Father Frank's Rants - On Pessimism: Gaddafi

Rant Number 454 1 September 2011

Gaddafi’s sad sunset sends the priest back to Voltaire’s superlative tale, Candide. Subtitled On Optimism. During the Carnival in Venice six men partake of a supper. Each introduces himself. One Sultan, five Kings and Bonnie Prince Charlie, pretender to the British throne. Each tells the sorry tale of his life. From kingship to defeat, exile and misery. Some invoke the plan of Providence, others are bitter. The famous Venice Carnival provides some consolation, however.
I doubt Colonel Gaddafi – despite appearances a relatively modest man, as he never promoted himself to General rank – reads Voltaire but, if he does, it should induce him to meditate on the shifting changes of his fortunes. As vulture-like statesmen and stateswomen assemble in Paris to carve up the Libyan loot, Candide might provide a mild antidote to the ex-great man’s encircling gloom.
This son of the desert must find it all very bewildering. Only yesterday he was attending in full pomp summits of the Arab League, with fellow dictators, kings, despots and oil sheikhs. The ever-grinning Tony Blair hugged him in his tent. Bon vivant Silvio Berlusconi welcomed and honoured him in Rome. Silvio even allowed him to set up tent in Piazza Navona and to summon to Islam 600 Italian beauties. And his merry sons...We know about Saif ‘Sword of Islam’ Gaddafi. Play boy with a (dubious) PhD. Poncing around London while being sucked up to by sundry toadies after his dad’s millions. Son Hannibal...Wow! What a name! Says a lot about dad’s vainglory. And a myriad other offspring. Like Pharaoh Ramses II (120 children), Gaddafi must not fire blanks.
He nearly prophesied it all himself. Two years ago, I watched Gaddafi on Al Jazeera eloquently warning the assembled Arab League rulers about following Saddam’s fate. ‘You too, if you do not do America’s bidding, will end up hanged.’ Actually, America just joined the queue. France and Britain started it. Bernard-Henry Levy, the French cod philosopher, triggered it all off, with a phone call to little Napoleon Sarkozy. Quick as a flash, NATO bombing ensued. Plato might rejoice. Power of philosophy? Or the power of...you fill the blanks. The poor priest can’t stick out his head too much. Got kids to look after.
Some young Islamists rejoice online about the fall of ‘the tyrant’. Yet, say what you like, Gaddafi has laboured indefatigably to spread Islam in Africa. OK, occasionally his goons have terrorised the local people, as well as inelegantly throwing wads of notes to the poor. Nevertheless the Colonel’s merits in daawa, invitation to the faith, cannot be gainsaid. All right, Gaddafi was no friend of the Caliphate but that is only because, I bet, he saw himself as the already existing Caliph. If the Caliph’s job is to uphold the religion of Islam, Gaddafi certainly did that, no?
Tired of not being feted enough by fellow Arabs, Gaddafi declared himself an African. The South African ANC was one of the biggest recipients of the Colonel’s largesse. It helped to fight white rule during apartheid. ‘If people don’t like Gaddafi, they can go and take a jump’, declared His Secular Holiness Nelson Mandela. Nobody’s secret that revolutionary movements like ETA and the IRA also got plenty of support from Libya. I cannot see how the left- wing brigade can now bite the hand the fed them so lavishly. As to the right-wing, they coveted Gaddafi’s oil – and embraced and kissed him accordingly.
‘He killed his own people’, the refrain goes. Well, would it be better if Gaddafi had killed people of another nation? Interestingly, the Colonel never made war on a neighbouring country. Unlike dumbos like Mussolini, Gaddafi was smart. He knew the best way to lose power is to lose a war, so he steered clear of that. How was he to know the war to come would be a civil one? Should have consulted some Sufis master. They can predict these things – I know it for a fact...
One thing is clear. Gaddafi has plenty of followers in Libya. That was clear to American journalist Tony Horowitz after President Reagan ‘s blitz on the country. In an amusing book, Horowitz observes how Gaddafi would drive himself through Tripoli with hardly any security. Had he felt surrounded by a hostile populace, would he have done that? It is a sentimental fallacy that the multitudes do not love their dictators – they often do. When they don’t, it is usually when the rulers fail to corrupt them enough. So Gaddafi perhaps should have spread his billions a bit more, as far as Benghazi, anyway. Bit late in the day, unfortunately.
The pertinacity of the Colonel’s followers, their number and the ferocity of their resistance have proved beyond doubt that this has been a civil war. The Vatican’s representative in Tripoli months ago pointed that out. He pleaded for negotiations, for a compromise. Lives would have been saved. Why did it not work? Maybe it is Gaddafi’s fault. Calling his opponents rats and cockroaches does nor argue for moderation on his part. And of course the man is a nasty piece of work. A right murderer and swine. In truth, most of the rulers in the Middle East are. What’s new? But the West does not bomb the hell out of them. That too ain’t exactly new...
Socrates says that a tyrant is a most unhappy man. Even if he triumphs and slaughters his enemies and keeps himself in power he is to be pitied. That is a philosopher’s view (Socrates of course was the real McCoy, unlike the phoney B.H. Levy). Gaddafi would laugh at it. Socrates’ concept of true happiness was somewhat abstract. Enjoyment is more to the point. Tyrants enjoy tyrannising, just as rioters enjoy rioting and looters enjoy looting. Evil draws – call it pessimism – it is a fact.
At the end of Candide, Voltaire has his young hero after hair-raising ordeals retire to a piece of land in Turkey, where he lives on happily ‘cultivating his garden’. That is what makes the tale optimistic. I doubt Gaddafi’s denouement will be like that. No Venice Carnival to flee too. Nor will the Turks, former rulers of Libya, offer asylum in Istanbul. I guess that makes his side of the story pessimistic. But don’t despair. God’s Providence knows best.
Revd Frank Julian Gelli