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Metamorphosis of a Libyan Tragedy

Nizar Awad - 7/11/2011

The Libyan tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes has been in the making since Gathafi’s coup d’état which overthrew the Libyan Monarchy (1951-1969) on September 1st, 1969.

What happened in Libya following the overthrow of the Monarchy, to paraphrase the words of WWII British Prime Minister Winston Churchill which he used to describe the hegemony of the USSR over Eastern Europe, was the descent of an iron curtain upon the country and her unsuspecting people.

The atmosphere of fear and mistrust created by the regime consequently forced Libyans to seek security in silence or the exercise of self-censorship sometimes even when communicating with close family members. In certain scenarios ,reminiscent of Communist Russia or Nazi Germany, parents ceased to discuss politics in the presence of their children for fear that they would repeat what they heard in public and inadvertently invite the wrath of the authorities.

After besieging the entire country with his security forces Gathafi devised and implemented schemes to further subdue the Libyan people. Along with mandating a continuous military service on all able bodied Libyans, regardless of age and gender, during which they were assaulted physically and psychologically, the regime began a reign of terror ranging from incarceration for even the littlest political offence to public executions.

What disillusioned and unnerved Libyans even more was the realization that the real reason behind the rolling military service was that in the event of being accused of any minor or major offence against the regime they would be tried in a military court rather than a civil court and therefore receive harsher sentences including life in prison and summary execution.

Due to this nerve-wrecking situation Libyans had no choice but to seek refuge in silence and self censorship in everything they do or say. Apart from my close and trusted friends and family members who confided in me concerning their confused emotional and mental states, I had no way of knowing the true feelings of most Libyans regarding the regime except by attempting to discern their genuine thoughts through their spoken words and body language. In terms of body language or emotional state while people’s conversations tended to be disguised for the purpose of self-preservation their eyes betrayed their innermost thoughts and anxieties. Whoever said that eyes are windows to the soul is absolutely right.

As a matter of fact there was a time when attempting to glean people’s true thoughts, before being disguised and transmitted through language, required an ability akin to the philosophical method known as the “stream of consciousness”. This method that was originally devised by the American philosopher William James and later utilized by the American writer William Faulkner is employed to capture people’s pure thoughts before they are filtered through language. In other words Libyans due to the ever-present state surveillance found themselves constantly censoring their language and straining to guess people’s actual thoughts and true intentions particularly concerning tragic and traumatizing atrocities perpetrated by the Gathafi regime.

Over the next forty two years the regime’s intransigence and atrocities continued to escalate in intensity and frequency. In terms of intensity the sporadic state violence became more consistent with the initiation of Colonel Gathafi’s Cultural Revolution in 1973 along the lines of Mao Tse-tung Cultural Revolution in 1966 and with similar consequences.

In terms of frequency Gathafi had his followers create anniversaries for atrocities such as the purging of Libya’s Universities on April 7th, 1976 during which they threaten university students with what they call “physical liquidation”. Gathafi went as far as condoning violent retaliation not only against those accused of wrong doing but against their entire families as well.

This barbaric policy wreaked havoc on countless families whose homes were demolished and their members were either killed or imprisoned and had their livelihood destroyed and reduced to living in abject poverty. He even once declared that “sometimes we have to kill the innocent in order to flush out the guilty”

For more than four decades Libyans who were suffocating under the weight of such monstrous regime have been fallen victims to multiple physical and mental illnesses. Along with the escalating numbers of those suffering from chronic depression, anxiety and paranoia, cases of high blood pressure, diabetes, tuberculosis and heart disease were at a record high by the time regime celebrated its 41st anniversary. When Libya’s youth exploded into a powerful revolt their February 17th Revolution was seen by traumatized countrymen as nothing short of a miracle. Libyans from all walks of life had since vowed that they would forever be grateful to all the heroes and martyrs who stormed the gates of tyranny and freed them from virtual bondage. The Revolutionaries who triumphed against tremendous odds stacked against should be honored as Libya’s greatest generation.

This term which was initially coined by the American Journalist Tom Brokaw to describe the generation of Americans who achieved a decisive victory against the Nazi’s war machine in World War II is indeed a perfect fit for our heroes whose exploits on the battle field were and continued to be the stuff of legends. Even the words of the Greek historian Herodotus emphasizing that from Libya always comes something new, now makes a perfect sense to me. It made no sense to me before when Gathafi used the quote to imply that he is a miracle of his time.

Leave it to Gathafi to muscle in on the legacy of our country. What these young men and women did on that fateful day would without a doubt enter the annals of history as one of the most incredible display of courage humanity have ever seen. The recent ICC (International Criminal Court) indictments against Gathafi, his son Saif al-Islam and his intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanusi for crimes against humanity are a fitting vindication for all Libyans who endured over four decades of prosecution and humiliation at the hands of Gathafi and his regime. The ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has once again come through not only for Libyans but for humanity as a whole.