generalspeaking

"Everyone Loves Gadhafi"

You cannot please everyone all the time. Fact is, everyone cannot be pleased at all. Undertake changes to peoples' accustomed routines, particularly those who have been advantaged in good measure by a political and social environment that has disadvantaged many others, and those who had it good will be mortally offended.

And in countries that are still fairly primitive in their social development in that they have not advanced terribly far from clan solidarity and tribal affiliation, you don't have to dig too deep in the social contract to discover the advantaged and the disadvantaged. Those in the ascendancy will naturally represent clan affinity with the current ruling elite.

And although the rebel army, disorganized as it is, representing various tribal interests and ideological/religious groups, has now found itself on the cusp of total victory, there are still remaining areas loyal to Moammar Gadhafi and his clan. Including, of course, his tribe and the geographic area in the country that they have historically occupied.

Wedging the troops loyal to Gadhafi out of the traditional clan strongholds hasn't been as simple as the rebels boasted it would be. "The rebels are worse than rats. NATO is the same as Osama bin Laden", an anonymous resident of Sirte declared.

"We have ten families staying with us now, there is little food, not enough clean water and no gas. Before we lived wealthy lives. I had two homes, now we live worse than animals."

The international community feels justified at NATO intervention in the civil conflict, particularly with the backing of the United Nations, but that brutal dictator who suppressed the basic human rights and freedoms of his own population, and famously fomented violence and terror abroad through support of terror groups has a somewhat different reputation among his loyalists.

"We lived in democracy under Moammar Gadhafi, he was not a dictator. I lived in freedom, Libyan women had full human rights. It isn't that we need Moammar Gadhafi again, but we want to live just as we did before", insisted Susan Farjan. Her way of life has altered considerably; while she still wears diamond ear studs, a gold necklace, she sat despairingly on the floor of a school classroom, a refugee.

"Life was great in Sirte. I was a television presenter for Jumareya television, interviewing pop stars, and reading the news. Everyone loves Gadhafi. My father loves him so much, the blood is green in his veins."

Spare a tear for the dispossessed.

Labels: Libya, That's Life, Traditions

posted by Pieface @ Monday, October 03, 2011