Muammar al-Qaddafi

Leader of the Libyan Arab Republic (1969–2011)

• Born: 1942
• Birthplace: Near Surt, Libya

As the leader of the Free Unionist Officers, Qaddafi demolished the monarchical ancien régime of Libya and founded the Libyan Arab Republic. He then launched a relentless struggle against Western imperialism, enunciated a sacred ideology by blending the precepts of Islam and Arab nationalism, and subsequently came to develop a friendly and fruitful relationship with the Western powers, especially the United States, by eschewing his earlier radical adversarial stand.

Early Life

Muammar al-Qaddafi (kah-DAH-fee) was born in a poor family belonging to the Arabized Berber Qaddafadam tribe of the Surt Desert between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, two of the three main geographical zones of Libya. Though himself virtually illiterate, Muammar’s father arranged for his seven-year-old son’s education at home under a Qur՚ānic teacher. Muammar went to Surt elementary school at the age of nine. Marked as a Bedouin minority at school, he began to develop a deep aversion to inequality and a strong sense of self-reliance and a talent for leadership. Four years later, his family relocated to Sabha, the main town of the Fezzan district, and here he enrolled in a secondary school.

At Sabha, the teenage Qaddafi was deeply influenced by the Arab leadership of Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had ended monarchical rule and corrupt party politics in Egypt and acquired a reputation as the new leader of the Arab world. In 1956 Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company and confronted a joint attack by England, France, and Israel, emerging from the crisis as a strong Arab nationalist. Qaddafi admired Nasser’s pan-Arab foreign policy and his strong socialist domestic program. In 1958 he celebrated the union of Egypt and Syria as the United Arab Republic (UAR) with his cohorts at school. Three years later he organized a demonstration at Fezzan protesting against Syria’s secession from the UAR and consequently faced expulsion from school. He had to move to Misrata in Tripoli to finish his secondary education in 1963.

Life’s Work

Qaddafi formed his first effective political movement for Arab unity at Misrata. He now planned a massive sociopolitical revolution to liberate Libya from internal corruption and external exploitation. He was convinced that the success of his program called for a corps of disciplined and dedicated military officers committed to Arab unity and emancipation. After high school, he and his close associates joined the military academy at Benghazi. At Benghazi, Qaddafi formed the movement of the Free Unionist Officers, modeled on Nasser’s Free Officers in Egypt. This movement was divided into two sections, one civilian and the other military, with a Central Committee made up of highly disciplined and puritanical military officers who served as the vanguard of the projected revolution. Qaddafi graduated from the academy in 1965, and the year after he visited the Sandhurst Military College in England on a short study program with the Royal Corps of Signals. On his return from England, Qaddafi entered the university to study history while continuing his career in the army. Qaddafi’s experience in England convinced him of the material success of the Western countries and the utter need of a revolutionary change in his own country.

Until modern times, Libya possessed neither a national nor territorial identity. It had been a part of some other territorial unit and was often subject to foreign political domination. Control of the country was limited only to the accessible coastal regions, while the Berbers of the interior remained free from outside control and influence political or cultural they being, to a great extent, Arabized and Islamized since the seventh century. At the start of the twentieth century, coastal Libya, around Tripoli, belonged to the Ottoman Empire. However, in the area of northern Cyrenaica, an Algerian reformist Islamic movement, the Sanusiya, had taken root. It turned militant as a response to the European imperialist activities in the north and west. The Italian conquest of Libya began in 1911 as part of Italy’s plan to create a Fourth Shore of a new Roman Empire, though the Italian conquest was confined to Tripoli and a few other locations by the Ottoman garrison and the Sanusi warrior-monks. After the defeat of the Ottomans as a member of the Central Powers in World War I, the Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini conquered Libya in 1932. Italian imperialism in Libya was gallantly resisted by the Sanusi leader Sheikh Omar Mukhtar, who became Libya’s first national hero after his martyrdom through execution at the hands of the Italians in 1931.

During World War II, the British defeated the Germans (Axis ally of the Italians) and occupied northern Libya while the army of France (one of the Allied Powers) occupied the Fezzan. The United States later built the Wheelus Air Base, near Tripoli. The Allies could not come to an agreement concerning Libya’s political future after the war, so the problem was referred to the United Nations General Assembly, which approved a resolution for an independent Libyan kingdom under the Grand Sanusi Idris of Cyrenaica. Under King Idris, Libya became a constitutional monarchy, though it did not achieve a strong national identity and remained an extremely poor country economically and an underdeveloped nation politically. The only period of relative reform and prosperity was the regime of Abdul Hamid al-Bakkush, who was appointed by the king as his prime minister in October 1967, in an attempt to shore up Libyan national identity in the context of the shattered pan-Arab dream following the disastrous Six-Day Arab-Israeli war of June. However, Bakkush faced considerable political problems (he would be replaced in September 1968), and the family of King Idris began to confront increasing opposition from the powerful and ambitious Shalhi family bent on capturing leadership of post-Idris Libya.

The Six-Day War triggered Qaddafi’s coup. Under his command, his Free Unionist Officers in the army ousted King Idris, who was visiting Turkey at the time for a medical checkup, and established the Libyan Arab Republic on September 1, 1969. Qaddafi planned to turn his coup into a revolution an all-around material, moral, and spiritual conquest that would transform Libya into a modern progressive state. He suspended the constitution, outlawed all political parties, and put his twelve-man Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) in charge of carrying out the required structural changes. Qaddafi’s stated objective was to undo the acts that had “shattered . . . [Libya’s] honor.” The three fundamental ideals of the revolution were announced by the RCC: individual and national liberty, Arab unity, and Islamic socialism. Accordingly, the new government pledged to expel the Italian Libyans, evacuate the foreign military bases, maintain its neutrality between the superpowers, and achieve national unity and Arab unity. Qaddafi’s economic measures included rent reductions, doubling of the minimum wage, and conversion of foreign banks into Libyan joint-stock companies. All place and street names were rewritten in Arabic, alcoholic beverages were banned, Sanusi activities were restricted, and non-Muslim religious institutions were closed.

Qaddafi’s revolution can be divided into three stages. The first and formative stage, the phase of the RCC, extends from September 1969 to April 15 1973. The initial RCC efforts did not register satisfactory progress, and therefore the revolutionary committee proclaimed the organization of the Arab Socialist Union (ASU), a quasi-political organization seeking to provide for popular participation in the decision-making process, on June 11, 1971.

On April 15, 1973, Qaddafi proclaimed the start of the second phase, the Popular Revolution that was to lead the formation of structures to create a people’s republic. The second stage lasted until March 2, 1977, commenced with the appearance of the three-volume work entitled Kitab al-akhbar (The Green Book , 1976, 1980), which described Qaddafi’s vision of the appropriate political system for Libya. The first volume, The Solution of the Problem of Democracy: “The Authority of the People,” seeks to proffer a solution to the problem of democracy (multiparty competitive capitalism) and guidance for the liberation of human societies from oppressive political systems (single-party communism), and provides the blueprint for a form of government (adat al-hukm). The second volume, The Solution of the Economic Problem: “Socialism,” covers governance, economy, and society, and seeks to provide a philosophy of “new socialism” to achieve economic freedom. The final volume, The Social Basis of the Third Universal (International) Theory, represents the ideological base for Qaddafi’s three-volume work and attempts to provide a blueprint of his new social order, Jamahiriyah.

The second phase of the revolution saw the rise of the populist society of the masses, the Jamahiriyah, and witnessed the formation of a people’s congress, committees, and unions. In September, 1976, a General People’s Congress (GPC) was announced; it was intended to replace the RCC as the supreme authority in the country. This concept of direct democracy is based on Qaddafi’s Third Universal Theory, which posits that religion and nationalism are the driving forces of history. Neither capitalism nor communism is capable of solving human problems. What is needed is a middle way that will harness religion and nationalism. Islam, which Qaddafi considers as a complete civilization, is the source of that middle way, because it “is a universal religion which explains the phenomena of the universe and life, as well as the life of its community at the same time.”

The third phase in the revolution was marked by the GPC legislating a new experiment in direct democracy on March 2, 1977, “the sole foundation of the new political system in the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah.” In the state of jamahir (“masses”), there is complete equality, according to Qaddafi. The founding of the Jamahiriyah was followed by the abolition of the RCC. Meanwhile, since the early 1970’s, Qaddafi had been gradually divesting himself of official titles. A decree in April, 1974, had relieved him of all political, administrative, and protocol functions. He was designated general-secretary of the GPC, a post he gave up in February, 1979, retaining, however, his position as the commander in chief of the armed forces and adopting the title “leader of the revolution.”

Qaddafi’s active support for Arab national struggle, especially that of the Palestinians, and his defiance of Israel, have brought Western, chiefly American, allegations against him for his complicity with and support for various state-sponsored terrorist acts. The United Kingdom broke off diplomatic relations with Libya in 1984 following the shooting death of a British police constable in London while he was on duty during an anti-Qaddafi demonstration in front of the Libyan Embassy. US president Ronald Reagan viewed Libya as a rogue state because of its stubborn stance on Palestinian independence, its support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), and its backing for liberation movements in the developing world. The United States attacked Libyan patrol boats during clashes over access to the Gulf of Surt or Sidra during January through March, 1986. On April 15, 1986, the Americans bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in retaliation for Libya’s alleged bombing on April 5 of a West Berlin nightclub frequented by US military personnel.

For most of the 1990s, Libya suffered economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation because of Qaddafi’s refusal to extradite two Libyan terrorists accused of causing the explosion of the Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. However, in 1999, Qaddafi agreed to hand over the defendants to the Netherlands for trial under Scottish law. In August 2003, Libya formally accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and agreed to compensate the families of the 270 victims. Thereupon, United Nations sanctions against Libya were lifted. On May 15, 2006, diplomatic relations between the United States and Libya were restored. Under Qaddafi’s second son, Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi, a London-trained economist, the Libyan economy began to be restructured with the consultancy of the Harvard economist Michael Porter. The Libyan Economic Development Board also began developing free trade zones at Abu Kammash-Zwara and Madina al-Hurra with a view to attracting foreign business and tourism. Starting in the spring of 2006, Qaddafi’s Libya was on its way toward modernization and globalization.

In early 2011, dictators in Tunisia and Egypt were ousted as part of a series of conflicts ranging from riots to revolutions that became known as the Arab Spring. On February 11, 2011, Libya's own revolution started when Qaddafi's forces launched a massive attack against Libyans protesting the arrest of human rights lawyers. Opposition forces took control of Benghazi within three days of the attack, and many government officials, including military personnel, defected. On March 17, just as Qaddafi's forces closed in on Benghazi, the United Nations Security Council instituted a no-fly zone over the country. A few days later, NATO warplanes and ships attack bombard the Libyan army. The two sides then entered a virtual stalemate for several months as international criticism of the NATO bombardment increased. On August 21, 2011, the rebels captured Tripoli. Qaddafi and his family fled to Sirte, his birthplace, where they held off the rebels for almost two months. Qaddafi was killed in Sirte on October 20, 2011, and the National Transitional Council (NTC) took over leadership of the country soon thereafter. Libya held its first national post-Qaddafi elections on July 7, 2012, to elect a 200-member General National Congress (GNC). The NTC handed power over to the GNC in August 2012.

Significance

In the Arab view, Qaddafi began as a proud and patriotic Libyan who succeeded for a while in instilling self-confidence and dignity to Libyans at all levels of society. Indeed, his appearance on the Middle Eastern scene has been termed “timely” especially in the aftermath of the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, when the Arab world needed the mental lift that a strong leader would provide. Qaddafi and his fellow officers, who wrought a new Libya out of the quagmires of history, have been called by a distinguished Arab journalist “the post-setback generation, the new hope of the Arab world.” However, some experts have argued that Qaddafi’s social and political experimentation of Jamahiriyah has been a failure in the long run, and consequently Libya, once a rich country, has been reduced to the status of one of the poorest countries in the world. A distinguished Libyan scholar considers Qaddafi’s quixotic ideology as “ephemeral and underdeveloped” in that his revolutionary experimentation with government and society could not be effective in a polity that prevented the development of self-government. Coupled with this dysfunctional paternalism in the domestic sphere, Qaddafi’s ideologically energized foreign policy put Libya’s national interests on the back burner. He seemed to have his way so long as Libya’s petrodollar earnings remained strong. The decade of the 1990s registered Libya’s progressive deterioration diplomatic as well as economic. Nevertheless, the turn of the century found the Libyan strongman, a relentless ideologue, transformed into an apparent statesman, responsive to his country’s diplomatic and economic needs in an increasingly networked world. Qaddafi's use of force against his own people at the onset of the Libyan Revolution, however, revealed the lengths to which he was willing to go to hold onto his dictatorship. Regeb Misellati, who once headed Libya's central bank, summed up Qaddafi's legacy thus for Jon Lee Anderson, writing for the New Yorker in November 2011: "Qaddafi did not leave anything behind except material and cultural destruction."

Bibliography

Anderson, Jon Lee. "King of Kings." New Yorker 7 Nov. 2011: 44–57. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Dec. 2013.

"Arab Spring: Timeline of the African and Middle East Rebellions." Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 2013. Web. 30 Dec. 2013.

Ayoub, Mahmoud M. Islam and the Third Universal Theory: The Religious Thought of Muՙammar al-Qadhdhafi. London: Kegan, 1987. Print. A thoroughly researched, “non-apologetic but positive” analysis of Qaddafi’s religious and political ideology as well as a succinct biography by a distinguished scholar.

Bianco, Mirella. Gadafi: Voice from the Desert. London: Longman, 1975. Print. A highly personal profile of the Libyan leader by a sympathetic but scholarly author who had personal access to Qaddafi and his family.

Carlsberg, Russell. “Escapade in Hell: Reading the Short Stories of Colonel Kadhafi.” Antioch Review 56.1 (1998). Print. Considers the short stories written by Qaddafi and their political and anti-American themes.

Carroll, Jill, “A Letter from Sheba, Libya.” Christian Science Monitor 2 Mar. 2007: 25. Print. A report on the thirtieth anniversary of Qaddafi’s political system and on his efforts to improve Libya’s image in the West.

Gillis, Clare Morgana. "The End of History in the New Libya." Foreign Policy May 2012: 1–5. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Dec. 2013.

Khawas, Mohammad A, El-. Qaddafi: His Ideology in Theory and Practice. Brattleboro: Amana, 1986. Print. Provides a balanced review of Qaddafi as a man and as a statesman. A sound study by a serious historian.

Khawas, Mohammad A. El-. “Qaddafi’s Turnabout: From Defiance to Cooperation.” Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 28.3 (2005): 72–88. Print. A shrewd analysis of Qaddafi’s systematic and deliberate effort to restore Libya’s goodwill in the Western world.

Kikhia, Mansour O., El-. Libya’s Qaddafi: The Politics of Contradiction. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 1997. Print. Provides an analysis of Qaddafi’s ideology influencing his domestic and foreign policies and suggests that Libyan government must abjure paternalistic authoritarianism and must endeavor to end its diplomatic isolation.

Spencer, Richard. "Libya: Civil War Breaks Out as Gaddafi Mounts Rearguard Fight." Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 23 Feb. 2011. Web. 30 Dec. 2013.

St. John, Ronald Bruce. Qaddafi’s World Design: Libyan Foreign Policy, 1969–1987. Atlantic Highlands: Saqi, 1987. Print. This interesting study by a specialist is especially useful for Qaddafi’s Third Universal Theory and its place in the history of Arab nationalism.

Takeyh, Ray. “Qadhafi and the Challenge of Militant Islam.” Washington Quarterly 21. 3 (1998). Print. The author examines the effects of Islamic fundamentalism on Qaddafi’s regime.

Vandewalle, D. "After Qaddafi." Foreign Affairs 91.6 (2012): 8–15. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Dec. 2013.