The Gaddafis enjoyed a political facelift from the West whilst carefully avoiding blowback - until now.
Larbi Sadiki
Al-Jazeera
"The quill may be mightier than the sword. But this is a story of how some Western academics have succumbed to the power of the cheque book.
Which leads me to ask the question: is it money that makes the world go round? Whatever happened to the strength of liberal ideals, humanism, democracy and all that spiel?
There is a Libyan connection, which is the context of this story. Maybe Gaddafi, sons and henchmen have survived till now and may kill more Libyans due to the fact that many experts and academics, some brilliant voices of the global democratic agenda, have chosen to accept the Libyan regime's illicit funding over the ethics they preach to their own students.
Knowledge is power
It may be so that knowledge is power, but surely not when knowledge serves dictatorships.
I first wrote this story for Al Jazeera more than two weeks ago. A few months ago Libyan friends (who have lost loved ones in the fight for Zawiya and before for Benghazi) shared with me and others documents coming from Monitor Group, the Harvard-based global consulting group.
This is the firm which was hired by the Gaddafis to revamp their image. That was before the eruption of the current anti-Gaddafi uprising in Libya.
A few observations are noteworthy here.....
Literati or spin doctors?
Richard Perle going to Libya is something. But why did Francis Fukuyama, Anthony Giddens, Bernard Lewis, Nicholas Negroponte, Benjamin Barber, Joseph Nye, and Robert Putnam meet Gaddafi?......"
Larbi Sadiki
Al-Jazeera
"The quill may be mightier than the sword. But this is a story of how some Western academics have succumbed to the power of the cheque book.
Which leads me to ask the question: is it money that makes the world go round? Whatever happened to the strength of liberal ideals, humanism, democracy and all that spiel?
There is a Libyan connection, which is the context of this story. Maybe Gaddafi, sons and henchmen have survived till now and may kill more Libyans due to the fact that many experts and academics, some brilliant voices of the global democratic agenda, have chosen to accept the Libyan regime's illicit funding over the ethics they preach to their own students.
Knowledge is power
It may be so that knowledge is power, but surely not when knowledge serves dictatorships.
I first wrote this story for Al Jazeera more than two weeks ago. A few months ago Libyan friends (who have lost loved ones in the fight for Zawiya and before for Benghazi) shared with me and others documents coming from Monitor Group, the Harvard-based global consulting group.
This is the firm which was hired by the Gaddafis to revamp their image. That was before the eruption of the current anti-Gaddafi uprising in Libya.
A few observations are noteworthy here.....
Literati or spin doctors?
Richard Perle going to Libya is something. But why did Francis Fukuyama, Anthony Giddens, Bernard Lewis, Nicholas Negroponte, Benjamin Barber, Joseph Nye, and Robert Putnam meet Gaddafi?......"
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