Friday, September 4, 2009

The colonel's labyrinth


Muammar Gaddafi's revolution, voiding Libya of western powers, has been compromised by his recent appeasement of the west

Raza Naeem
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 September 2009

"........Libya under Gaddafi is well on its way to becoming a family-owned dictatorship, with his playboy son Seif al-Islam as the heir apparent – and itching to privatise everything his father had nationalised on coming to power in 1969.

It need not have been like this had Gaddafi listened more keenly to his hero, Nasser, who once declared: "I rather like Gaddafi. He reminds me of myself when I was that age."

He could still have been a hero to Libyans as well as thousands of Arabs. But not Muammar Gaddafi. As he relishes 40 years as the Great Leader, he must know that he is now Washington's favorite dictator in the Arab world after Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine el Abidine ben Ali in Tunisia. He is certainly the last of the generation of Arab nationalists who believed in Arab nationalism as a genuinely progressive ideology and a realistic project, giving hope to millions and freedom from the oppression of pashas, emirs and colonels like himself......."

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