The Arab Spring has flooded the channels of our 21st century sensationalist media for months now and seems to have climaxed with the death of Gaddafi. But is the downfall of a dictator the pinnacle of a revolution? Is the world going to sit and watch and celebrate as thousands of innocent people with family, hopes and dreams who may or may not have been affected by his so called ‘tyrannical rule’, die in the pursuit of the life of one man. Mind you these people were killed by foreign elements using the tax money of people far away from any of the action. Can it be called a victory, or even justice for that matter? This moment begs the question given the current state of affairs, taking into consideration the global recession which has a severe impact on the countries that make up NATO, and yet rather than bailing out their own financial institutions, they prefer to spend over a billion dollars on hunting down one man. Surely no one or no entity is as selfless or genuinely concerned for the peoples of a far away land.
Sitting in 2011 and looking back over the history books, it’s apparent this ‘zero-hero-tyrant-martyr/dead dictator’ trend has become one of modern society’s unpleasant clichés, recurring every few decades when the demographic pyramid’s youth fraction swells and unemployment looms. I suppose in this most recent spate, we see why polygamy and the religion related ban on contraception is a bad thing. But Libya’s revolution is somewhat different from the other Arab countries that are now ‘liberated’. It is something that the Western powers have been hoping for, praying for and influencing for quite some time now. And who would blame them, no big guy likes it when a small guy makes a stand and doesn’t comply with that the bigger voice states as norm or law.
The Lockerbie Bombings will forever be shrouded in conspiracy and for those who believe it was Libya’s doing will now feel at ease knowing that Gaddafi, the face of the country behind it, has now joined those who perished that fateful day in 1998, gone to rest just like the PLO who were also suspected to have a hand in it. Final nail in the coffin there. But coming to what made me write about is this is that fact that on paper, statistics-wise, Gaddafi era Libya seemed a great place to live where everyone was taken care of by the state in some way. Of course I haven’t lived in Libya to know what it was like, but was supposed to visit Tripoli to write its first guidebook, at least until NATO initiated the metal rain. It’s an obvious fact that the western powers would never fight something for the fight itself or for the direct cause of the people, instead would only engage a conflict if it was a conflict of interest for them. In Libya’s case it was the oil, that and the defiant dictator who didn’t give rat’s ass about them.
Barack Obama himself once said “We will fight to protect the liberty of everyone,” but where were they when the uprising in Bahrain was quelled with the use of joint military strength from the rest of the Arab region. So where were the “protectors of liberty” when all that was going on? Prudently keeping quiet of course, considering the island is a main naval operations base in the Middle East. Anyway, let bygones be bygones, the glorious Pearl Roundabout in Manama is no more and so too the lives of many.
Social Media of late has been quite the window to reality these days and the videos of Gaddafi’s capture and subsequent death were massively viral around the world, and just this morning the picture and attached details on what Gaddafi did for his country were making the rounds on the Facebook share front and objectively speaking, they were impressive in terms of state sponsored social welfare. So just going by that, what happened to him seems unfair, but then again, I don’t think that’s for a Sri Lankan who hasn’t lived in Libya to judge. I mean sure Gaddafi did liberate his country when it needed it and then ruled it in the way he saw fit, and yes there was nepotism and even corruption and state manipulation of power to be in power, etc, which of course draws many parallels to our own little paradise here. But ungratefulness is a most human trait, not that I sympathize with Gaddafi, nor empathize with the Libyans, they fought for what they thought was right but in a way didn’t need to, but that’s just my opinion.
So yeah, the post Gaddafi era is here and that’s their problem, but what still bothers me and still makes me want to write this is the western stance on involvement in the problems of others. Needless to say, I don’t believe in the UN and think it should be abolished and sent to push daisies with the League of Nations, and actually agree with Gaddafi regarding his stance on the UN; FUCK EM’. Sitting here in the “Socialist Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka” and having received education on history and world affairs according to Cambridge in the UK, it looks to me that the western powers think they have the perfect democracies and anyone not in line with that and any other form of governance is unacceptable. Who again are they to make that call? Have they forgotten that when the system was drawn up and the word democracy first coined and implemented, women and slaves weren’t allowed to be a part of it, so much for egalitarianism.
Oh well, these words won’t change the world and probably might not be read, but I wish the world and its people would first examine something properly before following their emotions which have no basis and cheering the death of a man they didn’t know and vice versa. But then again I suppose that’s what the world has become, take what comes, no questions asked. Take what the media gives you. Then again, who could blame the masses, no one has the time to examine and think. Thinking: a fleeting capability of mankind. Devolution I suppose, or even evolution maybe, a matter of perspective in the end. Ah well, in all, the Arab Spring was refreshing yet saddening, born in its sands, the Middle East will always have a special place in my heart and soul. I can’t wait for a western spring, I’m sure a notion the better part of the world’s almost 7billion inhabitants share.
