Letter from America - It’s high time for Qaddafi to quit

September 1, 1969 marks the coming to power of Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi – the man who was destined to rule Libya for the next four decades. Aided by Army officers and conspirators he upended a feeble but tolerant monarchy.

He was not the only one that grabbed power in what we call today as an unconventional way in the Arab world where by then military coups had become rather common. Egypt had already shown the path some seventeen years ago when in 1952 her corrupt but tolerant monarchy was overthrown by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s coup.

Originally all of these political changes had noble goals like republicanism and getting rid of the vestiges of colonialism, which even allowed people to rally behind these new rulers. However, by the 1980s Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Algeria and Yemen transformed themselves into repressive “national security states” with awesome means of control and terror.

The new rulers were merciless. They re-ordered the political world, and killed abundantly to further solidify their grip on power. Truly without checks and balances, required in any civic society, with unbridled power they evolved into authoritarian regimes behaving as if they owned the country; they were no longer servants of the state but rather the masters. As the rulers aged they entertained dynastic ambitions and in Syria, Hafez al-Assad even succeeded in turning the republic into a monarchy in all but name by bequeathing it to one of his sons. To these new rulers, the very idea of willingness to relinquish power was an alien concept.

As noted in a recent article by Prof. Fuad Ajami of the Johns Hopkins University, a world of cruelty settled upon the Arabs. Fear was now the glue of politics. Average men and women made their accommodation with things, retreating into the privacy of their homes. In the public space, there was now the cult of the rulers, the unrestrained power of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya, Hafez al-Assad in Syria and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia. The traditional restraints on power were swept away and new social contract between the ruler and the ruled emerged. These new rulers, being half-educated themselves and coming mostly from the lower middle class of the society, had no love for education and talented people, and thus surrounded themselves with equally ignorant and incompetent people who were happy to be the new class of sycophants which allowed them to munch the bones thrown at them by their new benefactors.

The goodwill of the ordinary citizens was not something that these regimes cared about. Their national wealth was utterly mismanaged and a huge fraction spent in buying weapons that were used mostly against them. Such arms deals also allowed huge commissions that were often stashed away by the ruling family and their cronies in foreign accounts.

None of these regimes tolerated political dissension. Soon the prisons got filled with the members of the dissenting parties. The worst victims of such state terrorism were the moderate Muslims – the social democrats, especially those affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood or its sister organizations that had refused, unlike the secular parties, to cave into submission. Worse still, Islamic piety came to be seen as a crime and the pious Muslims the greatest threats to the stability of the regime. And the pattern was same everywhere. As much as the pro-western regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Abdullah II used the bogeyman of these so-called Islamists to curry favor and justify their tyranny against the Egyptian and Jordanian peoples, respectively, so did their counterparts in anti-western regimes of Libya, Iraq (during Saddam era) and Syria.

Overall, the modern Arab world is a history of shame and betrayal.

Today’s Arab rebellions are fueled by a desire of the Arab people to erase that stain of shame and betrayal. They want to cleanse themselves of the guilt of having given in to the despots for too long. And no one craved for this change more than its young ones. To them, the old slogans of Arab nationalism, secularism, socialism and republicanism meant nothing more than mumbo-jumbo bankrupt ideologies that had failed to better their lives and offer opportunities.

Economics mattered. However, all the doors to economic prosperity seemed to proceed from the palaces and mansions of the rulers and their lackeys. There was nothing left for ordinary citizens. And this deprivation, in spite of the enormous natural resources that these countries were blessed with, notably the oil wealth, was simply inexcusable and unbearable. They had to rebel and demand fairness.

They were done with the politics of acquiescence, fear and silence. They are not looking out for regime changes that are done at the behest of vultures waiting in the sideline. They want the change solely for themselves, unadulterated by foreign masters – no matter how supportive they may sound today.

And Libya is no different in this general formula of current revolution and state repression. Young students and men were picked up from university campuses and homes and sent to prisons, including some underground dungeons, and there were too many of these living hells in the Libyan soil.

And who would have believed that such crimes would go unchecked in a soil that had produced its national hero Umar al-Mukhtar – the Lion of the Desert! While there were no savage Italian colonizers any more that had killed half the population of Cyrenaica, Libya’s eastern province, Qaddafi and his security apparatuses were no better. Prisoners were almost routinely denied medical care, and many died while in prison. Once imprisoned, no matter for what duration, they were blacklisted for life and thus, denied government jobs. They were continuously monitored and interrogated to check any affiliation with Islamic politics. Even those who managed to leave Libya were no safe. When considered a threat to the regime, they were pursued by hit squads as ‘stray dogs’ to shoot down.

As a matter of fact, by the 1970s, the regime had managed to eliminate all opposition systematically. Any activity construed as political opposition was punishable by death. Even the influence of the tribes, once an important factor in defeating Italian colonialism, was feared as they might coalesce into groups opposing the Qaddafi regime. Thus, during the first two decades of the revolution the regime tried to erase their influence. However, as their power seemed stable, Qaddafi co-opted the tribal leaders into his Social Leadership People’s Committee to control the tribes.

Qaddafi’s Green Book – a set of slim volumes published in the 1970s containing his political philosophy and purporting to have answers to all problems -- was forced upon as the most important book, including the Qur’an.

Qaddafi refuses to bow down and exit honorably. His pro-government forces have used lethal weapons against those demanding his ouster. In so doing, his regime has lost credibility and must go. A prolonging of his unpopular regime would only bring more suffering to his people and would not salvage his tarnished image. As enfeebled and ill-equipped his opponents may appear today, history is on their side. And if Qaddafi has any wisdom left in him, he should bow to people’s verdict and quit.

- Asian Tribune -