The Destruction of Libya and the Murder of Muammar Gaddafi

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi addressed the country on national television where he charged the western imperialist states of backing the rebels that are trying to destroy the unity and sovereingty of this oil-rich North African state., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

The Destruction of Libya and the Murder of Muammar Gaddafi

27 October 2011 289
by P. Ngigi Njoroge
24 October, 2011

I get terribly affected by the kind of things that are happening today, and confess to not being able to be dispassionate.

But some important facts we should keep in view if we want to remain sane and work out a saving response to European and American criminal aggression against us are the following.

Muammar Gaddafi came from an Arab tribe living in Libya. He belonged to a culture completely different from American and European culture. He therefore did not—and never pretended to—champion Western values of so-called “democracy” and “freedom”.

This, however, did not prevent him from being a force for good for his people and for some other African peoples. When 42 years ago he took over power through a BLOODLESS coup—mark this: he did not have to slaughter his own people to overthrow King Idriss’s government (a lethargic government that allowed the Libyan people to live in poverty and underdevelopment—he took measures to ensure that Libya’s oil wealth was used for the benefit of the Libyan people.

Over the decades he created a genuine welfare state with state-of the-art medical facilities accessible to all Libyans, with state funded educational facilities, initiated afforestation of large areas of Libya, and lifted the status of Libya to a middle-income economy.

Non-Libyan black Africans flocked to Libya to seek employment. One Kenyan who was working in a Libya-based company when the Europeans started the troubles in March this year was distraught: he spoke of the high standards of living in Libya and his comfortable life, where you’d buy petrol for 10 Kenya Shillings a litre!

Gaddafi was not a modern European or American to believe arrogantly and foolishly that good governance consists only in regular elections and the limited term of a ruler. Like a Ghanaian commentator wrote the other day, Gaddafi believed he had devoted those 42 years of his rule taking care of the welfare of his people.

The ridiculous thing is that Westerners believe only systems of governance developed by themselves are to be adopted. People forget that there are good alternative systems indigenously developed by others. For example, the Agikuyu practised democracy before they had the misfortune of being conquered by the white predators, and had 35-year cycles of ruling generations handing over power peacefully to another generation.

Gaddafi assisted freedom movements in other countries of Africa, notably South Africa. He armed and financed the African National Congress of Nelson Mandela when the western powers were doing normal business with the white-dominated apartheid (race-separation) regime.

When Bill Clinton visited newly independent South Africa and criticized Libya under Gaddafi, Nelson Mandela rebuked him using the following words: “We cannot join you in criticizing the people who helped us in our darkest hour.”

It is an absolute shame to see the mainstream media, including the Kenyan media, join in mouthing cliches about “dictator Gaddafi”, “despot Gaddafi”, and the “tyranny” suffered under Gaddafi.

The other day a local newspaper published a tasteless, highly offensive cartoon about Gaddafi. This is all due to ignorance and brainwashing by the Western Media Juggernaut.

We have many Africans who are quite incapable of thinking as themselves and for themselves. You can call such people mental and spiritual slaves. These people miss one aspect of Gaddafi’s character and ideals.

Gaddafi believed that the Arabs were the descendants of Black Africans and taught his people that they owed special respect to blacks. (One of his sons, Hannibal, was named after a famous black African general who used elephant-mounted soldiers to fight the Roman army around the time of Christ; Hannibal served the state of Carthage which was geographically situated in Libya.)

And Gaddafi put in place a policy where black Africans were welcomed into Libya as employees and even members of the Libyan army.

Gaddafi further championed the idea of the African Union, housing the Arabs of his country and the vast black population of sub-Saharan Africa. It is said that by the time he died, he had conceived the idea of an African Bank which would compete against the white-dominated World Bank.

Of course the so-called mainstream media wouldn’t appreciate such things; and neither would they be horrified by what the “revolutionaries” have been doing—including the rounding up and massacring of black people while putting others in concentration camps.

Neither are these mental slaves capable of grasping the enormous shame, horror and deceit of the campaign of the West against Gaddafi. The Great Lie is that there was a popular uprising against Gaddafi.

Rather it was an armed rebellion, engineered in Paris and other western capitals, and its success guaranteed by the use of the most sophisticated weapons of mass destruction by America, France and Britain.

ONE THING IS CLEAR: GADDAFI HAD MASSIVE POPULAR AND LOCAL ARMED SUPPORT and would have defeated the rebels if massive missile rocket and air bombardment had not been used by the American, French and British murderers. He lasted more than six months, a man leading a country of only 6.5 million people against an alliance of countries housing close to 500 million people.

To my mind Gaddafi was a lion-like figure fighting against shameless bullies, men absolutely devoid of honour: Barrack Obama, David Cameron, and Nicholas Sarkozy. These assassins have entered the pages of history for their brutal and ignominious acts.

The lesson for us self-respecting Africans? We can expect more horrors from these people who wield enormous military power. But we have a mighty weapon against them: building awareness about their intentions, crying out loudly against their grotesqueness and unfitness to claim the right to lead the world.

We can call them their real names: bullies, greedy predators, robbers of other people’s resources, deceivers and tellers of great lies. And, of course, I can see the rest of the world grouping together for mutual self defence: Africa, India, Brazil and other South American countries, Russia and China. The days of these mis-rulers are numbered.

Yeah, I just said that!