I'd like to educate the younger generation on some important topics; that’s why I'm going into details with this blog. By a younger generation I'm referring to those in their mid/late teens through to those in their late twenties right now, who may be interested in the full story of Libya's war as it relates to the world today but  were too young when history unfolded. I was very young when Gaddafi caused his havoc but there had been enough news and rumors on this subject that over the years, I formed an opinion. If only one person reads this blog, I'm hoping that he/she would take a bit of this history with them. Also, many educated people in the West were practically never taught this subject from a non-bias point of view so they may never realize the significance of what's happening. But a major piece of world history is unfolding while we all stay busy in our complex lives. 

When it comes to Libya, many have different opinions but I've come to realize that there are really only two basic points to note (for starters). 1: A huge part of Libyan history revolves around a man who goes by the named of Cornel Muammar Gaddafi  and 2: The actual Libyan history is poles apart from Gaddafi and his reign.  Over the last twenty years we have all heard stereotypy concoctions about Libyans and their leader but none of those stories informed the listeners about the culture of the Libyan people. Rather, those stories were all based on fears of what people perceive Libya as (due to the reputation of its leader).  What is Libya? Who is Muammar Gaddafi? When and how did he rise to power and why is everyone so angry with him? These are the questions that I'm going to try and answer.

                  
                                   Cornel Muammar Gaddafi

Many Africans feel a psychological bond with each other. I would term it as a 'supposed solidarity'. It is a bond that should be felt (between two or more Africans) from understanding each anothers' plight to each anothers' hard earned accomplishments. But even with this basic principle in our psyche we (Africans) will come to blows with each other at the most crucial moment. Africans have a general conviction that we are all one people and must stand up againt an oppressor. But we've also seen many leaders who came along with this agenda and yet they either converted to western ideology or they became dictators in the end. We have many Africans who do not agree with the 'fight for your right' principle and many who want to adopt a cozy western lifestyle. However, Africa was at a crossroad throughout the 1900s. Some die hard natives clung to traditional African customs while a new influx of western influence swept many off their feet. Some Africans felt the West used Africa for its financial gain without paying Africans their fair share from wealth acquired in Africa.

Having originated from a continent that blames the West for many of its troubles, tribal warriors turned into revolutionary protesters who resented the new colonial era. By the 1940s in many parts of Africa the most politically conscious minds aimed to take power from governments that bent over backwards for western democracy. Nelson Mandela (of South Africa) was one of such revolutionary protesters who rose up against a colonial system and so was the late Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in West Africa.

Gaddafi emerged into this newly instated post colonial era of Africa as a heavily armed ring leader from a then unpenetrated, Arab influenced North African desert country; wherein becoming an anti-western revolutionary thinker would galvanized his new agenda for Libya's transition; with the new pan-African mandate. Since his influences stretched from the Middle East to South America and The Soviet Union, fear and war credibility was easy for him to garner. It was widely believed that he built guerrilla warfare training camps in Libya where elite revolutionary soldiers would train and be dispatched into numerous civil wars. It was also assumed that the civil wars were meant to preserve African resources from being further exploitated by killing off African natives who embrace the West. But the West never came to the rescue of those African natives who were being killed and the agenda for starting new wars soon changed to greed.

What or where is Libya?


A neighborhood in Tripoli (Libya's capital).

Libya is a country in North Africa that shares its borders with Algeria, Tunisia, Niger, Chad, Sudan and Egypt. In Africa you will find different types of people depending on their origin. Most North Africans including Libyans, have physical features similar to Arabs, that dress, speak, worship  and live by an Islamic rule of law. Libya is one of such Islamic/Arab African states as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco where a Muslim system conflicts with traditional European colonial systems that are seen through out Africa.  Moreover, there are other Islamic countries in Africa whose people do not have similar physical feature to North Africans but these African countries like Mali, Niger and southern West Africa, for example, are inhabited by dark skin Africans (black). In Arab Africa you will find people who look like Arabs, people who look half Arab and half black and people who are 100% black.  Small groups exist in the population who are allowed to practice other religions as they each have local traditions with their own variation of law and order.

The Capital city of Libya is Tripoli and  their money is called the Libyan Diner (LD). Some parts of the country consists of a vast desert but there are well developed urban cities and townships there as well. Libya is considered poor because of United Nations Economic Sanctions but their quality of life is better than the poorest African countries.

Libya used to be an oil rich kingdom before the late 1960s and as a wealthy kingdom it was ruled by a Royal Monarch similar to the Saudis or the British. Right now its' citizens are fighting to return Libya's political system to a Republic system but Gaddafi, for the last 40 years, has proclaimed his family a Royal Monarch of Libya which he calls "Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" (which is a Libyan kingdom that Gaddafi  created). This long standing revolutionary kingdom/anti-western system is outdated today because many Libyans want democracy, economic stability with unlimited freedoms to travel but are barred from such amends. They also have deep seated disagreements with Israel as a non Islamic nation in the Middle East that acquired its land by ousting its original inhabitants and many of Israel's American backed mandates in the West Bank they see as a travesty.


50 Libyan Dinners. (about $100 US)


5 Libyan Dinners (about $10 US)

The West does not acknowledge Cornel Muammar Gaddafi as the royalty that he think he is. Instead it classifies him as a revolting war criminal. The other African nations that Gaddafi wished would join him in his revolution against the West, do not see a future in his plan for a United States of Africa. Many African governments are easily seduced by Western aid and thus, they see no use for Gaddafi's blood bath dreams. Many countries in Africa are backed by the European country that colonized them. For example, after several years of civil war in Sierra Leone the British finally intervened militarily and that brought an end to the Sierra Leone Civil War. A war that many believe was devised in Libya. Similarly, when Charles Taylor went from warlord to  president of Liberia, strife continued - as many did not welcome his presidency. U.S President Bush intervened by dispatching a battleship of U.S Marines ordering Taylor to leave office or face a brutal consequence.  This led the ex worlord turned president of Libria into exile in Nigeria.

When I lived in Africa during the height of two civil wars, many people claimed that the initial plan for launching the war was to take over Liberia and end its American influence and to also do the same in Sierra Leone with the British. The belief was, each warlord would become president and then attack a neighboring country thereby relieving it of its western influence. Once a significant number of African countries had been taken over by the alleged Gaddafi trained warlords, they would unite the countries as states under one banner and call it the United States of Africa. In this line of thinking, a United States of Africa would be a powerful new federation ruled by a royal African Monarch equivalent to the British, the Saudis or even the United States government. With the estimated wealth of  African natural resources they saw a possibility in achieving this goal.

 
Night time in Tripoli, Libya's capital.

In Southern parts of Africa we have a different brand of Africans who dress, speak and bare a completely different physical feature from those in the north. These Africans as opposed to the Arabs in the north, practice laws and customs similar to a Zulu culture. Most African countries were colonized by either Belgium, France, Portugal, Germany or England but  they all maintained significant parts of their heritage. East Africans are another distinct brand of Africans who have cultural structures passed down from thriving empires in ancient Ethiopia, Somalia and Northeastern Sudan; and West Africa having been the last part of the continent to be urbanized, comprises of thousands of different tribes that once lived in isolation from the rest of Africa. From the north to the east to the south and then the west, each sector consists of people who have very different physical features who speak very distinct languages, with a distinct custom and tradition from the other.

Who is Muammar Gaddafi?

           

Muammar Gaddafi is an ex cornel from the Libyan army who became a world renowned political leader in Libya. Earlier in his rise to power he rebeled against western systems and became a target for international scrutiny. His reign is tainted as a tyrannical 42 years of power and he is being compelled to resign from government. Gaddafi considers himself to be an avid freedom fighter who will fight the West or die a martyr before he accepts a global community in which the West sits atop. He considers the West to be ruled by infidels whose wealth was procured by exploiting Africa and other parts of the world. He believes in the continuation of ancient African and Arab traditions wherein natives are ruled by a revared king or queen who punishes or rewards their subjects as pleased.  For example, in Gaddafi's world homosexuals would remain in the closet, strip clubs, gambling and prostitution would be banned and Satanism will be a taboo, just for starters.

Speaking from an African perspective, Gaddafi is typically regarded in two lights. One light shows him as a despised tyrant with innocent blood on his hands who has gone as far as training rebel commandos and warlords to set off guerilla warfare in Africa. The other light shows the tyrant being admired for having the guts to stand up to the West. He is dreadfully hated by many but also applauded in a bizarre way by others. A newly assembled National Transitions Council backed by international powerhouses like England, France, Italy, The United States, Canada and NATO have all recently supported a rebelion in Libya which is geared to topple Gaddafi's regime and bring an end to his kingdom.

Gaddafi is father to eight children, most of which are sons and a few daughters (one of which is deceased) but he is viewed as a compulsive renegade. When he dies his eldest son is supposedly next in line for the Libyan throne - a throne which could face the same demise as Sadam Hussein's. But that's if he died in power. As it stands now Gaddafi's children do not stand to inherit Libya when he dies because the people of Libya and the international community each wants the warlord trainer to be brought to justice. Gaddafi is strongly criticized for having only female bodyguards, all 40 of whom were hand picked virgins when brought to the training academy that qualified them to guard him.



Before Gaddafi came to power Libya was ruled by a British backed Libyan king by the name of King Sayyid Idris Muhammad. As a military officer at that time Gaddafi overthrew this king from power in the late 1960's and instated himself as the new leader of Libya. The ill fated king was not only overthrown from power, his British backed kingdom was replaced with Gaddafi's new system, and he lived in exile until a trial that sentenced him to death. Succeeding with his military coup, Gaddafi unleashed his wrath against all his opponents leading him to be frowned upon by the rest of the world. However, Libya is rich with oil. So frowning on Gaddafi could only go so far since the same countries that frowned at him were the same ones that came begging for oil. After he replaced King Sayyid Muhammad’s British backed Monarch, he established his brand of a republic. Gaddafi had another change of heart and decided to replace the new republic with a new form of government that was neither Monarch nor Republic. Resenting control from the West through the United Nations Gaddafi sorted for his own kingdom which would either rival the ones in the United Kingdom or trump them completely.

He wanted to be treated as equals in the international community where Libya has no vito power. On his thinking, the West would be derailed from dominating the world economically and militarily if he removed them from Africa. During the 90s when Liberia and Sierra Leone were at the heart of civil wars, it was widely rumored that warlords Charles Taylor and the late Foday Sankoh were both Libyan trained.  Gaddafi became credited or accused for many atrocities against humanity, either directly or indirectly and being that he had been in power for many years, he had already had previous run ins with past U.S Presidents like Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr., that left a nasty stain on his international record. He was also condemned by the United Nations on several occasions. 

Gaddafi also sorted to use his influence in the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) to drastically restrain the West from access to Middle Eastern oil; hoping that this would slow down the industrial growth in western countries and thereby give room for a Pan – African United States of Africa to arise. He acquired a Nuclear Weapons Program and recruited a feared army. Gaddafi was in a race to repeal western influences in Africa that had been established during slavery and colonization but then several conflicts with the United States during the 1980’s led him to back an airplane bombing that killed many innocent westerners - a bad move on his part. This transformed him into a terrorist as innocent blood was now pouring on his hands. Then there was the U.S bombing of his compound that killed his daughter. It is believed that this is the point where Gaddafi added more insult to his already injured reputation by training warlords to attack African countries that romanced with weatern ideologies. 
                 

People protesting against Gaddafi in Libya (2011)

However his plan to form a United States of Africa and annihilate western influence in Africa did not succeed. Gaddafi lost many supporters as too many innocent people died in the process of establishing his goal. And as a result of becoming a dictator, his record got tainted for life. His unrecognized kingdom was now doomed. Due to UN sanctions on Libya for his atrocities and/or sketchy involvement in world politics, Libya fell into poverty and the Libyan people despised their tyrant. His warlords instigated grave atrocities all over Africa and that was never forgiven. Him being tainted, stemmed into many more years of genocides and the violating of human rights to disturbing proportions since his warlords faced a fierce resistance from armies and tribalas warriors in the countries that were invaded. And his warlords were gluttonous for a lavish living bought with looted diamonds and oil money. By this time (late 1990’s) Gaddafi had earned more than enough sanctions from the United Nations and the world revolted against him. These sanctions cut him off from the international community thereby isolating the entire country of Libya from the rest of the world.

One by one, each genocide was halted that had been started by his alledged warlords; the warlords were soon captured and imprisoned or killed. Gaddafi also got criticized for revolutionary rants against the West every time he spoke at the General Assembly in the UN.  But as time passed he gave up on his revolution and sorted to clear his name, make amends and rejoin the international community. He agreed to get rid of his weapons of mass destruction program so his UN sanctions would be lifted. This opened Libya up for business again. Gaddafi watched as western oil merchants flocked to his oil markets once again. Only this time he was unaware that he is no longer feared because his weapons of mass destruction program had been abandoned.


Libyan People protesting against Gaddafi.

So now here we are, civil war has come full circle. From Liberia to Sierra Leone to Guinea, Senegal and the Ivory Coast, civil wars in West Africa have erupted and returned to Libya where many victims of previous genocides believe the war really started from. Libyans have finally revolted against Gaddafi as well. They realized it could be done with a peaceful but insistent protest. Tunisia succeeded doing the same thing and Algeria too. Then the Egyptians rebeled and succeeded in ousting their dictator. So Libya went out on a protest to oust the tyrant.

Gaddafi responded with tanks and bombs, unleashing mercenaries in the crowd, killing off the protesters. Libyans called for western intervention because they feared Gaddafi’s whips and the West stepped in and has weaken Gaddafi’s immediate strong holds so that the rebels can run through his safe places. All across the world, his accounts in western banks have been frozen which now deprives the outdated renegade from approximately $70 billion. Gaddafi is being asked by the United Nations, NATO and the West that the time has come to either die or step away from power. Sadly, he has very few friends who might be next in the western backed Middle East System Reform, so his few friends cannot help him. He might have to blow his own brains out in the end.