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One’s Home Is What One Is: Libya and Her People Reunite

Nizar Awad - 3/21/2011

Yes, what else but home?
It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
That was the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”

As Libyans we have to unite around our flag, our revolution and our country in her time of dire need. The Libyan people are noble and forgiving but they would draw the line on those who deliberately abandon them in their time of need. Mark my word the time of reckoning is upon us and Libyans who are still putting their lives on the line would call to account all those who abandon them during these crucial days. Libyans would call a spade a spade and particularly those shirking their responsibilities for their homeland and opting to remain neutral despite the ongoing horrific crimes of this genocidal regime. On behalf of my brave people I also would like to recall the words of the late President Harry S. Truman and ask such individuals that “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the Kitchen” and do it soon. It is high time for all capable Libyans to stand firm and show their true loyalties by fighting alongside our men and women with weapons and words. Libya, like it or not would be rid of Ghaddafi’s and his murderous clan and anyone who overtly or covertly support them could soon join the purgatory that they threatened us with throughout their Stalinist reign over my beloved country and people.

To those Libyans who are still throwing halfhearted and overly cautious jabs at the monster Muammar Abu Minyar al-Ghaddafi due to their being mild-mannered or are simply straddling events depending on whose side the pendulum of struggle swings or the direction the wind of conflict blows, I would like to say please either come out swinging with vigor or for God’s sake step aside and leave matters to those brave men and women who could. We are embroiled in a great revolution against this draconic and hideous freak of nature who is perpetrating heinous crimes against our people and in response writers and columnists should be entering the fray firing at this regime with words of condemnation as powerful as the bullets and bombs being fired by our brave revolutionaries who are at the very moment putting their lives on the line for our beloved Libya and Libyan people. Being coy or trusting is what got us into this mess in the first place and enabled this reject to pounce on our peaceful and proud country and put us on the leach for the last forty two years. The sooner we rid ourselves of this Ghoulish Ghaddafi and his ragtag regime the sooner we restore the pride of our country and the dignity of her people that was mired in the mud by this creep that nobody knows for sure what rock in the Sahara desert he crawled out from under. Our demonstrators back home truly captured the essence of this rodent by depicting him as a rat on walls and posters.

My contribution to the efforts to unravel this despot and his loathsome regime, center around exposing Ghaddafi’s deliberate manipulation of our Libyan proud culture and the transformation of our language into a vernacular for his laughable delusions and an outlet for his deep seated anxieties. He did not stop with his blatant usurpation of our great heritage but exploited our common language to express his farfetched fabrications and disingenuous remarks thereby earning himself the title of the world clown par excellence. His memorable antics even at the United Nations had clearly outmatched the antics of the American fictional character Bozo the Clown and consequently shamed him into begrudgingly exiting the spotlight that he proudly enjoyed since the 1960s. I would like to go on the limp here and suggest that even the American saying that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” would be turned in Ghaddafi’s pea brain into “the way to a nation’s mind is through its language and culture”.

In other words he, in is his bid to control our people in Libya, relied on constantly raising the specter of violence and at the same time poising our language with words and expressions of hate, intimidation and threats thereby fanning the flames of prejudice and discrimination among Libya’s citizens, clans and tribes. We are in the midst of a life and death situation and as such I beseech our writers, columnists and freelancers to forcefully respond to this dictator’s propaganda machine by exposing him and his crimes and showing the world the terrible nightmare that the Libyan people have been enduring day by day, for more than two decades.

Every Libyan or Libyan family had a story to tell about the monstrosity of this regime including the writer of this column. There is rarely a person in or outside of Libya who doesn’t have a tragic story to tell about relatives or friends who were incarcerated, tortured, killed or forced into exile by this hateful warmonger. Ghaddafi began to simultaneously unleashing his hate filled verbiage and killing machine as soon as he pounced on power under the cover of darkness in 1969 and unseated our honored and respected King Idris al-Sanusi, Allah (God) bless his soul. After Libyans, beginning with University students, revolted, he crushed their rebellion by cracking down on demonstrators and then hanging some of them on university campuses in Benghazi and Tripoli. This led to crushing the rebellion and forced many Libyans into exile. Such atrocities were followed by Ghaddafi’s assault on our language, history and culture. I and many other Libyans who sought refuge in Europe, the United States of America and countries as far away as Australia and Japan, were eye witnesses to Ghaddafi’s assailment on our language and social harmony in order to sow the seeds of animosity between our people and undermine the very fabric of our society. As the Arabic saying goes “the hatchling of a duck is a natural swimmer” or the American similar saying “a chip off the old block” Ghaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam proved that he is a natural in his last ditch efforts to unnerve our revolutionaries by inciting a civil war or a tribal war in words culled directly from the dictionary of his lunatic father such as describing the outcome of the conflict as “rivers of blood” or urging his roving gangs to wipe out their opponents wherever they are thus resonating his father’s chilling send off words to his murderous militias and mercenaries to launch search and destroy missions to kill his own people wherever they are and search for them “Inch by inch, house by house, room by room and alley by alley”.

The campaign of this eccentric dictator to infect our language with his ludicrous and warped words and expressions and to inject it with his sick machinations and incitements continued unabated in his speeches, interviews and incessant ramblings on TV and on the internet. After he unleashed his bandits to crush the students’ revolts in Benghazi and Tripoli in the late seventies he came to Benghazi University and delivered a speech laced with verbal insults and incitements. He began his talk by insulting the intelligence of the attendees including students and faculty members by insinuating that they are a bunch of brainwashed imposters and agents of foreign countries and then using the dialect of Tripolitania to ridicule those present and their education for the sole purpose of turning students from the western side of Libya against their eastern classmates. Ironically, that did work for soon after he left; the campus was up in arms betting students against each other. On a personal note, a colleague of mine at Benghazi University who, being also from Tripolitania, obviously reveled in Ghaddafi’s veiled and unveiled threats against us Cyrenaicans (Inhabitants of Eastern Libya) then wasted no time in bragging to me that “Attawra tawratna, wa assalta saltana yaa widdi” thus deliberately using his Tripolitarian dialect to say “The revolution is our revolution, and the authority is our authority, lad.” What revolution was this semi-illiterate fellow talking about? Ghaddafi’s so-called revolution was nothing by a heist or you can even call it an armed robbery conducted in the early hours of that fateful night of September 1st 1969 which resulted in his stealing power from our constitutional monarchy (1951-1969). Well Mr. self- Congratulatory, the time of reckoning is upon us and the Libyans would not forget those who abandoned them in their time of need and aided and abetted the criminals of the regime who unleashed their vendetta on the Benghazi University students at the heels of Ghaddafi‘s speech on campus .
Ghaddafi also played the tribe card by reshuffling loyalties among tribes and at times turning them against each other to insure his control of the country based on the policy of “divide and conquer”. He even went as far as to mobilize the tribes surrounding the city of Derna on the Mediterranean Sea to invade the city and later pursued a similar scheme to subdue the city of Benghazi. The man is a habitual liar and an artful manipulator just like the artful dodger in Charles Dickens’ novel “Oliver Twist” and as such he employs his natural and god-given or I should say satan-given talents to mislead and deceive to the hilt.

Remember, this so-called invincible leader or so he thinks still insists that the Libyan people love him and those who hate his guts are a bunch of misfits who are under the influence of hallucinating drugs. Speaking of drugs! Have you seen the way he keeps his mouth open in his “Zanga, Zanga” speech while gulping air into his lungs just like a fish out of water. That manner of breathing my friends could be associated with nervousness or with having diseased lugs due constant popping of antidepressants and drugs to treat mental illnesses which also cause dryness of the mouth. Obviously the excitement of igniting a destructive inferno similar to that of the equally insane Roman Emperor Nero, is too much suppress without the aid of a cocktail of bills including antidepressants. Unfortunately, Ghaddafi is too stupid to play a musical instrument like Nero’s ukulele and strum along while watching his country go up in flames. What Ghaddafi lacks in musical talent he compensates in vernacular which overflows with resentment and hate. This would mean that following his elimination it would take years of rehabilitation and therapy to expunge the residue of such hateful words and expressions from the minds of our people and particularly those of our innocent and impressionable children. As soon as Ghaddafi usurped power from the monarchy he usurped our language as well. In his first radio address to the apprehensive Libyan people he launched a barrage of lies promising them a new era of equality, justice and a fair share of the oil revenues. Once his authority was challenged first by the university students and later by other segments of the population who saw the regime for what it was he again turned to the language to instill fear in their hearts and consequently holding them hostage to his erratic mood swings the same way his armies were holding our people hostage in their own country.

The colonel’s language of deception in early times was replaced by hate filled words and expressions. His words to describe the fate of those who oppose him were reminiscent of the words and threats of the Italian fascist leaders who ruled Libya from 1911 to 1945. Along with inciting his followers to set up gallows in city squares and university campuses, he supplied them with chants and slogans to complement their reign of terror such as “our leader is Muammar and who ever oppose us would be surly destroyed”. He even introduced expressions such “bats of darkness” to describe his opponents inside the country and “stray dogs” to describe his opponents abroad. Even the late US President Ronald Reagan (served two terms in office 1981-1989) who was aware of Ghaddafi’s death squads targeting Libyans abroad, described him in words that the rapid colonel could appreciate by calling him “the mad dog of the Middle East”. After Ghaddafi’s henchmen and death squads masterminded the bombing in 1986 of a West German discotheque frequented by American soldiers, Reagan ordered operation “El Dorado Canyon” in which sorties of American warplanes targeted several places in Benghazi and Tripoli including Ghaddafi’s residence inside the Bab al-Azayziya military camp. The demolished home of Ghaddafi was the scene of his frantic speech to apprehend and murder all Libyans who rose against him.

To make matters even worse for our oppressed people Ghaddafi and on several occasions forced them to watch actual hangings on TV followed by reruns of such horrific scenes enhanced with voice over shrieks threatening “thabh” slaughter, “sahq” grinding, “shanq” death by hanging and “fana’” annihilation or extinction directed at perceived and unperceived enemies of his murderous regime. Do you still remember the words he used in his “zanga, zanga” or “alley by alley” rants threatening to subject his opponents to a holocaust and instructing his SS (Schutzstaffel) type protection squadrons or paramilitary which he calls (revolutionary committees) to search for and kill our revolutionaries wherever they are or as he put (inch by inch, home by home, room by room and alley by alley) well, this “wolf in sheep clothing” has recently proved his knack for appropriating new words designed to incite violence by adding “haita, haita” or rock by rock to the list of places being targeted by his gangsters in their search and destroy missions. As a matter of fact “fana’” meaning extinction or annihilation seems to be a favorite of the Libyan dictator that he has recently reused in response to a possible no fly zone that may or may not include direct military intervention by asserting, get this, that “the Libyan people would all be annihilated to safeguard the oil resources”. How low this man could sink and how utterly perturbed to suggest that he would sacrifice the entire Libyan population rather than surrender his control of the country’s vast oil resources that are being siphoned by him, his kids and sycophants.

Having realized the looming threat of a no fly zone and the possibility of air strikes by NATO and other countries’ air forces possibly including those belonging to members of the Arab League, he suddenly did a complete about face and retreated to his anti-western and anti-imperialist rhetoric and in doing so lent undeniable credence to the saying a “leopard never changes his spots”.

However Ghaddafi also resembles a chameleon and changes his language and positions as often as he changes his attires and therefore he showed himself to be untrustworthy and a danger not only to the Libyan people but to the whole region and even the whole world. Following the NATO air strikes inside Libya he went as far as to threaten countries of the Mediterranean Basin and North Africa as well as their ships and shipping lanes. Let us be fair though and acknowledge that there is a semblance of truth to his minions’ belief that when it comes to genius their leader is beyond his time for he truly belongs to the Middle Ages where his breakthrough quotes such as the one about the principle difference between men and women and that is “women have menstrual periods and men don’t” would surely fall on deaf ears. When the gifted scholar was pressed to expand on such mind bugling insight he added “Women are females and men are males”. I would like to go on a limp here and assume that many world renowned geographers and demographer could still be scratching their heads in disbelief at his out of this world discovery that “Egyptians were called that because they are from Egypt and the same logic applies to Lebanon, the Sudan, Turkey and Iran. So it is no mystery that Libyans are called Libyans because a Libyan is born in Libya” end of quote.

Now that the UN Resolution 1973 to impose a no fly zone on Ghaddafi’s air force has been passed thanks to the valiant efforts of men and women of conscious at the UN and worldwide I am hoping for the sake of the Libyan people that the following actions whether military or otherwise would expedite the end of Ghaddafi and his outlawed regime. So you see Mr. “Dean of Arab leaders” or so you would like to be called, common decency exists among world leaders and nations whose compassion and humanity could not be bought by dangling oil contracts in front of them like your offers to China, Russia and India to replace Western oil companies in Libya with their own. I, like other Libyans, would forever be indebted to the countries that voted yes for the no fly resolution 1973 including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Gabon, France, Colombia, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States of America. At the same time we would like to extend our appreciation to the countries that chose to abstain rather that vote no on the resolution including Russia, China, India, Germany and Brazil. Refraining from imposing the veto power by either Russia or China did indeed pave the way for the passage of the resolution.

On the occasion of this brave resolution I would like to tell supporters of what they call “the lone or only eagle” meaning the most dominant fowl among identical Arab leading fools oops I mean fowls, that their so called souring eagle is now officially flightless or grounded by a UN decree. Once victory is won by our brave men and women protecting our great cities and guarding our frontlines then the time for healing would surely proceed in earnest. Even though the dismantling of the regime along with the concocted legacy of Ghaddafi are priorities, the next priority in my opinion should be healing the Libyan peoples’ physical and emotional scars that have been inflicted by this crazy of crazies and also help rebuild their shattered lives. Along with rebuilding the country’s infrastructure and restoring our people’s trust and self-confidence this monumental task should also include reclaiming our language and our genuine cultural heritage that were hijacked and maliciously distorted by this man’s vindictive and twisted personality for over two decades. The process as I see it should start with weeding out all slogans and expressions associated with him and his regime then replacing them with slogans of hope and life affirming expressions that would invite rays of hope into our melancholic hearts and put back innocent smiles on the forlorn and terrified faces of our beloved children.

Rest assured that following the rout of the Ghaddafi regime by the joint efforts of the Libyan heroes and the heroes of Operation Odyssey Dawn, Libya would rise from the ashes like the mythical Sphinx and her people would never again march to the rhymes of an oppressive past but to the rhythm of the future. They would abandon the road of complacency that is heavily traveled by the faint hearted among nations and instead would embark on their own Odyssey by walking proudly up the road of freedom, honor and true democracy or as the American Poet Laureate Robert Frost in an allusion to Homer’s Odyssey writes,
I shall be telling this with a sigh.

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.