as the saying goes better the devil you
know than the devil you don’t but is
that really the case hi I’m Rebecca
Brayton and welcome to watchmojo.com and
today we’re speaking with Libyan author
his shemitah’ about the conflict in
Libya Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship and
what it means for the Libyan people it
would be important to get some context
as to what’s going on in Libya today and
what has been going on would you be able
to distill the core conflicts that are
at play there
of course it’s incredibly important to
get rid of these terrible dictatorships
but I think what is what is what is more
magical about what’s happening is that
it is a moment that a people suddenly
realize that they can change the reality
it commits them to questions to do with
what does it mean to be a people what
sort of society do we want to have what
are our aspirations what is our identity
and all these conversations are
fantastically stimulating not only to
the confidence of people but it’s their
stimulating culturally to one thing that
is difficult to explain to people who
don’t know the Libyan reality is that
for the last 42 years we’ve known
exactly what is expected out of us we
knew what’s gonna happen next
we knew what books we should read what
books we shouldn’t read we knew what how
we should behave suddenly we don’t and
of course that uncertainty carries with
it a sense of anxiety people are worried
what is going well what are we going to
end up with but I think more importantly
what it carries with it is a sense of
hope and excitement and also maturity
because I think deciding what sort of
society wants is a is a mature act and
it invites people into a dialogue that
is profoundly important and and I’ve
noticed this kind of stimulation to the
public dialogue in Libya amongst all
sorts of very different people
tell us about Gaddafi himself what kind
of ruler he is and his dictatorship and
his tactics
he’s unique amongst dictators in the
sense that he is the state and lots of
people who want to understand Libya find
that very difficult to to grasp in the
sense that there are no institutions
there is no such thing as an army
particularly after 1990s when Qaddafi
realized that the
is starting to resemble a proper army
and therefore he can’t influence it and
all the ways he wanted to he started to
dismantle it and so what you end up with
is militias really you know brigades
that are loyal to him so that’s one of
the ways that he is unique the other way
is that he is like most dictators
incredibly intrusive he has intruded
into every little crevice of Libyan
public life one of the first things he
did is he destroyed civic life so all
the theaters all the cinemas anything
that caused for public participation
festivals unions law societies were
immediately destroyed and in fact even
football became a threat because
suddenly you know there all these people
that gather to watch a game so he banned
football for a good ten years there is
design to the madness you know it was
because he’s a very easy person to
caricature but I think that misses how
incredibly intelligent and able he has
been and cunning to to control this
small country and I think the curious
thing about dictatorship any type of
dictatorship is that it looks incredibly
powerful and in control all the time and
sometimes that blocks the imagination
from imagining any other reality and
many Libyans have surrendered I think in
their quiet hours to the conclusion that
it’s going to be like this forever
Gaddafi’s been around so long that most
of Libyans have been born after because
Libya is an incredibly youthful country
according to that theory that means that
they’re dictatorships project has been
comprehensive on them there’s no way
these people are going to rise because
they don’t know any other reality and
now we see no actually no it’s the
opposite it’s exactly because the
majority of Libyans are youthful and
have the recklessness and the audacity
and the madness and the ambition and the
hope of youth also exactly because the
influence of the dictatorship on them
has been so comprehensive they can’t
give it any benefit of the doubt there’s
they know exactly what it’s about that
they’ve risen and you know it’s been led
by people how would you describe the
relationship between America Europe and
the Gaddafi regime it’s a relationship
that is on some level scandalous because
particularly after 2003 when the
international community headed by xx
Blair who went to Libya shook hands with
Qaddafi called him or North African
friend and very respectable governments
started to treat Qaddafi with respect
the argument for that was that this will
motivate him to be more open and to
engage in to reform we can see now that
actually it’s it’s exactly the opposite
that treatment gave him legitimacy made
him more able to oppress his own people
arguably extended his already very long
reign and allowed him to oppress a lot
of dissent under the claim that he was
fighting terrorism the logic up to now
is that you know these people can’t be
trusted it’s better to have a dictator
even if he’s ruthless and violent that
is holds them in his grip and that he is
somewhat loyal to us at least we know
how he’s going to behave
hopefully that’s now being superseded by
the idea that actually no the more
consistent and more honorable engagement
and desire for stability has to arise
from a people’s will to be expressed to
decide how they want to live their lives
one of the troubling things about
international politics is that you
realize that people prefer to deal with
somebody they know than when something
that was somebody that is good or bad or
they don’t think of those terms you know
and I’m hoping that all of this dramatic
change will maybe make us all revisit
that a bit thank you very much
know than the devil you don’t but is
that really the case hi I’m Rebecca
Brayton and welcome to watchmojo.com and
today we’re speaking with Libyan author
his shemitah’ about the conflict in
Libya Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship and
what it means for the Libyan people it
would be important to get some context
as to what’s going on in Libya today and
what has been going on would you be able
to distill the core conflicts that are
at play there
of course it’s incredibly important to
get rid of these terrible dictatorships
but I think what is what is what is more
magical about what’s happening is that
it is a moment that a people suddenly
realize that they can change the reality
it commits them to questions to do with
what does it mean to be a people what
sort of society do we want to have what
are our aspirations what is our identity
and all these conversations are
fantastically stimulating not only to
the confidence of people but it’s their
stimulating culturally to one thing that
is difficult to explain to people who
don’t know the Libyan reality is that
for the last 42 years we’ve known
exactly what is expected out of us we
knew what’s gonna happen next
we knew what books we should read what
books we shouldn’t read we knew what how
we should behave suddenly we don’t and
of course that uncertainty carries with
it a sense of anxiety people are worried
what is going well what are we going to
end up with but I think more importantly
what it carries with it is a sense of
hope and excitement and also maturity
because I think deciding what sort of
society wants is a is a mature act and
it invites people into a dialogue that
is profoundly important and and I’ve
noticed this kind of stimulation to the
public dialogue in Libya amongst all
sorts of very different people
tell us about Gaddafi himself what kind
of ruler he is and his dictatorship and
his tactics
he’s unique amongst dictators in the
sense that he is the state and lots of
people who want to understand Libya find
that very difficult to to grasp in the
sense that there are no institutions
there is no such thing as an army
particularly after 1990s when Qaddafi
realized that the
is starting to resemble a proper army
and therefore he can’t influence it and
all the ways he wanted to he started to
dismantle it and so what you end up with
is militias really you know brigades
that are loyal to him so that’s one of
the ways that he is unique the other way
is that he is like most dictators
incredibly intrusive he has intruded
into every little crevice of Libyan
public life one of the first things he
did is he destroyed civic life so all
the theaters all the cinemas anything
that caused for public participation
festivals unions law societies were
immediately destroyed and in fact even
football became a threat because
suddenly you know there all these people
that gather to watch a game so he banned
football for a good ten years there is
design to the madness you know it was
because he’s a very easy person to
caricature but I think that misses how
incredibly intelligent and able he has
been and cunning to to control this
small country and I think the curious
thing about dictatorship any type of
dictatorship is that it looks incredibly
powerful and in control all the time and
sometimes that blocks the imagination
from imagining any other reality and
many Libyans have surrendered I think in
their quiet hours to the conclusion that
it’s going to be like this forever
Gaddafi’s been around so long that most
of Libyans have been born after because
Libya is an incredibly youthful country
according to that theory that means that
they’re dictatorships project has been
comprehensive on them there’s no way
these people are going to rise because
they don’t know any other reality and
now we see no actually no it’s the
opposite it’s exactly because the
majority of Libyans are youthful and
have the recklessness and the audacity
and the madness and the ambition and the
hope of youth also exactly because the
influence of the dictatorship on them
has been so comprehensive they can’t
give it any benefit of the doubt there’s
they know exactly what it’s about that
they’ve risen and you know it’s been led
by people how would you describe the
relationship between America Europe and
the Gaddafi regime it’s a relationship
that is on some level scandalous because
particularly after 2003 when the
international community headed by xx
Blair who went to Libya shook hands with
Qaddafi called him or North African
friend and very respectable governments
started to treat Qaddafi with respect
the argument for that was that this will
motivate him to be more open and to
engage in to reform we can see now that
actually it’s it’s exactly the opposite
that treatment gave him legitimacy made
him more able to oppress his own people
arguably extended his already very long
reign and allowed him to oppress a lot
of dissent under the claim that he was
fighting terrorism the logic up to now
is that you know these people can’t be
trusted it’s better to have a dictator
even if he’s ruthless and violent that
is holds them in his grip and that he is
somewhat loyal to us at least we know
how he’s going to behave
hopefully that’s now being superseded by
the idea that actually no the more
consistent and more honorable engagement
and desire for stability has to arise
from a people’s will to be expressed to
decide how they want to live their lives
one of the troubling things about
international politics is that you
realize that people prefer to deal with
somebody they know than when something
that was somebody that is good or bad or
they don’t think of those terms you know
and I’m hoping that all of this dramatic
change will maybe make us all revisit
that a bit thank you very much
Please follow and like us: