Arab awakening: Whose dictator is next?

An early Gaddafi victim: Dr Amr Al- Nami: Scholar, poet & Cambridge graduate

Dr Amr Al- Nami, scholar, poet and Cambridge graduate, was born in Nalut of the Western Libyan mountains and came to be an early victim of Gaddafi's terror.  Soon after his return home from Cambridge in the early 70's,  he was imprisoned by Gaddafi for his beliefs, strong independent personality and popularity among his students. Later, forced to leave the country, he moved with his family to the US  where he taught  at the University of Michigan and later to Japan. Upon his return home again, he continued to be persecuted by the regime. He gave up teaching  and retreated to the Western mountains choosing a simple life herding sheep but was arrested again in 1981 and has since disappeared. He reportedly died under torture while in prison and his family knew nothing about his whereabouts. Dr Al-Nami will be remembered as a Libyan icon and a humanist. He chose to pay with his life rather than compromise his principles and bow to a dictator. May his soul rest in peace!

The following three verses are a near translation from a touching poem in Arabic,  written by the martyr in his prison cell back in 1974 and addressed to his mother:

Mother... don't you worry now... don't show them you're sad!
How about a smile now... I hate to see you weak...I hate to see you feeling bad! 

Mother don't show them they're winning... Mother don't show them you're aching

You see, we have towered high above the tyrants. Mother, we're men but they're not!

أماه لا تجزعي بل وابسمي فرحا      فحزن قلبك ضغف لست أرضاه

أماه لا تشعريهم أنهم غلبوا             أماه لا تسمعيهم منك أواه

إنا شمخنا على الطاغوت في شمم        نحن الرجال وهم يا أم أشباه



Gaddafi-Inc: About millions, billions & more

Listening to his own account claiming to live on a modest monthly salary of  US$ 400, you would think Gaddafi should be eligible for social security. Never mind that this sum is nowhere nearly enough to cover the cost of his collection of sunglasses and flamboyant robes. Those who believe the Libyan dictator should of course have no problem believing that he also has no official position in Libya and that despite his constant shelling of their cities and towns, all Libyans in fact still  love him. After all,  it is an old saying that love hurts.

By many other accounts, it is a different story and Gaddafi may be worth as much as a $100 billion, if not more. While in the aftermath of the Libyan uprising chunks of this money have been frozen around the world, this may be only the tip of an iceberg. Not counting liquidity and other assets inside Libya itself, $70 billions have been reportedly invested in sovereign wealth funds abroad, under the umbrella of a shady Libyan Investment Authority run by the Gaddafi family and its insiders. In a country where accountability is practically non-existent, many Libyans have been left wondering about where their oil money was going and why they were being kept in the dark about it. Meanwhile, in the country they live in, the infrastructure is in shambles, unemployment, poverty and corruption are rampant and terror rules. Despite its mineral riches and small population count, Gaddafi's Libya suffers from a chronic shortage of housing, lack of basic services and a dire state of both the education and health systems. On a few occasions, sensing their anger, Gaddafi appeased his fellow Libyans with false promises that they would soon get their share of the wealth but then of course failed to deliver. On other occasions, he assured them that he was taking care of their money for them so that they would not waste it away on “silly things such as chewing gum and chocolate”. Most of the time however, he just bluntly told them that oil was simply not theirs and that they should fend off for themselves and perhaps think of emigrating instead to Africa or Europe  since “Libya holds no future for them”.

While most of the Libyans have been suffering in silence, the Gaddafi family has been busy investing and buying assets and luxury property across the globe. In the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing, Gaddafi used billions of dollars of Libya's money to bail out his regime. Billions more were spent to gain political influence in Africa and elsewhere. Millions were spent on polishing his image in the West and millions more on New Year’s parties thrown by his sons, in exotic places such as St Bart’s in the Caribbean. The likes of Beyoncé, Nelly Furtado and Mariah Carey were paid a million dollar each just to entertain the Gaddafi Juniors here and there, sometimes for less than an hour. There were of course times when bills were not paid by one son or another, for one reason or another. In 2006, during a visit to Sydney, Australia, one of the sons reportedly left the country without paying a $7000 bill at a Sydney brothel and in 2010, Saadi failed to pay a half-million dollar hotel bill in Italy, which led to a court order and an additional fee of 5,000 Euros to be paid on top.

Speaking of money, when he first grabbed power in Libya, Gaddafi had a hard time figuring out how many zeros were in a million, but he was shrewd enough to know how to use the money for maintaining power. In time, he came to know about billions and eventually even trillions. During his infamous 2009 speech at the UN General Assembly, the Libyan dictator said Africa deserves compensation from its past colonizers, a noble idea in itself. After first suggesting a figure of  $7.7 trillion, he hesitated for a few seconds and then changed the amount to $777 trillion. Magic numbers aside, one is left wondering as to how the self-crowned King of Kings came up with this figure, knowing that this year’s size of the whole global economy is less than $70 Trillion. Luckily, the translator stuck with the smaller figure.

A disturbing pattern of savagery shown by Gaddafi troops

In this video, which speaks for itself even without translation, the prisoners, apparently from the Western "Nafusa" Mountains, are shown to be subjected to harsh abuse, both physical and verbal, and are forced to declare allegiance to Gaddafi. At one point (~3':47), one of the Gaddafi troops suggests to kill them while another pleads with his group to wait and not finish them off with their boots, as "they might still have some useful information to give". "They will be executed anyway", he added!

ليبيا ما بعد القذافي وخيارات الليبيين

يمكن القول أنه  ثمة شبه إجماع لدى كافة الليبيين والليبيات على أن سقوط  الحكم الفاسد في ليبيا  والذي عاث في الأرض فسادا وطغى وتجبر على مدى أكثر من أربعة عقود قد بات وشيكا و اقتربت ساعته.

 لكن السؤال المهم الذي  يظل يطرح نفسه  بعد رحيل  النظام  هو شكل الدولة الجديدة التي يصبو إليها الليبيون والليبيات... سؤال لا بد من الخوض فيه منذ الآن في إطار موسع على كافة المستويات الإعلامية والوطنية والشبابية  ولا بد أن يوضع على رأس جدول أعمال المؤتمر الوطني المزمع عقده  بعد التحرير  وهو أمر لا شك سوف  يحتاج إلى قدر  كبير من الوعي وبعد النظر ونكران الذات وسيضعنا أمام خيارين: 

•  دولة يعلو فيها القانون  وقيم الحرية والعدالة والتسامح وأخرى تنزلق بنا إلى مستنقع الفوضى من جديد...
• دولة مدنية  حديثة تضمن التداول  السلمي على الحكم و  فصل السلطات  وأخرى تحكمها لغة  العسكر والسلاح... 
• دولة تشترط المؤهلات والتخصص  والنزاهة في حكومتها  وأخرى يتكالب على حكمها  انتهازيون و أشباه متعلمين....
• دولة تخدم فيها الحكومة شعبها ويراقبها ويسائلها وأخرى يخدم فيها الشعب حكومته وتراقبه وتسائله...

• دولة تسمو فوق التعصب الديني والقبلي والعرقي وأخرى تنزلق بنا إلى مستنقع التعصب  والجاهلية والقبلية...
• دولة تسعى إلى تنويع اقتصادها والخروج به من  لعنة النفط وتتعلم من تجارب الآخرين وأخرى لا تفقه في الأمر شيئا 
• دولة تقدس دور المرأة ونعتبرها شريكا أساسيا للرجل وأخرى تنظر إليها نظرة متخلفة و تحقرها وتحجم دورها...
• دولة تعي أهمية الشباب ودورهم في بناء المستقبل وتضمن لهم فرص التعليم والتدريب والعمل وأخرى لا تكترث بذلك ...
• دولة  ترعى العلوم والثقافة والإبداع  وأخرى تجهل كل ذلك ...
• دولة تحارب الفقر والجهل و الفساد والمكتبية  وأخرى تنميها...

فيا ترى هل ينتصر الوعي و بعد النظر و نكران الذات...   أم ينتصر الجهل و قصر النظر و حب الذات...إن غدا لناظره لقريب...