The shameful lies about Libya and Italy's bloodstained hands
There was a moment in our history where we were not well seen by the world when fascist Italy was linked to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. We were not well-regarded by the "Western" world. The rest of the world was not more progressive, either. The British Empire was the largest political entity in human history. The French Empire had vast possessions and huge interests throughout the world. And then there was the United States of America which were not yet hegemonic as we know them today but were domestic segregationists, racists, pioneers of eugenics and the myth of the purity of the race. These three nations were the powers of the beginning of the last century, and they painted fascist Italy by grinding it to the point that we changed sides and followed the winners in the middle of the war. That's actually the typical geopolitical attitude of Italy: to please, revere and serve in order to be left alone. An earthenware vase among iron vases.
Since then, Italy has not taken a different position without then undergoing smear campaigns promoted by major powers. We recall how the fascist apparatus harshly criticised the "plutocracy" and the wild and immoderate opulence of the Anglo-Saxon and French world, which, with arrogance and greed, hindered the ambition of the newborn nation-state to impose itself on the world stage as a potent empire. They obstructed Italy not out of a kind of love for humanity but for the sole exploitation without competition on a planetary scale, as they had been doing for centuries. Italy was simply not amongst the guests at the banquet.
What does all this have to do with Libya? We see the world according to knowledge that conforms to our prejudices. We cannot see Libya and what we have done to it. First of all we must remember that Libya was an Italian colony. Therefore, it suffered aggressions against which the Libyans have conducted a fierce armed resistance with repression by the Italians that ended up in bloodbath. The atrocities of colonial Italy (we remember concentration camps, torture, rape, the use of lethal gas against unarmed civilians) are not remembered in the history books of the Bel Paese; in fact, they have been completely removed from the collective conscience but still today Italy bears this heavy burden. This legacy paints in dark colours the 2011 aggression against Libya by the free world.
Outside the Western world and its self-congratulatory propaganda, there is only one question raging: who gave NATO the right to kill Gaddafi?
Yes, who?
Why has the "civilised" Western world unleashed all its military might against a single state destroying its infrastructure and what has been accumulated for generations?
A destabilised Libya was, and still remains, against Italy's geopolitical interests. It is no coincidence that we have repeatedly tried to normalise relations with Libya in the last few decades. These efforts led to the Friendship Treaty (signed in Benghazi in 2008) between Italy and Libya, totally betrayed in spirit. Articles 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 read:
Article 2
Sovereign equality
The Parties mutually respect their sovereign equality, as well as all the rights inherent to it, including, in particular, the right to freedom and political independence. They also respect the right of each Party to freely choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural system.
Article 3
Do not resort to the threat or use of force
The Parties undertake not to resort to the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the other Party or any other form incompatible with the United Nations Charter,
Article 4
Non-interference in internal affairs
1. The Parties refrain from any form of direct or indirect interference in internal or external affairs falling within the other Party's jurisdiction, keeping to the spirit of good neighbourliness.
1. In compliance with the principles of international law, Italy will not use, permit the use of its territories in any hostile act against Libya and Libya will not use or permit the use of its territories in any hostile act against Italy.
Article 5
Peaceful settlement of disputes
In a spirit consistent with the reasons that led to the signing of this Treaty of Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation, the Parties settle peacefully the disputes that may arise between them, favouring the adoption of just and equitable solutions, so as not to jeopardise regional and international peace and security.
Article 6
Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms
The Parties, by mutual agreement, act in accordance with their respective laws, objectives and principles of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
also failing to one of the founding principles of the Italian constitutional charter:
Article 11 of the Italian Constitution
Italy repudiates war as an instrument of offending other peoples' freedom and as a means of resolving international disputes [..]
However, the fate of Libya has been tied to the figure of Mu'ammar Gaddafi for almost fifty years. Mu'ammar Gaddafi led the most successful socialist revolution on the African continent.
Taking advantage of the weakness of the monarchy of King Idris I, the young Gaddafi took power through a coup d'état. His ideas are very clear: to make Libya a socialist state. Gaddafi's Libya is officially called (it was called) Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and is the result of the combination of the words jamāhīr (masses) and jumhūriyya (republic). Gaddafi believed in Libyan people's aspirations and self-determination. He interpreted his country's will in a historical moment where interference by the First World was powerful.
This point is crucial to understand. The First World, the Civilised World, exerted unprecedented pressure on the rest of the globe. And it still does. This interference is seen by us, born on the "right side", as something physiological, organic, normal. It is repeated so often that the gravity of this interference and the aberrant consequences are unconsciously and culpably reduced, creating a disconnection between the public opinion of western "civil" society and the rest of the world. And the former almost think that their interests, or what they are served up, coincide with that of the latter. Of course, it is not so much governments that interfere but the great interests of a few "well-informed" people, with vast economic and financial resources, who know how to influence government action so as to support, strengthen and expand their business in other states; however it is the people who vote the governments, and this makes the voters co-responsible. In the 1960s, therefore, there was great hope for change that pervaded all of Africa and the world. And Gaddafi came up with his own idea of state, government, and a well-thought criticism of market capitalism. Indeed an alternative vision compared to the Western one. He wrote the book "Green Book" (1975), condensing in it his reflections and the inspiring principles. A book well-spread inside and outside Libya and also much criticised, de-classified as a collection of aphorisms. I see it as an attempt to give an ideological order, as there has been so many times in many parts of the world. I'm not talking about blind criticism: Gaddafi has highlighted many problematic sides of the order imposed by the Western world and tried to give a solution that can fit the specificities of many peoples on their path to freedom. In the third chapter of the book, he introduces the "Third Universal Way" which at the same time rejects capitalism and class struggle in favour of a nationally inspired socialism.
Why socialism? Couldn't he found a regime based on the free market? All the oppressed peoples of the last century could be "capitalist" in the most classical sense of the term. The question is that capitalism for these peoples has coincided with European Imperialism. Colonisation is disproportionately referred to as if it were a cultural event; instead, it had purely commercial connotations: annihilating local competition and then flooding the market with its goods and thus making a profit after first subjugating and then exploiting the local population. So we shouldn't see the rest of the world as being dominated by Communists. Indeed, it is full of conservatives, but you had to stand out from those who starve you to be truly free, even in chains.
Gaddafi opted for a third way. After nationalising the oil wells, he was able to equip the Libyan state with infrastructures such as roads, hospitals, aqueducts and industries that have made Libya the fifth most prosperous country in Africa with a very high human development index. The ruling socialist government has successfully transformed Libya from a "box of sand" (as Gaetano Salvemini defined it in 1911) to a prosperous state that provided health, safety, education, protection and progress in a sufficiently stable way.
About the Third Universal Way, it was believed that Islam was the ideological foundation. Still, Gaddafi underlined through multiple reformulations in the third version of the book released in 1979 that: "if we were ever to limit ourselves to supporting only Muslims, our conduct would be considered stupid and selfish. True Islam is that which defends the weak even if they are not Muslims. "
The implementation was challenging and, certainly, the shortcomings of Gaddafi the man weighed; however his revolutionary thought was the bedrock of his foreign policy that led him to support all the liberation movements on the African continent and beyond.
It is no mystery that Gaddafi financed Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Irish separatists of the IRA and the independence pressures of native Australians and New Zealand, but there is another more illustrious beneficiary.
Gaddafi financed the fight of Nelson Mandela, defined as a terrorist by the whole Western World, Margaret Thatcher in the lead. In fact, the first country that Mandela visited as president was Libya, which at the time had been banned by the United Nations, and Mandela had this to say about Gaddafi:
“Those who say I should not be here are without morals. I am not going to join them in their lack of morality.”
Nelson Mandela and Muhamar Gaddafi on October 23, 1997 during the first state visit of the new South African president Mandela
Getty Images
Also adding that he spent 27 years in prison in order not to abandon his principles, and he feels the same about the debt he owes to Gaddafi:
“This man helped us at a time when we were all alone”
It is almost surprising after so many sacrifices to hear Bill Clinton, the American president at the time, define Mandela's first state visit as president of South Africa as "unwelcome". The truth of the matter is that the liberation movement led by Mandela has been able to count on the support of Libya while the apartheid regime has enjoyed enormous funding from many Western countries". In this regard, Mandela said in words that have become very famous:
“No country can claim for itself the title of policeman of the world, and no state must dictate to another what to do. Those who yesterday were friends of our enemies have the nerve to tell me not to visit my brother Gaddafi. They are advising us to be ungrateful and to forget our friends from the past.”
Apartheid is often seen as a simple case of racism, a generic discrimination, but we are talking about people who have been segregated in their homes by Dutch and British groups who have settled in the country in a century and which in any case did not represent the majority of the population that has been segregated and banned. We are so used to thinking how normal it is for an "African", for a "black" (a term that takes away humanity and personality from the person) to suffer and always fight for his freedom.
I think that passing for communists was the easiest thing, and definitely the favourite accusation by the ruling class against the dominated.
Italy and Libya have had a troubled bond that has ancient roots. The first useful piece of information is that Libya was a colony, and this does not mean that it was favourably treated by Italy. Libya has been attacked, invaded and subjugated. An aggression that at the time of liberal and non-fascist Italy, everyone agreed upon (surprisingly, Mussolini even ended up in prison for having expressed his dissent to the war). Indeed, the Roman Catholic Church gave its blessing by pushing Catholics to return to politics and unite with the rest of the public opinion (inflamed by interventionists and futurists) and support the invasion. In the historical memory of the Libyans, the Italians are the invaders, the colonisers, the robbers. The enemy against whom men and women organised the resistance.
Gaddafi at Ciampino airport followed by Mohammed Omar al-Mukhtar, 10 June 2009
Graffiti Press
In his official visit on 10 June 2009 (almost a year after signing the friendship treaty with Italy), Gaddafi got off the plane in full dress uniform with the photo of the Libyan national hero Omar al-Mukhtar. Partisan, imam and organiser of the resistance against the Italian imperialist invasion of the 1920s. He was sentenced to death by hanging. Gaddafi came down accompanied by his son, an elderly man, Mohamed Omar al-Mukhtar. To meet them was Berlusconi, the then prime minister of Italy.
To those who asked him why he brought the picture, Gaddafi said: "The picture of Al Muktar is like the cross that some of you carry: the symbol of a tragedy. Many Italians were hanged by the same government, which then ended with the hanging of Mussolini himself. It is like the killing of Jesus Christ for Christians: for us, that image is like the cross that some of you carry: a symbol of a tragedy".
The elderly son of the hero of the resistance, told the Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera, that he would never meet the prime minister of a country that "hates the Libyan people and hates Omar al-Mukhtar", even if Libyan authorities were asking him to do so. I have no idea how Gaddafi and his government convinced him to come to Italy; nonetheless, perhaps he was right considering what happened next. In spite of the friendship treaty according to which anyone who attacked Libya would also be an enemy of Italy, the Bel Paese joined NATO and 19 other courageous nations in attacking Libya. Disproportionate forces considering the objective of maintaining and strengthening the naval blockade of Libyan waters and enforcing the no-fly zone.
The legal conditions are absolutely weak. I do not want to defend Gaddafi so much here, who does not seem different to me from other heads of state around the world (especially those who were bombing him at the time), but to ask the question of the need for such a pervasive intervention that has damaged and destroyed the integrity of a state without anyone saying anything.
Italy has mobilised its armed forces against a friend-state; made available the air bases of Trapani, Sigonella, Gioia del Colle, Capodichino, Decimomannu, Aviano, Pantelleria; unleashing together with other states a military power that annihilated a state and its political and administrative order at the modest price of 700 million euros. An account divided by all Italian taxpayers. Not only was the one-sided disproportionate use of force unfair, but the way it was conducted has exceeded all limits and makes any justification extremely difficult.
I would have expected the Democratic Party to be against the invasion of Libya, instead it voted in favour of the invasion. The only dissenting opinion was represented by Berlusconi, who did not at all share the aggression. His government remains the legal author of the conflict, but Berlusconi has made no secret of his disapproval. The Libyans have not only been promised an Arab spring. What was proposed to them with Gaddafi's deposition was: the return to illegally occupied homes; better infrastructure and that there would be no more illegal immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. Ironically, none of this has happened. The houses have been destroyed, the infrastructures are crumbling. Healthcare who once employed many Filipino doctors: today they all left the country. Illegal immigration has expanded and affects people from West Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia (Pakistan, Bangladesh). The trafficking of human beings is rampant because it is a business where, on one hand, those who intend to block it (Europe) put a lot of money and, on the other, where the desperate who try to exploit this path, put others money, too. Perhpas unfortunate people from other countries destabilised by democratic intervention. Unscrupulous Libyans and transnational criminal organisations profit from this ruthless encounter between supply and demand where neither state nor law is in force.
Back in 2008, Gaddafi addressed his colleagues in this way in a meeting held in Syria that brought together all the Arab heads of state:
What is the reason for the invasion and destruction of Iraq? What is the reason for the killing of one million Iraqi civilians? We should ask Americans to answer this question: why Iraq? For what reason? Was Osama Bin Laden Iraqi? No. Were those who attacked New York Iraqis? No. Were those who attacked the Pentagon Iraqis? No. Were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? No. And even if Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Pakistan and India have nuclear bombs like Russia, France, Britain and the Americans themselves. Should we destroy all these countries? Whenever a foreign power arrives, it occupies an Arab country and hangs its president. And we're sitting on the sidelines giggling. Why hasn't the hanging of Saddam Hussein been investigated? How can a prisoner of war be hanged? Especially if he is the president of an Arab country and a member of the Arab League. I am not talking about Saddam Hussein's policies or the points on which we disagreed with him. We all had differences with him and we have these differences between us. We don't share anything outside this room. An entire Arab ruling class had been hanged and we are on the sidelines watching, why? One of you could be next. Yes. The United States fought alongside Saddam Hussein against Khomeini. He was their friend. Cheney was a friend of Saddam Hussein. Donald Rumsfeld, the then US Secretary of Defence, was a very close friend of Saddam Hussein. And in the end they used him and hanged him. We are friends of the Americans but they could very well hang us one of these days. The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein, and we could be next.
A prophetic speech.
Sirte, Libya. 20 October 2011.
Gaddafi is dead.
Now we have dust and blood.
Gaddafi's dead body kept in a fridge before burial
The US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton laughed when she learned the news of Gaddafi's death, shortly after the execution was broadcast worldwide. I wonder if she knew that women were the ones who would have paid the most for the Franco-American-led NATO intervention. Before the advent of socialist Libya, few women went to university. Under Gaddafi, and up to 2010, more than half of the students were women in Lybia. Under Gaddafi, Libyan women had the freedom to study, have a job, file for divorce and earn a salary. One of the first laws Gaddafi had promulgated was fair compensation for the same job. Today all this has been dismantled through bombs, and women are under the yoke of small social agglomerations where the patriarchal tradition (formerly contained by the socialist state) rules unchallenged while at the same time the chaotic post-war nature of Libyan politics has allowed extremists of all sorts (who oppose gender equality as a Western perversion) to reign supreme.
It is curious to note that secular Arab nations have always been invaded because this was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Mu'ammar Gaddafi's Libya and Bashar al-Assad's Syria. Those nations that are effectively illiberal and have truly questionable conduct are all trusted allies and friends of the Atlantic alliance. And this would be an excellent point that every responsible voter both in Europe and in the United States should raise before its own representative. Why? Why? Who are our friends? Who are our enemies? And it is evident that foreign powers financially supported the opposition in Lybia. If it weren't for this support, the opposition, the rebels, would not have had the resources to overthrow their government but lacking of rootedness in the territory means they were incapable of unifying so many heterogeneous peoples under a single flag.
Arabs generally have a tendency to complain about their rulers only to cheer them when they become enemies of the West. Now all this doesn't matter. Gaddafi is dead.
Immediately after the end of the conflict, NATO secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen celebrated the military operation "Unified Protector" as the most successful mission in the history of the alliance.
And now, a decade after this barbarism of civilisation, we, naive culprits, look at Libya as "the sick man of Africa", as a "European" problem, a prison, a concentration camp, a hell, something that the international community must shoulder through "humanitarian corridors."
Berlusconi in 2014 regrets the state of affairs in Libya claiming how his diplomatic activity had managed to "tame Gaddafi".
Berlusconi's words to describe his relations with Gaddafi, equals the catastrophe we are witnessing today with shameful and guilty detachment.
To posterity the arduous sentence, however, it will take more than just time to wash our hands soaked in blood.