Libya

I was in Libya from September to July  in 2009 to 2010. I was teaching as an Associate Professor at Al Mergib University which is now called Misurata University.  I taught English at a teacher's training college in Al Khums. They paid us well which helped me because i have an autistic son but getting the money home was difficult. Al Khums is famous for being the gateway of Africa once upon a time and contains the magnificent ruins of Leptis Magna. It was a peaceful semi-urban space/place and I loved its quietness and peacefulness. I was an  Indian Christian in a Muslim land but in Libya religion was not as much of an issue as in Saudi Arabia, in which also I did a stint. This does not mean that other religions were encouraged, it was just that they were not persecuted. Politics was the subject that was strictly never to be discussed by us. He who was not meant to be even named aloud by us - as in the Potter novels - in public,  ruled the country, had ruled it for forty years.,,

The people were friendly and kind, although the language was a barrier.  Not many knew English.  They were not so kind to African blacks, though.  They distrusted whites, naturally, and hated the Italians, rightly.  However, we were not treated well by some of the staff in the university which made me decide to leave after a year. Before going I bought an English copy of the famous Green Book of Democracy written by Muammar Al Quadafi - he who was not meant to be named in public, whose name we were not supposed to take in vain. i read it. It was radically communist in its orientation. The gulf between what was written in it and what was practiced was impassable.

While on the way to Tripoli I used to see  huge billboards which tried to show the world the vision Quadafi wanted  his country and Africa and the world to believe in as the one he espoused. The "revolution" that had brought him to power was extolled in paintings, pictures of him hung everywhere, and the bill boards said one goal, one purpose, one Africa, united we stand & divided we fall etc. I understood that the tribes had once rallied around him because he had promised prosperity to Libyan Arabs - the famed oil - and unity to  (Muslim ) Africa. He kept religious extremism and fundamentalism at bay.  The country was not poor. but I could sense that the people , especially my students, mainly girls, wanted change and freedom and a better future. They liked India because of the freedom we seem to enjoy.

What is happening in Libya cannot be understood by Western powers because they think that Quadafi should not fall or, as now, should be replaced by a puppet. But the people are not thinking of the West. They think of their future, of even distribution of the country's wealth, and if their dreams are coloured by Islam and notions of Arab supremacy it is not coloured in the same way by these things as the dreams of the  people in Saudi Arabia who hold the reins of power there. I do not agree with the people of Libya who are now in the revolution who want a more Islamic and Arabic state or Quadafi's people or the Western powers of intervention because I believe in bloodless revolution  as much as I believe in change- Assange's methods may be more helpful -but I understand what is happening fully. My support goes to the ones caught in between who care for none of the forces that long for power or wealth. 

I have not written this article to offer any solutions. i belong to everyday life and ordinary people and speak only of their need for a humdrum, boring, daily existence, away from history's idiotic shenanigans based on the exigencies of natural resources and man's innate greed and selfishness and power hungry nature. Take it or leave it. It is in that space that love, sex, romance , music, poetry, literature, spirituality, philosophy, fine art, research and most  of the other things that I love are born.