canard that it was purely an imperial adventure, are now refusing to accord the NATO intervention in Libya the same analytical sympathy. Shouldn't the fact that the NATO intervention is being targeted at a coup plotter and murderous dictator who has never governed with the consent of his people make this an equally legitimate exception to anti-imperialist sensitivities or at least cause us to weigh our anti-imperial activism against the legitimate demands (and state response to them) and humanitarian conditions that necessitated some sort of external military intervention?
Ikhide my brother,I have not seen anyone here holding brief for Ghaddafi. I am not yet tired of imperialism since it's operations have not ceased with the cessation of the narratives about it.We do not need to advocate the nuking of Libya to attain the goal of serving off Ghaddafi. It is the responsibility of the Libyan people and not that of external actors, whose intentions we can never divine.
Dr. phil. Franklyne Emmanuel OgbunwezehDoc,With all due respects, and I admire and love you greatly for your contributions to this merry playground of alleged eggheads, you must stop digging the earth with your head. Ghaddafi is a snake and he must go. I mean, like yesterday. He should have been shot 20 years ago. He got lucky. It is time for him to go and he has chosen death. He will get it. I no longer give a damn about imperialism, blah blah blah. You are staring at the new imperialists, the new slave masters, the new colonialists, you and me and all those who call themselves African intellectuals. We and the political elite are screwing Afica blind. We should probably all be shot. But shooting Ghaddafi is a great start! To hell with him, Mugabe, Museveni, etc etc.- Ikhide--Ikhide,I am sorry you are beginning to sound like a mixture of Val Ojo and One Seattle-based psycho that calls himself Ozodi Osuji.You really need to go back to your drawing board and reanalyze your submissions on this point. Goldman Sachs misappropriated Libya's reserves. And the more the days pass by the more it seems that Gaddafi's ouster is been effected to please some unholy quarters.Time will tell.
Dr. phil. Franklyne Emmanuel Ogbunwezeh--Hopefully, Ghaddafi or whatever the buffoon's name is is a goner soon. I have bought the best bottle of Red I can afford and I am awaiting that day when my good friend, Brother Obama will announce that the rat Comrade Ghaddafi has been buried at sea by "NATO forces." Ghaddafi is a coward and a crook and an asshole. Obama knows where the fool sleeps every night; he is only fattening him for that day when his shrinking polls will demand a human sacrifice. Ask Osama ;-)
To hell with all African Big Men! America, do your job, nuke them to smithereens.
- Ikhide
- IkhideSent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:42:20 EDTSubject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Fw: Subject: Anti Obama Brothersken harrow's knee jerk reaction misses the point and veers to the blissfully ignorant choir. the issue here is: a bunch of people sending emails urging the public to boycott products because the businessmen are allegedly anti-obama. so what if they are? is obama a political saint? what is amiss in this politics-as-usual?obama is not above being a political ruffian when he pursues his own expediencies. i offered my reasons, which ken did not debunk because the facts are stubborn: homelessness, crimes, poverty and unemployment are higher in the US than in Libya - yet obama is implicitly pursuing a policy of assassination on the idiotic basis that gaddafi has lost his moral fitness to rule. has America not had presidents who were slave owners? were blacks not sitting behind the buses while america presidents lectured the world on freedom? so what is moral right to rule and by whose definition - anyway?can the nato bombers come to democratic equity with clean, moral hands? is it the moral duty for western super powers to be killing foreign leaders they don't like?why, then, is ken crowing like a vexed hen? ken would be doing himself a favor by demonstrating his "intellectual" prowess through a command of the issue with critical thinking skills. alas, his pedestrian regurgitation leaves me wondering whether he is poised to pick a bone in onitsha market or some other whereabouts. let ken dispute the hard facts in the video below.MsJoeNATO War Against Libya.The video opens with the introduction of some 3 speakers before Minister Farrakhan comes on stage.Click on any of the links below:--msJoe's interventions read like propaganda from ghaddafi's offices. how can you expect to enter into a dialogue with anyone this way?
the question is not why obama waged war in libya, it is why have the arab peoples from egypt to syria to bahrein to yemen to libya risen up against their dictators, found courage to risk their lives and die. the question is, should we stand on the sidelines while the dictators--all of whom we in the west have propped up--continue to repress or slaughter their own people for demonstrating against them.
it was not easy for an american administration to turn against its own ally in egypt. we all saw how obama tried to walk a tightrope between giving lip service to democratic ideals and support for an ally, one we had paid for. that is the fundamental contradiction of the west, one that has always been there: western regimes the heirs themselves of democratic revolutions, conquerors of autocratic rule in two world wars, rhetorical champions of the "free world," also colonial masters and hegemonic powers over the rest of the world.
it is our job as "intellectuals," to use the compromised terms, to join in the counter-hegemonic struggle and discourse, as gramsci would have it--or, if you will, as cabral and fanon would have had it.
that doesn't happen when we get arguments that excuse autocratic dictatorial rulers, starting with the saudis, who also buy off their people, to every one from idi amin to charles taylor, who were brutal rulers.
if we have any progressive role on this list, it is to push western political understandings in the direction of african freedom and african interests. i can't see that happening when we are told to sing the praises of ghaddafi for using some of his oil money, "his" oil money, to grease the palms of a a few lucky libyans.
if i am told that it isn't a few, but all, then i need to understand why this revolution itself took off, why the demonstrations grew, why people risked their lives to end ghaddafi's rule.
i am not going to get the answer from MsJoe's propagandistic postings. i am willing to hear arguments from both sides, but not from closed minds
ken
On 6/25/11 7:54 PM, MsJoe21St@aol.com wrote:For what must tears be shed?Pray, can someone explain why Obama waged war in Libya when Ghaddafi is doing more for his people than Obama has accomplished for the American people?Libya is building homes for Libyans; there are no homeless people in Libya while Americans are sleeping under bridges. America has a higher poverty and crime rate. Education in Libya is free and even though Obama and his NATO allies are destroying Libya's social and economic infrastructure, including orphanages, primary schools and a university they bombed, Libya recently extended scholarships for students studying in the US, including providing them with monthly allowances and for their dependents, too.How many civilians did any partisan opposition kill? But civilians died from Obama's policies and funding for unmanned drones in Libya - and they are still dying from the Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy doctrine of might is right.At least the Koch brothers are not targeting to kill Obama; but assassination has become the tool of Obama and his NATO friends to oust a foreign leader.Would rational and moral people prefer to buy the policies of Obama whose policies are killing civilians in order to advance political ends or the product of a businessman bent on playing politics to defeat a politician?The ignorance here is the woeful and blind support for Obama. The hypocrisy is not lost on the informed.--From: Lewis, Vera [mailto:VLEWIS@houstonisd.org]
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 11:17 AM
Subject: FW: Subject: Anti Obama Brothers
HISD Research – 713-556-6722
email: vlewis@houstonisd.org
Subject: Anti Obama Brothers
Brothers Charles and David Koch, with a combined worth
around $35 billion dollars, are waging a war against President Obama.
The Koch brothers are the majority owners in Koch Industries, America 's
second-largest private company with revenues of $100 billion in 2009, and 80,000
employees in 60 countries.
Koch Industries main source of revenue is from the manufacturing, refining,
and distribution of petroleum. They are major financiers of the Tea Party.
They also are providing money to run anti-democratic ads.
Do not allow your money to be used to sponsor the Tea Party.
Don't buy these products!
Products by Koch:
1. Industry/Georgia-Pacific Products:
2. Angel Soft toilet paper
3. Brawny paper towels
4. Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
5. Mardi Gras napkins and towels
6. Quilted Northern toilet paper
7. Soft 'n Gentle toilet paper
8. Sparkle napkins
9. Vanity fair napkins
10. Zee napkins
Pass it on to others !!!
"There is no darkness like ignorance."
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---Mohandas Gandhi
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