Answer to those who are perplexed with the causes of Libyan revolution? Everything in this world is not a western conspiracy, we humans have faces those who deface us and deny the self-determination face natural justice. Story of Libya is about defacing of a nation of 6.5 million over 42 years.
After preliminary period of nation building and revival of a primitive society, Libyan experiment has shown that ‘Freedom’ is more important than food! Two holes shall haunt the Middle East forever!! One from where Saddam was dragged out other one where Gaddafi was pulled out from. The holes represent the mother of all wars and last battles that were never fought; the bravados of the last stand that all ended up in those filthy, grimy holes instead of ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ both preferred spinelessness in living as a fugitive.
Libya was nation of 6.5 million devoid of faces? The whole population was defaced of man, of soul and of body? Is this living? Dissent has to be allowed, the population needs to have her heroes and villains; this is how a nation is made. Even a tribal nation have certain norms to pursue and live with. The way they reacted to Gaddafi like hungry hyenas was the sum total of their repulsion of a man who denied them a face, they butchered him as inhumanly as he ruled them. Karma is a bitch, you sow what you reap. The cause of Libyan revolution was not social inequality but rather revolt of bourgeois class who were fed up with the preferential treatments, familial ties and sumptuous, often gluttonous, lifestyles of Gaddafi clan. Other than a Gaddafi no one has ever heard of another living Libyan or face of Libya. A ‘wealthy’ man without a free enterprising mind is a very dangerous self destructive obsession. Boredom of mind makes mind a workshop of devils.
Iranian 1979 and Libyan 2011 have no parallel, Iranian revolution was not based on defacing of a nation. Shah made a nation did not deface it. There were all around Iranian heroes or heroines who made Iran proud, Iran tryst with destiny of 1,400 years old preoccupation with creed and dogma that ran in its bloodstream as undercurrents of the unheard and unknown voices made the revolution possible. To compare Libyan embryonic revolution with Iran possible change of destiny revolution is a sham contrast. 1979 has put a 5,000 year civilisation face to face with either progress or decadence. Iran is well ahead of any revolutionary zeal, they have learned form this revolution of 1979 that way forward is negation of creed and archaic doctrine. In next 100 years of Arab spring Iranian counter revolution hopefully will lead the renaissance and sow the seed of permanent change of minds along the entire crescent of Islam.
It is correct no one amongst the Gaddafi clan ever uttered an unholy world like this ‘Qu’ils mangent de la brioche’, i.e. ‘Let them eat brioche.’ Marie-Antoinette (1755-93), the Queen consort of Louis XVI is supposed to have said this when she was told that the French populace had no bread to eat. Marie-Antoinette understood very little about the plight of the poor and cared even less. On the contrary Gaddafi’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’s HDI was 0.755 dissimilar Louis XVI France. The HDI (HDI represents a push for a broader definition of well-being and provides a composite measure of three basic dimensions of human development: health, education and income. The Human Development Index is about going beyond income ) of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya increased from 0.298 in 1980 to 0.755, fastest growth any country has ever witnessed within the Arab world. Libya ranked 53rd for HDI, better than Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, Georgia, Ukraine etc and better than most third world capitalist countries under the west’s economic tutelage.
This growth gave the country a rank of 53 out of 169 countries with comparable data. The HDI of Arab States as a region increased from 0.398 in 1980 to 0.590 today, placing Libyan Arab Jamahiriya reasonably above the regional average.
These measurements were relevant for economic as well as social purposes. Over the past 30 years, Libya has steadily increased and is now in the second category of countries (”High Human Development”).
The cause of Libyan revolution was not social inequality rather revolt of bourgeois class who were fed up with the preferential treatments, familial ties and sumptuous, often gluttonous, lifestyles of Gaddafi clan. Other than a Gaddafi no one has ever heard of another living Libyan or face of Libya. he did not even allow any kind of male protagonist to emerge, any heroism from 6.5 million would be a threat to his clan and his family. 6.5 million horror struck slaves finally revolted when helped by Nato air support.
The revolution of Libya was not about Poverty! It was about “You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” When the majority of the people refuse to be fooled and intimidated any longer; when they refuse to stay on their knees; when they recognize the fundamental weakness of their oppressors, they can become transformed overnight from seemingly meek, subdued and helpless sheep into mighty lions. The Causes of the French Revolution was Louis XVI, his ministers, and the widespread French nobility had become immensely unpopular. This was a consequence of the fact that peasants and, to a lesser extent, the bourgeoisie, were burdened with ruinously-high taxes levied to support wealthy aristocrats and their sumptuous, often gluttonous, lifestyles. Though the French people enjoyed more political freedom and a lower incidence of arbitrary punishment than any of their fellow Europeans. However, Karl Marx wrote in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung that in both the English Revolution of 1648 and in the French Revolution: ” … the bourgeoisie as a class headed the movement. ”
Aristotle defines the Causes of revolution in politics. REVOLUTIONS arise from inequalities, numerical or qualitative–from a numerical mass claiming an equality denied them, or from a minority claiming a superiority denied them. The only rational explanation of extreme annoyance of the people can be the continuation of the tyranny.
A shrewd tyrant sees to it that he has the favour of the rich or of the poor. Well provided people cannot serve a tyrant; Tyrants aim is his personal gratification. Tyrannies are overthrown by collision with external forces, or by private intrigues in the tyrant’s entourage, and generally in the same sort of way as extreme oligarchies or extreme democracies. Neither tyrannies nor oligarchies have proved long-lived. Oppressed people feel weak before their oppressors in spite of their numerical superiority, because they are on their knees. A revolution can occur precisely when that feeling of weakness and helplessness is overcome, when the mass of the people suddenly thinks “We don’t take it any longer,” and acts accordingly. In his interesting book, The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt, Barrington Moore has tried to prove that suffering and consciousness of injustice are not sufficient to induce large-scale revolts (revolutions) in broader masses. In his opinion, a decisive role is played by the conviction that suffered injustice is neither inevitable nor a “lesser evil,” i.e. that a better social set-up could be realized.
The story Of A Rich Dog And A Poor Dog fits the account of the Libyan mass frustration very well. This is an uplifting, inspiring, and comforting story about being who you are. When material possessions are used to measure personal worth, it’s discovered that true happiness and genuine wealth only exists where there is freedom to be one’s self and develop one’s natural abilities. Kingston, a wealthy pedigree dachshund meets Rags, a country hound. Each one believes he has everything, until they meet.
The Story Of A Rich Dog And A Poor Dog is a timeless fable for everyone it tells us that freedom is one of the most important things in life. Liberty means freedom. The opposite of freedom is slavery. Liberty is more important than security. The black slaves a few hundred years ago would have given up their shelter in exchange for being free. Slavery is horrible, even if the chains and bars are made of gold. A gilded cage is not much better than a dank prison. Libyans felt they were wealthy slaves, but still slaves. Slaves that enjoyed luxury and tranquillity, but still slaves. Libyans were fed up in their gilded cages.
Until these uprisings, most freedom seekers were the targets of elimination from radical political Islam. However they were the darlings and icons of stability for the West. The Google and Twitter inspired revolutions, as a result of global connectivity, have totally destroyed the established rules of the game. The exceptional change now is that these benign dictatorships have lost to the ‘fresh waft of freedom’ spreading through the cyber space and is definitely inspired by demands of people to be freed from dogma and orthodoxy. What political Islam and its agents, like OBL, could not provoke the universal urge for freedom did it in a very short time. This is the success of liberal democracy and freedom. Arab despots are falling like nine pins, yet the catalyst of all this was toppling of ‘Saddam’ symbol of ultimate tyranny in the Muslim world.*
Far too long we Arabs have been silent while their tyrants, their trillions, their oil, have been subjected to the political, economic, and military brutal occupation, genocide, theft, racism of their shady leadership.
“This must be a world of democracy and respect for human rights, a world freed from the horrors of poverty, hunger, deprivation and ignorance, relieved of the threat and the scourge of civil wars and external aggression and unburdened of the great tragedy of millions forced to become refugees”
While the Muslim world has suffered, they have blamed everyone but themselves. This state of denial and extreme “hypocrisy” means Muslims are ill-equipped to deal with problems of endemic terrorism. In the Islamic terminology, the word “Hypocrisy” is a substitute for “Nifaq”. This word Nifaq has been mentioned in the Qur’an thirty-one (31) times in different forms.
“The hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of the fire-no helper will thou find for them;-” (4:145)
This “gross hypocrisy” resident within mainstream mores of Islamic polity has led the nation of Islam into a collective rage of vanity and powerlessness. The enemy within is rarely ever found to be the culprit, the deviation from injunctions so explicitly enjoined is leading us to a decay. There is no moral equivalence of crimes against humanity.
Revolution will brew in any society where minds are inhibited and controlled, the net result is that orthodoxy and dogma will face big revolutions as a consequence, strings attached on minds of man are just too weak to hold freedom of man in this open world.
So, how will Libya turn at the conclusion of the current conflict? The chart shows two stark realities of countries that have coped with enormous human conflict over the past decades. Rwanda suffered a genocide, and yet the past decade has seen a steady rise in the Rwandan HDI. In contrast, the Mugabe regime has caused Zimbabwe to plummet to the clear bottom of the rankings. The real challenge of nation building begins now either Libya can waste its freedom n the altar of 1,400 old old-fashioned doctrine or progress as a free nation with equal opportunity to everyone.
