Learn to know Gaddafi in his own words:
From Leonore and Mathaba.
Gaddafi Unplugged and Uncensored
Translated by Professor Sam Hamod, Ph.D.
Recollections of My Life: Col. Mu'ummar Qaddafi, The Leader of the Revolution. April 5, 2011.
In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful...
For 40 years, or was it longer, I can't remember, I did all I could to give people houses, hospitals, schools, and when they were hungry, I gave them food. I even made Benghazi into farmland from the desert, I stood up to attacks from that cowboy Reagan, when he killed my adopted orphaned daughter, he was trying to kill me, instead he killed that poor innocent child. Then I helped my brothers and sisters from Africa with money for the African Union.
I did all I could to help people understand the concept of real democracy, where people's committees ran our country. But that was never enough, as some told me, even people who had 10 room homes, new suits and furniture, were never satisfied, as selfish as they were they wanted more. They told Americans and other visitors, that they needed "democracy" and "freedom" never realizing it was a cut throat system, where the biggest dog eats the rest, but they were enchanted with those words, never realizing that in America, there was no free medicine, no free hospitals, no free housing, no free education and no free food, except when people had to beg or go to long lines to get soup.
No, no matter what I did, it was never enough for some, but for others, they knew I was the son of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the only true Arab and Muslim leader we've had since Salah-al-Deen, when he claimed the Suez Canal for his people, as I claimed Libya, for my people, it was his footsteps I tried to follow, to keep my people free from colonial domination - from thieves who would steal from us.
Now, I am under attack by the biggest force in military history, my little African son, Obama wants to kill me, to take away the freedom of our country, to take away our free housing, our free medicine, our free education, our free food, and replace it with American style thievery, called "capitalism," but all of us in the Third World know what that means, it means corporations run the countries, run the world, and the people suffer. So, there is no alternative for me, I must make my stand, and if Allah wishes, I shall die by following His path, the path that has made our country rich with farmland, with food and health, and even allowed us to help our African and Arab brothers and sisters to work here with us, in the Libyan Jamahiriya.
I do not wish to die, but if it comes to that, to save this land, my people, all the thousands who are all my children, then so be it.
Let this testament be my voice to the world, that I stood up to crusader attacks of NATO, stood up to cruelty, stood up to betrayal, stood up to the West and its colonialist ambitions, and that I stood with my African brothers, my true Arab and Muslim brothers, as a beacon of light. When others were building castles, I lived in a modest house, and in a tent. I never forgot my youth in Sirte, I did not spend our national treasury foolishly, and like Salah-al-Deen, our great Muslim leader, who rescued Jerusalem for Islam, I took little for myself...
In the West, some have called me "mad", "crazy", but they know the truth yet continue to lie, they know that our land is independent and free, not in the colonial grip, that my vision, my path, is, and has been clear and for my people and that I will fight to my last breath to keep us free, may Allah almighty help us to remain faithful and free.
This speech, touching though it is, is factually incorrect on at least two counts. 1-Capitalism is not thievery. 2- Salah al-Deen (Saladin) was a Kurd not an Arab.
ReplyDeleteAtl.
And the 'Crusader' characterisation of the current Libyan conflict doesn't stand up to historical scrutiny either.
ReplyDeletehttp://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/02/crusades-response-to-islamic-aggression.html
Atl.
@ Atl.
ReplyDeleteThose little details don't mean anything to the man who called Shakespeare El Shabeer.
BTW he does it on purpose.
@ Hermes
ReplyDeleteThat fact is self-evident but those "little details" are important to people like me, as they should be important to every other reader and commenter visiting this blog.When all is said and done it's Gaddafi who currently needs me to give him the benefit of the doubt, NOT the other way around.
Atl.
Atl.
Two things
ReplyDeleteFirst, see how prettier* it is with this formatting
http://www.todaysalternativenews.com/index.php?event=link,150&values[0]=&values[1]=9735
(* well, at least from my perspective)
Second, http://www.reocities.com/Athens/8744/dsreview.htm
I was touched by this essay.
@ Levantine
ReplyDeleteSo what you are saying is, you are touched by Mr Gaddafi's curious inability to make a clear distinction between idyllic fiction and historical fact. How very interesting.
Atl.
@ Levantine
ReplyDeleteThanks poetic soul. It is prettier.
I have to say that Arabic and Farsi are often written in a style that is difficult to translate to the western language which does not contain that style at all, metaphors are used by people here too, not to be historically accurate but to make a point. When I researched the 'not shown in the media' facts and history aboout Gaddafi, and started reading what he had written with professional translations I found that I changed my perception of him. In fact an Arabic speaker said far from being 'rambling' ( as we are told) he is a powerful orator in Arabic. He has written many intelligent and perceptive artciles on the world situation. I was surprised. Like many in the UK over the years we had been fed this 'mad' evil dictator image and this is obviously not the case. In fact I surmised that some of the problems in holding back changes he wanted to make, were from the government. It is so interesting when you dig to see how we can be manipulated to form opinions by the drip drip of innacurate or biased media. I think we also need to understand our own cultural biases and ignorance.
ReplyDeleteThe Dalai Lama recently said to the press in the USA, very timely: 'He repeated his comparison of the media to an elephant who should be using the long nose to investigate both what is in the front as also what is behind and to point them out. He said that the media should do this in an honest, truthful, unbiased and objective way’.
CAM
@ CAM
ReplyDeleteI once did the test of giving an Arabic court judgment to 3 lawyers and one judge for translation. They didn't know I had given it to 4 people.
I had 4 fundamentally different texts.
I told everybody afterwards and gave them the translations. They argued for days amongst each other and hated me.
Oh for God's sake! Just listen to yourselves. Before I respond would somebody else care to pass comment on some of the Humpty Dumptyisms listed above?
ReplyDeleteAtl.
Re Humpty Dumptyisms:
ReplyDelete"When I use a word, "Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
Atl.
Everyone is entitled to their views and opinion but ad hominen slanted disparaging remarks are not the way to air different views on a blog, such as referring to 'humptydumpyisms' and previously aligning those discussing conspiracy theories to being somehow insane themselves.
ReplyDeleteATL, please own your own views and comments without disparaging others' views, otherwise the space for a truly open, non- emotional discussion is not best served. CAM
Let's see if I've got this right. You claim to want a "truly open" discussion yet, when I point out any number of 'terminological inexactitudes' present in Mr Gaddafi's speech, you and others on this blog choose to dismiss these lies as mere "little details" beyond the boundaries of open and rational criticism, said lies magically metamorphose into "pretty" Arabic metaphors which supposedly represent some alternate truth etc, and you say all this doesn't smack of humptydumptyism.
ReplyDeleteI(dis)respectfully beg to differ.
Atl.
@ Atl.
ReplyDeleteThose "little" details were meant ironically.
Gaddafi knows he is inaccurate when he talks about the West, he doesn't even care what the West thinks about it.
This was the exact discussion I had with ABC who concluded that Gaddafi had to bear the responsability for not communicating accurately with the West, basically meaning for them: in English...
Gaddafi answered via some of his closest advisors:
It doesn't matter what I say, you will twist it anyway.
Their biggest problem:
After each interview he gave until 3 weeks ago when he stopped the interview site was immediately bombed, leading to the conclusion that the journalists gave the interview site away.
To quote from my second link, which is probably a good translation.
ReplyDelete"[Gaddafi]...in Part II: Essays:
This is the true secret for their hating you: you are not of this world, you are not wealthy, and for this they hate you. You are not oppressors, and for this they hate you. You are not pretenders, so they hate you. You are not hypocrites or liars, and for this they hate you."
This is a thought that has probably crossed many minds, but how true it is, how good a thought it is, and it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's a kind of stuff that makes me reserved about siding against the insurgents, et al.
Another quote, unreliable, but let us see what we have:
MG: "Christianity is not a faith for people in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Other people who are not sons of Israel have nothing to do with that religion.… It is a mistake that another religion exists alongside Islam. There is only one religion which is Islam after Mohammed.… All those believers who do not follow Islam are losers. "
This chronic partisanship from MG - I don't dispute he is okay, but can easily be irritating.
"Gaddafi knows he is inaccurate when he talks about the West, he doesn't even care what the West thinks about it."
ReplyDeleteWould he care if he connects the failure to be understood with the negative public opinion and destruction of his country? his lifelong work?
@ Levantine
ReplyDeleteOh he is irritating all right and he is a convinced muslim, no doubt.
He also fights salafism from the very beginning, he was also the first to warn the West against Al Quaeda since the late '80's in uncertain terms and he launched an international arrest warrant against OBL in the late '80's in no uncertain terms.
What did the West do?
They laughed at the "lunatic".
And now he has to take them seriously?
In my first blog articles on the 1st of March I wrote that he wouldn't budge, where the West was betting on a one week revolution and curtains for Mr. Gaddafi.
Nobody in the whole press corps in Tripoli believed me, they ridiculized me.
Who was right?
The language and attitude of Gaddafi is geared at his supporters who idolize him today, it's not geared at his detractors who are now breaking their heads how to get out of this imbroglio without losing too much face.
sorry, ...in NO uncertain terms...
ReplyDelete@ Hermes
ReplyDeleteIf I may be permitted to mix a few non-Arabic metaphors,your explanation gets Mr Gaddafi out of the frying pan (He's a liar, he knows it, he lies deliberately and doesn't care what his detractors think about it) but that explanation, in my opinion, still leaves many of his Western apologists firmly on the hook without a paddle, doesn't it?
Not for the first time do I find myself on this blog more at odds with the monkeys than the organ grinder. (for the purpose of this individual comment I have chosen to believe that these mixed English metaphors sound a lot less offensive in Arabic or Farsi than they do in English).
Atl.
@ Atl.
ReplyDeleteApproaching Gaddafi with Western rationale gets you in a heap of trouble with the West and in a lot less trouble with Gaddafi.
Gaddafi has been betrayed by the West since the very beginning because of his correct attitude with the oil companies.
Every problem stems originally from there.
FRrom that moment on he had to go.
But if we use the Western true capitalist spirit we had to bring the Western oil companies and Western countries to court for their subversive and damaging actions in Libya.
We didn't.
By our own criminal attitude in the West we lost all basic moral grounds for punishing Gaddafi, who, in his search for solutions after the West's betrayals, made many useless mistakes.
But he corrected them.
We are now without a paddle ourselves with our biased double morality.
@ Hermes
ReplyDeleteTo use another metaphor (a card game metaphor this time)I'm happy to concede that Gaddafi isn't the only one who is 'not playing with a full deck' here, but, equally, let's not fool ourselves into believing that there are only 3 jokers in the pack.ALL jokers need to be identified and removed from the pack before we put ALL our cards on the table, otherwise this crooked game should be called off. Does that sound fair to you?
Atl.
Hermes said:
ReplyDelete"After each interview he gave until 3 weeks ago when he stopped the interview site was immediately bombed, leading to the conclusion that the journalists gave the interview site away."
I'm not sure the journalists were knowing spotters for Nato but they're oblivious and idiotic enough to be de facto spotters.
@Atl
ReplyDeleteMy comment did not say ‘I dismiss Atl’s’ comment. I did not even think that. Whilst I cannot speak for other commentators, in fact I thought it was interesting and useful that you pointed out the factual inaccuracy. My comment was to add my own perspective on what I had found out about Gaddafi lately, rather than the view I had received from the media. I am not interested in taking sides. Also I have experienced the translation issues with middle eastern language into the ‘western’ vocabulary, particularly with concepts and metaphors, which are used in every language, but by definition are not accurate. My comment was to add to the debate and read all the angles from different commentator’s experiences and perspectives. We also had hermes talking about irony in the text which I was not aware of. I was saying that we can all disagree with each others’ opinions and beliefs without the person we disagree with being the problem. That is consistent with an open discussion. CAM
Both Gaddafi and the West have legitimate grievances against each other, however, the failure of the Western intelligence services to raise serious misgivings about who the rebels may be is a major intelligence failure, they know better. There should be a major push among those who have objections to this intervention for what the Bin Laden files have to say about Gaddafi.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, Gaddafi gave intelligence services in the West a major victory in the anti-proliferation arena. It is hard to overstate its importance, not only did he give up his own program, but he helped to wrap up the Khan network and provided insight into Iran's program. Gaddafi, and more importantly his 'people' proved that they could be extremely valuable 'co-operating individuals' in the global enforcement regime against the modern day transnational radical jihadists. If one is going to push for an international rule of law, those pushing for it will ultimately fail if they end up taking out the co-operating individuals instead of those intent on blowing up / taking over the international order.
@capo
ReplyDeletethat is most interesting and I so agree on the rule of law that is being totally disregarded and bodes ill for the future.
CAM
Capo said:
ReplyDelete"Both Gaddafi and the West have legitimate grievances against each other..."
Spot on,but you'd be hard pressed to make that case as evidenced by the 'majority of articles and comments posted on this blog.
Capo continues:
"There should be a major push among those who have objections to this intervention for what the Bin Laden files have to say about Gaddafi."
I'm with Capo on that one too and I suspect Gaddafi is anxious to see it happen, but that's going to pose somthing of a dilemma for the pro-Gaddafi, anti-American/Western conspiracy theorists, isn't it? Think about it.
Atl.
This ought to be posted here, and I wonder how much is this notion a part of the Libyan culture:
ReplyDelete"It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (1973)