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Hail Gathafi, King in the Hereafter

Nizar Awad - 4/7/2011

With his tragic end fast approaching Africa’s King of Kings Muammar Gathafi must now be basing up and down his royal tent while slowly resigning himself to a fate similar to that of Macbeth, the tragic figure in Shakespeare’s play. The remorseless Gathafi could at the this very moment be engaged in soliloquies reminiscent of that of Macbeth who having come to terms with the fallacies of his designs to manipulate his way to power and greatness ruminates:

Tomorrow, and to tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day today,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.”--Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

Gathafi is a tragic figure head to toe. I am not the only one who predicted that he would never relinquish power without a disastrous war and he did not disappoint us in his ominous “Zanga, Zanga” or alley by alley speech. This demonic speech, that still makes people shudder, was prelude to his unleashing the power of an army which he has been building for the last forty two years, not to defend our country but to decimate our people and our cities when the time comes. In the speech that would forever be engraved in our memories he vowed to fight to the end by having his supporters and opponents engage in a hellish warfare while he is awaiting the outcome in his bunker with some contingent plans including an exit strategy just in case things don’t go his way. This weasel and coward would never honor his words that the revolution would triumph “over his dead body” and do the decent thing by committing suicide like Hitler did in his bunker or commit seppuku (hara-kiri) as some Japanese commanders did when they lost battles. The man had an exit strategy on the night of September 1st to hightail out of Libya possibly to Egypt just in case his coconspirators blew the plan to usurp power under the cover of darkness. He will fight alright but to the last man of his supporters but then he would not stick around and instead he would mysteriously vanish into thin air just as he appeared on the scene from nowhere some forty two years ago. In terms of the witches whose incantations promised Macbeth longevity and an everlasting glory there is no shortage of identical witches and warlocks in this wizard’s massive tent.

The one soothsayer that has recently stole the spot light from all others and shined like none before on Gathafi’s state Jamahiriya (state of the hordes) is none other than the so-called doctor (obviously of witch craft) Yusuf Shakir whose talents in sorcery and divining the future has earned him a daily spot as a political commentator on Libya’s national TV. This weirdo and hypocrite , who is by the way a prototype of the majority of Gathafi’s pages and court jesters, shocked his fellow commentators by claiming that he was bringing good tidings of great joy to his master’s armies and supporters which would, get this, become realities in seventy two hours from the time he concludes his incantations and dramatically tosses his prayer beads on the coffee table he is sitting on. And we thought that Macbeth’s witches are fast workers. By the way Shaykh Shakir delivered these quirky remarks more than a week ago and we are still waiting for the sky to open up and for the masterminds of his selective Armageddon to get the show on the road. He then produced what he said was a copy of a letter from what he described as a powerful holy man named Sulayman al-Hakim (Wise Solomon possibly a reference to King Solomon of the Old Testament) to a Jinn (Genie) chief of staff named Hasituh or Hasibtuh al-Maghrib (meaning the Arab West or Morocco) with instructions to aid Gathafi by having his Genie commanders on the ground unleash calamities of immeasurable magnitude on Turkey, the United States, England, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates for aiding and abetting in the humanitarian efforts to safe and protect my besieged Libyan people. Shakir then proceeded to read Hasituh’s directives in an eerie voice reminiscent of that of the three witches when they foretold the future of Macbeth and his companion Banquo which consequently sealed their fate and the fates of those around them.

Anyway according to Shakir a field commander Genie named Hamshash or Hamshas was instructed to cause a massive earthquake in Turkey while another filed commander Genie named Ashawish or Ashawis would conjure up what Shakir called deadly yellow winds that would blow over England, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and destroy anything and everything in their paths. Shakir, who was speaking on behalf of his coconspirator Sulayman, even threatened the United States with showers of massive meteors that would rain down on the country in great numbers thereby causing massive death and destruction. Dr. Shakir even predicted that such a horrible natural disaster targeting the United States could come as soon as the day after he dramatically delivered his scary hallucinations. Furthermore, Shakir also mentioned another Genie commander by the name of Halmjara but he did not elaborate as to his mission therefore I assume that this particular Genie is in fact on reserve just in case there is a need for backup by the commanders doing battle with one of the unfortunate countries mentioned above. Can you imagine that this nerd who obviously belongs in an asylum for the mentally and criminally insane is actually a prominent member of Gathafi’s inner circle? This man who is clearly off his rocker and crazy as a loon has been erroneously claiming that he earned a doctorate degree in political science from the University of Missouri in the city of Columbia, State of Missouri, USA. Having witnessed his very strange ramblings I am now inclined to believe those Libyans who knew him personally and who confirmed that he never obtained such a degree.

The similarities between the two tragic figures Muammar and Macbeth can be extended to their penchant for treason and murder and their being abandoned by their trusted confidants thereby causing both to become overly distraught while staring down at the abyss awaiting their certain down falls. While Macbeth hastened his demise by his betrayal and murder of King Duncan at the instigation of his vengeful wife, Muammar is still committing the ultimate acts of treason by plotting and carrying out the coldblooded murders of Libyans with the instigation and consent of his equally murderous sons, aids and remaining confidants. I imagine that just as Macbeth flew into an uncontrollable rage upon hearing of his being forsaken by his trusted commander Macduff and the deceased king’s sons Malcolm and Donalbain, Muammar must have been hitting his bunker’s roofs and repeatedly every time he hears about one of his trusted confidants jumping ship before the tide of the February 17th revolution sweeps him and his followers to sea. I can only imagine Muammar’s outbursts of “sound and fury” when he heard about the defections of his interior minister general Abd al-Fattah Yunis al-‘Ubaydi, his foreign minister Musa Kusa, his head of protocol Nuri al-Mismari, his UN envoy Muhammad Shalgham and his entire UN team and lately Ali Treiki who was Muammar’s intended replacement for Mr. Shalgham as the UN envoy. To add insult to injury even the former Nicaraguan foreign minister Mr. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann has backed out of a deal with Gathafi to become his UN envoy.

At this stage in the war which was forced upon us by Muammar, it is becoming more and more evident that he is running out of options and in turn finding himself caught between a rock and a hard place exactly like the situation Macbeth found himself in, in his final days. The question remains, would the similarities end here? or that Muammar would react to his being cornered by hostile forces from all sides just like Macbeth did and fight to the death as he threatened in his infamous “zanga, zanga” or alley by alley speech. In this case I am confident that our brave and patriotic revolutionaries under the leadership of our Libyan National Army Generals including Abd al-Fattah Yunis and Suleiman Mahmud would have to storm Gathafi’s last Bastion of treachery in the camp of Bab al-Azayziya just as the army commanders Macduff and Malcolm besieged then ransacked Macbeth’s last remaining enclave in Dunsinane Castle and put an end to the tyrant’s tormented existence. Don’t expect that Gathafi, whose horrors show that he has no conscience whatsoever, would come to a realization similar to that of Lady Macbeth and wish that he could wash the blood stains of innocent Libyans off his hands and laments,

Out, damned spot! Out, I say—One: two: why,
Then, ‘tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my
Lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
Fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
Account? -- Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 1, lines 26-40)

Don’t fret colonel Macthafi I would still salute you with identical words to those used by the witches when greeting Macbeth “all hail Muammar, thou shalt be Africa’s king of kings, hereafter” but only when you are being paraded around in a straight jacket and on your way to face your victims and Judgment Day here and in the hereafter, Insha’a Allah (God’s Willing).