Death of .....

This week the dramatic events of the death of Muammar Ghaddafi on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, beaten to death and shot by angry Libyans, shocked many in the world. It was not totally unexpected, the hatred he generated amongst ordinary Libyans was such that any other outcome dictated that he flee the country quickly to a friendly nation like Zimbabwe. The airspace closed by NATO planes only left him a desert road to Niger.  With his death he is the most recent Pan-Arabic leader to fall signalling the end of a generation of leaders who came to power following the example of Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt, the man who in 1953 overthrew the Egyptian Monarchy and asserted that the Arabs would govern themselves. Nasser was against the old Arab Aristocracy, the princes who had ruled for centuries, the old colonial powers, Britain, France, Germany, the corrupt ruling class who abused ordinary citizens.  The Nasser revolution in July 1953 was a genteel affair, King Farouk was given 3 days to pack his things including part of the National Treasure and leave, he went into exile sailing to Rome on his yacht. In Irak a few years later it was a less genteel affair, the Royal family was massacred by the high military command in their beds. Jordan was to be next and Nasser and Assad of Syria tried for years, even paying Yasser Arafat at one point in 1970 to try to overthrow the Hachemite king, to no avail the Bedu tribes came to the rescue.

Nasser never liked Ghaddafi much, he had taken over Libya in a bloodless coup while King Idriss was away on an Official trip abroad. Nasser would say that he found Ghaddafi untrustworthy and a little strange. Pan-Arabism as an ideology sought to be a Socialist Arab movement devoid of religion, it never achieved its aims. The ideology quickly turned into whatever each dictator wanted it to be in his country, in all cases a police state, a dictatorship style of government and like many Fascist movement exalted the leader in a huge personality cult with the national army as the enforcer. Egypt, Syria, Irak, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria all fell into the same morass. Because they were all semi-agrarian or with semi-nomadic people or fierce tribal groups, rapidly growing, largely illiterate poor populations, they became pawns of the Cold War games between the USSR and the USA, having been pawns of the colonial powers, Britain and France previously. Each dictator needed lots of cash to pay off the elites and weapons to keep their armies happy, both the USSR and USA were happy to oblige in return for political allegiance.

Nasser died of a heart attack in 1970 realizing that his ideas of one pan-arabic government by the masses was nothing but half baked ideology. Assad died of old age a few years ago in Syria to be replaced by his inept son, who may meet the same fate as Ghaddafi if he does not flee in time to Iran his ally. Yemen is into a civil war with President Saleh hanging on barely having survived an assassination attempt. Egypt is in chaos and Libya well it all remains to be seen what is going to happen next. As for Irak turmoil continues in this ravaged country, divided by political tensions along religious lines.

Tunisia is the only one so far who seems to have been able to pull it off with an free and open election this weekend. So bye-bye Pan-Arabic leadership and hello uncertainty. It is really not clear what is going to happen next, certainly not western style democracy, getting rid of a dictator does not mean that everyone understands what democracy means or how it works in everyday life, if Irak is an example of what can go wrong when you have no tradition of dissent or open plural society. I am sure that many outsiders will certainly try to make helpful suggestions on how to go about it, but often suggestions are not welcomed and are seen as nothing more than interference.

As for a trial for Ghadaffi at the International Court in The Hague, as much as this follows the idea of a society based on rule of law and international recognized standards of Justice, this was never going to happen. Ghadaffi knew too much and he had become a bothersome figure, he could have embarrassed more than one leader. The trial would also have been yet another platform for him to spin out his ideas of the world, it would also would have made him a martyr to some. In a cynical world his death closes a chapter.  Looking back on it, when on Christmas day 1989 Ceausescu and his wife were summarily executed in front of a firing squad in Romania, after a trial which lasted 30 minutes, I do not recall the same call for an investigation. He had been the President of Romania for years and a thorn on the side of many countries but the good ally of others. But then again this was another time in history.

  

a little people?

In the movie Lawrence of Arabia, there is a scene where Sharif Hussein Bin Ali who has rebelled against the rule of the Ottoman Turks in 1916 and becomes the ruler of the Hejaz (now in Saudi Arabia) says to Colonel Lawrence, do the British think of us as a little people? Sharif Hussein sensed that he was a only one of the many pieces of the puzzle in the Great Game being played by European powers in the Middle-East as the Ottoman Empire was crumbling. The europeans believed that the Arabs having been ruled by the Turks for 500 years would not mind being ruled now by Europe, mostly Britain and France. That analysis proved in the 20th century to be completely wrong.

Sharif Hussien bin Ali, Emir of Mecca, King of the Arabs (1853-1931)

Looking at what has been happening in around the Arab world in the last month and how many western governments and China have shuffled their feet and looked at ways of salvaging their contracts on oil and trade, one  thinks of that question of Sharif Hussein.

The proposals being made now by Washington to have sanctions against Libya or a no fly zone, can they really make a difference when the regime as lost control of the country? Ghaddafi is isolated mostly in Tripoli with his body guards and a few loyal soldiers. What would sanctions achieve now?  Would they not punish the very people who rebelled against him. Ghaddafi today has nothing to loose, he can be as murderous as he wants, it really does not matter to him or to his future. People who talk about a trial and punishment are out of touch, what difference would it actually make when you look at all the cruelties he has inflicted on his people and the world.  What is also interesting is how many politicians now are caught in the glare,  yes they accepted gifts from Ghaddafi and yes in return they said nice things about him, he was suppose to have changed and wanted to mend his ways. His son Seif al Islam was the reformer and nice guy. Now after 3 speeches on Libyan TV this is all blown away. Was Tony Blair that naive or just venal? He was certainly not the only politician to forget and forgive.

If the Lybian saga continues for more than just a few days until Ghaddafi and his family and cronies are gone, we risk another failed State. However the Arabs will never again believe our speeches on Democracy and Human Rights after the way in which we did not respond to their revolt and grasp for freedom. No one in the Western World will be able to claim that we showed the way. They did it themselves and in many cases with their bare hands. If one was to answer Sharif Hussein bin Ali, I would say to him, no the Arabs are not a little people, they have struggled for a long time against difficult odds but never lost sight of their goal to rule themselves without our help.    

Cera una volta il mare nostrum

Once upon a time our common sea, this was the headline today in a leading newspaper in Italy, the situation in Libya is worrisome to the Government here with its complicated ties to its former colony Libya.
Also the boat loads of young men have started to arrive again at the nearest island to the African coast Lampedusa.  How much longer will the mad man hold up, while listening to his speech last night when he promised to kill everyone opposing him and take down the country if need be, I thought, I heard this before in May 1945 another mad man in Berlin vowed to burn everything and bring the nation down with him, he had the decency to shoot himself, wonder if Qaddafi will do the same. The Libyans have endured 42 years of this idiot's fantasies, he gave them nothing but hardship and now wants to kill everyone. He is obviously delusional, caught in some kind of paranoid world. That is family is still able to hold on to power with money they pay mercenaries from Africa to do the dirty work shows the despair to hold on at any cost.

His sons are not much better, they certainly have showed their hand now, how much more blood will have to be spilled in this end of regime folly. What is sad to see is how the human right speech of so many countries in the West is now exposed as being nothing more than widow dressing for the masses.  Many countries like Zimbabwe's Mugabe or China's Hu Jin Tao, or other dictators must be laughing, they have known all along it was a sham. Yes we talk a good game but when the chips are down like now, we see it is all smoke and mirrors. Protecting oil and gas and our lifestyle comes first, the response so far to Qaddafi's murderous rage has been confused and weak, again trade and profits trumps all. In France a leading paper published today a letter from a group of French diplomats denouncing their own President for his poor handling of French diplomacy, stating in their letter that you cannot improvise yourself a diplomat.

Next Yemen, Bahrain, maybe Iran, the Saudi King is also worried now, who knows, but what will be even more interesting, will the new governments be more open and more democratic. The young under 30 are the majority in all Arab countries, they certainly want major change and significant change not cosmetic. We will have to stay tuned to find out.