Speaker 1: Also media, Hello and welcome toake it Happen here. I
Speaker 1: am Andrew Siege Andrewism on YouTube and joined again.
Speaker 2: By James Again.
Speaker 1: Yes, I've noticed a phenomenon I'm not sure if you've
Speaker 1: noticed it too, where anti imperialists solidarity somehow goes a
Speaker 1: step beyond a posing imperialist aggression itself and crosses into
Speaker 1: lionizing or whitewashing the targets of that aggression, or rather
Speaker 1: the asensible leaders of the target to that aggression.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I have noticed this too. It's one of
Speaker 3: the things that makes me most angry in the world.
Speaker 3: What's been referred to as the anti imperialism of idiots. Yes,
Speaker 3: not so relevant now, but I used to like to
Speaker 3: apply the Sad test to anybody who claimed to be
Speaker 3: interested in the politics of liberation. Right if you, if
Speaker 3: you think Asad is a based anti imperialist people's socialist hero,
Speaker 3: then your politics are shit.
Speaker 2: I have nothing good to say about that, Like, you're
Speaker 2: an idiot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it should be a fringe phenomenon, right, but
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it get an increase intraction.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even in like relatively you know, like I won't
Speaker 3: start a war with various US leftist publications. But I
Speaker 3: went to pitch some people this last week, thinking like,
Speaker 3: there is speculation that the United States will once again
Speaker 3: ally itself with Kurdish groups. So I'm sure it had
Speaker 3: then planned to once again abandon when that became politically
Speaker 3: more expedient. But I happened to have some insight into
Speaker 3: these various Kurtish groups, having spent some time there and
Speaker 3: having contacts there, And so I went to the website
Speaker 3: of these various you know, big publications which are left
Speaker 3: or left leaning or even sort of liberal, and I
Speaker 3: saw these borderline campus takes on what's happening in Iran.
Speaker 2: And it's just.
Speaker 3: So so frustrating to me, Like, it makes me so
Speaker 3: angry that people continue to view the world through this
Speaker 3: binary Marvel movie lens which sees it it's impossible that
Speaker 3: two things could be bad at the same time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's infuriating to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if I was more inclined to conspiracy, I
Speaker 1: might say that this binary is intentionally constructed, you know,
Speaker 1: that it's it's by design that the most vocal anti
Speaker 1: imperiodist voices also just so happened to align themselves with
Speaker 1: state power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Camp is on.
Speaker 1: But I'm not inclined to conspiracy.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, one could make a pretty reasonable argument.
Speaker 1: For that, right, One could make that argument. Yeah I won't,
Speaker 1: but one could.
Speaker 2: I might.
Speaker 1: I think one of the best examples of this is
Speaker 1: the sort of odd obsession that some people have with
Speaker 1: Colonel Umar Algadafi. Now, last episode, we spoke about the
Speaker 1: long term consequences of Western intervention in Libya, beginning with
Speaker 1: the twenty eleven uprising during the Arab Spring against the
Speaker 1: forty two year rule of more Margadafi, but began as
Speaker 1: a broad, largely lead less protest movement was quickly shaped
Speaker 1: by foreign intervention. In Marsh of twenty eleven, the US,
Speaker 1: the UK, and France launched a military campaign through NATO
Speaker 1: under the UN mandate to protect civilians. The war toppled Gaddafi,
Speaker 1: but killed tens of thousands and devastated infrastructure. In the aftermath,
Speaker 1: Libya fractured into rival governments, militias, and foreign backed factions,
Speaker 1: triggering yet another civil war in twenty fourteen, and despite
Speaker 1: a cease fire in twenty twenty, the country remains divided
Speaker 1: between competing administrations, while ordinary Libyans face instability, human rights abuses,
Speaker 1: and economic hardship. I think it's fair to say that
Speaker 1: the NATO intervention was a net negative for the country.
Speaker 1: But in this same breath, I cannot agree with those
Speaker 1: who seemed to believe that Gaddafi's rule could have continued
Speaker 1: either that he was some force for good in the country.
Speaker 1: And in this episode, I really want to get into
Speaker 1: the y to identify and dissect the actions of the
Speaker 1: man Gaddafi. According to his biography and Encycopoedia Britannica, Murma
Speaker 1: al Kaddafi was born in nineteen forty two near Sirte, Libya.
Speaker 1: Sixty nine years later, he would be captured and killed
Speaker 1: in Sirte, Libya. After spending his early years in at
Speaker 1: tent he graduated from the University of Libya in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three and then graduated from a military academy in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five. In nineteen sixty nine, at the age
Speaker 1: of twenty seven, Gaddafi pulled off a blood less coup
Speaker 1: to seize power from King Idris to First of Libya.
Speaker 1: For the next four decades plus, he would be the
Speaker 1: de facto ruler of Libya. He was both a passionate
Speaker 1: Arab nationalist and a Muslim in power, he tried to
Speaker 1: push both of his ideologies. He expelled Western military forces,
Speaker 1: expelled remaining Italian settlers and Jewish communities in Libya, nationalized
Speaker 1: the country's oil industry, banned alcohol and gambling, tried to
Speaker 1: unify with his Arab neighbors occasionally by attempting coups in
Speaker 1: their countries, and stood against normalization with Israel. So a
Speaker 1: very mixed bag so far. Until nineteen seventy seven, Gaddafi
Speaker 1: ruled the Libyan Arab Republic, but the culmination of his
Speaker 1: Cultural Revolution period from nineteen seventy three to nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: seven would sideline his political and religious opponents, who would
Speaker 1: begin in to see him as unstable, huboristic, and authoritarian.
Speaker 1: That period would instead cement Gaddafi as the sole ruler
Speaker 1: of what he would rename the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiria.
Speaker 1: As recounted in Libya The History of Gaddafi's Pariah State
Speaker 1: by John Oakes, Jamahiria was a term he coined in
Speaker 1: his Green Book, likely inspired by Mao's Little Read Book,
Speaker 1: published during the Libyan Cultural Revolution period. Jamahiria was his
Speaker 1: idea of a state of the masses governed by people's
Speaker 1: Congresses and popular assemblies. And if it's one thing that
Speaker 1: makes a political movement, it's empowering. It's slapping the people's
Speaker 1: and popular label on everything, regardless of any additional context.
Speaker 1: So they had these democratic local assemblies called basic People's
Speaker 1: Congresses that met three times a year, and those congresses
Speaker 1: appointed executive people's committees which did most of the day
Speaker 1: to day stuff, and above it all was the General
Speaker 1: People's Congress. This period was simultaneously an effort to encourage
Speaker 1: popular participation through these congresses while suppressing descend through his
Speaker 1: control over the secret services. It was clear that Goddaffi
Speaker 1: was still in charge even after he stepped down from
Speaker 1: his formal position as Secretary General in nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 1: and simply and humbly dubbed himself the brotherly leader and
Speaker 1: Guide of the revolution.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you get some of his like hubristic stuff, like
Speaker 3: his rhetoric, is his outfit, his reference to himself.
Speaker 2: It is like you couldn't parody some of it.
Speaker 3: It is where like the parodies of dictators in this
Speaker 3: part of the world come from.
Speaker 2: Is Goaddafi's kind of affect? I guess, yeah, he was
Speaker 2: a character yes, that he was here.
Speaker 1: He was a definitely character. Yeah, so, I mean, anarchist
Speaker 1: critiques of democracy are easy to find, and although Gadaffi's
Speaker 1: Libya is never solely directly democratic, even in his project,
Speaker 1: you could see some of the flaws and the issues
Speaker 1: that anarchists have identified in this approach to popular power
Speaker 1: as the congresses, the People's Congresses were poorly attended and
Speaker 1: easily manipulated. Issues were often raised and rarely resolved, And
Speaker 1: of course, compounding those flaws was the fact that these
Speaker 1: people's Congresses had no actual power over the things that
Speaker 1: mattered in Libya, the oil industry, the armed forces, the
Speaker 1: security services, and foreign policy, where Kadaffi and his compatriots
Speaker 1: still ruled. Gaddafi decided where the oil money went, and
Speaker 1: he directed some of it to a great man made
Speaker 1: of a project that would extract from the ancient and
Speaker 1: non renewable aquifer under the Libyan desert to supply the
Speaker 1: coast for some more stable water supply. Frustratingly for him,
Speaker 1: I could assume Kaddafi did not get what he wanted
Speaker 1: out of the revolutionary People's Congresses, so he created revolutionary
Speaker 1: committees to mobilize the people and safeguard their rule through
Speaker 1: commandos that answered to Gaddafi directly. These revolutionary committees could
Speaker 1: arrest counter revolutionaries, establish revolutionary courts, and eliminate enemies of
Speaker 1: the revolution at home and abroad. The people he called
Speaker 1: stray dogs. All of this for the people, of course,
Speaker 1: and for the revolution so on. People his system had
Speaker 1: some degree of people power and people voice, but in
Speaker 1: practice he exercised near total control and suppression of opposition,
Speaker 1: both within the country and outside the country. The same
Speaker 1: went for workplaces. Of course. He spoke about worker partnership
Speaker 1: and power in the Green Book, but it was a
Speaker 1: state controlled and state distributed economy in Libia, run by
Speaker 1: oil money, with very few worker run enterprises. There was
Speaker 1: also no real freedom of organization or strike in Libya,
Speaker 1: as independent unions were banned and Graffi explicitly rejected class
Speaker 1: struggle despite claiming to be a socialist. So in the
Speaker 1: Return of Momar Kadafi by Tunisian academic Hatem Gussemi, he
Speaker 1: hadized the cult of personality that was forged over the
Speaker 1: years of Gaddafi's rule that has resurfaced up to today.
Speaker 1: His opponents often pointed the good that he did for
Speaker 1: the country, establishing basic social services, free health, gain, education,
Speaker 1: howies in and land distribution, accessible loan programs, women's rights
Speaker 1: and so on. And with that welfare state came naturally
Speaker 1: some base of popular support for people who had little
Speaker 1: to nothing before. Other fans of Gadaffi point to what
Speaker 1: I like to call hype moments and aura. So there
Speaker 1: was a time when he was in the UN General
Speaker 1: Assembly and he was supposed to be a short time
Speaker 1: to speak, and he just went on and on and
Speaker 1: on and on and on and on, and he tore
Speaker 1: up the UN chatter, hyperments and aura, right, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like something that a lot of people point to.
Speaker 1: He was also, at one point in time the Chairman
Speaker 1: of the African Union, and he wanted to keep that
Speaker 1: position permanently, and he was proposing a whole United States
Speaker 1: of Africa. Like he had a whole period of African solidarity,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, good, Yeah, His Pan Africanist dark is fascinating.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So none of this, however, erases his dark dark side.
Speaker 1: For one, for all the women's rights that he put
Speaker 1: forward in Libya, he was not that great to women.
Speaker 1: The Green Book presents Gadaffi as someone who cared about
Speaker 1: women's dignity and rights. But even in that book you
Speaker 1: see a very complimentarist take on women's place in society.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, they're equal to men, but also their
Speaker 1: role will is in the household. They're supposed to be
Speaker 1: mothers above everything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was like, they.
Speaker 1: Need to be mothers, but they shouldn't be treated as
Speaker 1: property or objects.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think he based a lot of this in like
Speaker 3: his interpretation of Hadi thought of Kuran, like his his
Speaker 3: idea that like there was some kind of divine guidance
Speaker 3: on gender roles. Right. I've actually seen this in recent days,
Speaker 3: Like you can go and find Hammoni's tweets, right, like
Speaker 3: like iatlah Hamoni not not his son, and like you
Speaker 3: can see his stuff where he's like you should not
Speaker 3: mistreat your wife. You can literally find in his timeline
Speaker 3: on Twitter. Right. He was a big poster and people
Speaker 3: have somehow attempted to like construe this as like he
Speaker 3: was a leader of enlightened feminist regime like in Iran,
Speaker 3: which I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's benevolent patriarchy alough.
Speaker 2: For again, yeah, I like.
Speaker 3: You you have to be really on a special fucking
Speaker 3: truth trajectory to convince yourself that that is the case.
Speaker 2: Likely, Like, it.
Speaker 3: Takes a remarkable capacity for self delusion to rather than
Speaker 3: listening to women in Iran, women from Iran, many of
Speaker 3: whom I have spoken to, to look at the evidence
Speaker 3: of the killing, for example, with you know Amini right
Speaker 3: to be like, I know, I found this tweet from
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, so we were good here, this is this
Speaker 3: is fine. It's just remarkable people's tendency to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's remarkable and stupid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, stupid It is a good word.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And going back to Gadafi aside from that sort
Speaker 1: of benevolent patriarchy take on women's equality.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Investigative report in by Anaka Jin also gathered testimony since
Speaker 1: his fall that alleged his procurement, collusion, and sexual abuse
Speaker 1: of women inside his compound aided by a network of officials. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: many of these women are far too are free to
Speaker 1: come forward even all these years after his death due
Speaker 1: to the persistence of Prograrafi sentiment in the country up
Speaker 1: to today. So not the best for women, what about
Speaker 1: for Africa?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: His whole pan Africanist are He styled himself as a
Speaker 1: Pan African who would support the struggles of people like
Speaker 1: Mandela and would fund infrastructure projects around the continent. But
Speaker 1: he had a history of attemptant over through governments in
Speaker 1: Africa and support oppressive ones, including Idi Amin of Uganda
Speaker 1: and Charles Taylor of Liberia. So his Pan Africanism was
Speaker 1: never concerned with the freedom or well being of African people.
Speaker 1: It was I think very much according to his own
Speaker 1: self aggrandizement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, didn't.
Speaker 3: He proposed like an African union, which was more akin
Speaker 3: to like a United States, like a federal action.
Speaker 1: The United States South Africa. That was his proposal.
Speaker 2: Fantastic, Yeah, yeah, correct.
Speaker 1: And as he is proposing this Pan African vision within
Speaker 1: Libya itself, he was pushing for an Arablivia. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Amazek and other non Arab Africans in Libya were mistreated,
Speaker 1: you know. His vision of an Arab Libya led to
Speaker 1: this suppression of the Toaregs, the tables and the Amazek.
Speaker 1: He had policies, as reported in the BBC in New
Speaker 1: Internationalists Al jaz right elsewhere. He had policies that included
Speaker 1: the bannon of minority languages, the bannon of minority names,
Speaker 1: the discourageon of cultural expression, and sometimes denying citizenship to
Speaker 1: groups outside the Arab identity. So naturally, many of these
Speaker 1: minorities took part in the twenty eleven movement, and after
Speaker 1: Gaddafi's fall there was a revival of language, cultural institutions
Speaker 1: and publications. However, the NTC and those that followed have
Speaker 1: continued to ignore the minority plight. Minority groups are still
Speaker 1: struggling for constitutional recognition, representation, and equal rights in a
Speaker 1: country that is, of course still divided, and some minorities
Speaker 1: have chosen to boycott the national political process entirely in
Speaker 1: favor of pursuing local self governance. Also, minorities were not
Speaker 1: the only people being persecuted in Gaddafi's Libya. On the
Speaker 1: political front, despite coal and himself a socialist, Gaddaffi was
Speaker 1: really all over the place ideologically now internationally, he may
Speaker 1: have backed the Palestinian struggle, the Irish struggle, the African
Speaker 1: American struggle, but he was consistent in suppressing actual leftists
Speaker 1: in Libya. Marxis dot com identified some of these repressive
Speaker 1: efforts in their article on Gaddafi quote Gaddaffi was very
Speaker 1: clear in expressing his anti communism. In nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: he sent a plane full of Sudanese communists back to Sudan,
Speaker 1: where they were executed by Nimi. In nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: the regime published an official document to commemorate the fourth
Speaker 1: anniversary of Gaddafi's rise to power under the title Holy
Speaker 1: War against Communism End quote quite the center. Later on, however,
Speaker 1: he would get more chummy with the ussry. But Gadaffi
Speaker 1: was no marxisilantist, and communists and leftists and workers were
Speaker 1: not legally capable of organizing independently in Libya. Aside from them,
Speaker 1: you also had the murder and torture of civilians and journalists,
Speaker 1: the assassinations of rivals and Libya and around the world.
Speaker 1: It was not the free speech utopia that Kadaffi tried
Speaker 1: to paint as instead of emboldening the left to sermons,
Speaker 1: he emboldened these tribal groups and set the foundation for
Speaker 1: the Libya that we see today.
Speaker 3: His consistent through line is that he liked strong men
Speaker 3: and sees himself among them and wants to associate himself
Speaker 3: with them. At some point in the two thousands, he
Speaker 3: was supporting Yorg Hyder, a neo fascist in Austria, and
Speaker 3: telling Europeans they needed to get past their obsession with
Speaker 3: the Second World War. He had no like consistent politics.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that tracks with his expulsion of Jewish
Speaker 1: communities in Libya. Yeah, he hadn't only expelled Jewish settlers,
Speaker 1: He expelled Jewish communities that had arrived prior to Italian colonization,
Speaker 1: that had existed in Libya for centuries.
Speaker 3: Yeah that maybe, I guess Anti Semitism can often be
Speaker 3: the link that brings terrible people together.
Speaker 1: He had a lot of other notorious incidents of suppression,
Speaker 1: but one of the most significant was the Abu Salim massacre.
Speaker 1: In short, as recounted by John Oogs, Abu Salem was
Speaker 1: the site of a prisoner's protest on the twenty eighth
Speaker 1: of June nineteen ninety six. The prisoners escaped their cells
Speaker 1: and were protesting them as treatment as gods shot at
Speaker 1: them from the roof. Two top security officials came and
Speaker 1: took command, ordering the shooting to stop and promising to
Speaker 1: address the prisoner's complaints if they returned to their cells
Speaker 1: and gave up the guards they had hostage and the
Speaker 1: following day, shots fired from eleven am to one thirty
Speaker 1: five pm, a mass slaughter of approximately one thy two
Speaker 1: hundred of the sixteen to seventeen hundred prisoners in Abu Salins.
Speaker 1: The families who suffered a blow were among the first
Speaker 1: on the streets of Benghazi twenty eleven, but those families
Speaker 1: were not originally told that their loved ones had been killed.
Speaker 1: Some of them continued to visit the prison for weeks,
Speaker 1: months years after, bringing gifts for their relatives who were
Speaker 1: already long dead. In the twists and turns of Gaddafi's
Speaker 1: ideological development or lack their of, following the fall of
Speaker 1: the USSR, Gaddafi would also pursue economic liberalization. He started
Speaker 1: opening up to the West, ever so slightly. They were
Speaker 1: still progress and a brief hickup, but by two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, free market advocate Chukri Ganim was appointed Prime Minister.
Speaker 1: Before long, three hundred and sixty state enterprises were privatized.
Speaker 1: By two thousand and seven, Libya was laying off as
Speaker 1: many as a third of the government workforce four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand public sector workers, and according to a New York
Speaker 1: Times article from twenty eleven, the IMF had actually praised
Speaker 1: Libya's economic reforms. So while twenty eleven conditions were so
Speaker 1: unbearable for so many workers, especially young people, there's no
Speaker 1: wonder that some of them fought with nothing to lose.
Speaker 1: The last aspects of Gadaffi's rule that I want to
Speaker 1: touch on was his complex relationship with Western powers billionis
Speaker 1: rule in the seventies and eighties. He did style himself
Speaker 1: for an anti imperist revolutionary and that is the image
Speaker 1: that our people uphold of him to this day. Libya
Speaker 1: funded an armed revolutionary and militon movements worldwide, from the
Speaker 1: African National Congress or the ANC, to the Palestine Liberation
Speaker 1: Organization or PILO, to the Irish Republican Army or IRI.
Speaker 1: He aligned himself with the so called radical camp in
Speaker 1: the Middle East, including Bathist Syria and Iran, and Western
Speaker 1: governments accused Libya of supporting international terrorism. Libya was considered
Speaker 1: a rogue state, but as noted by Syrian anarchist Mazen
Speaker 1: Kamalamas in an interview with Jose Antonio Guitairez, quote, even
Speaker 1: when Gaddafi was declaring himself an anti imperialist long ago,
Speaker 1: it was just a lip service. While he engaged as
Speaker 1: an authoritarian in trivial terrorist acts that never meant to
Speaker 1: support the libertarian objectives of the victims of imperialism end quote. Still,
Speaker 1: Reagan called him a mad dog, and the US bombed
Speaker 1: Libya in nine teen eighty six after attacks in a
Speaker 1: West Berlin nightclub were attributed to Libyan agents. Those bombans
Speaker 1: narrowly missed Gaddafi himself, but they killed his adopted baby daughter.
Speaker 1: Libya was also blamed for the nineteen eighty eight bombing
Speaker 1: of PanAm Flight one O three over Lockerby, which led
Speaker 1: to sanctions both the United Nations and the US, which
Speaker 1: isolated Libya economically and diplomatically. In the nineties, however, with
Speaker 1: four of the USSR, Libya began solely shifting toward cooperation.
Speaker 1: They handed over the suspects in the Lockerbie bombing, and
Speaker 1: sanctions began to loosen as they attempted to normalize relations.
Speaker 1: Western intelligence services soon started cooperating with Libyan intelligence against
Speaker 1: Islamist militon groups, including the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which
Speaker 1: is a thorn in Gaddafi's side. The early two thousands
Speaker 1: had Libya renownce its weapons of mass destruction program. Following
Speaker 1: the invasion of Iraq, the US and the UNS have
Speaker 1: equently lifted sanctions, and diplomatic relations were a store fully
Speaker 1: with Western countries. Gadaffi hosted Tony Blair of the UK,
Speaker 1: Nicholas atco Zia France, and met with Obama as well,
Speaker 1: and many of these meetings with Western leaders produced multi
Speaker 1: billion dollar energy and business deals BP Royal, Dot Shell, Excellent, Mobile, Chevron,
Speaker 1: Total Energies. They were all get in pieces of Libya's
Speaker 1: wealth as Libya began adopting one neoliberal economic reforms like
Speaker 1: currency devaluation, trade liberalization, and more openness to foreign investment.
Speaker 1: Libya was also able to cooperate closely with Western intelligence
Speaker 1: during the war and terror, including assist in the CIA
Speaker 1: and MI six in rendition and torture as uncovered by
Speaker 1: Human Rights Watch. So by the mid two thousands, Libya
Speaker 1: had mostly reintegrated into the Western their global system, and
Speaker 1: the West, for their part, simply ignored Gadaffi's continued human
Speaker 1: rights abuses. The conter terrorism cooperation, the oil and gas contracts,
Speaker 1: and don't forget the brutal African migrant control were all
Speaker 1: too valuable for America and Europe.
Speaker 3: I remember this this period quite well. It was when
Speaker 3: I was in my undergraduate university and Gaddafi was invited
Speaker 3: to speak the Oxford Union. I did my undergraduate there
Speaker 3: and myself and a number of friends.
Speaker 1: So you met Gadafi.
Speaker 2: No, he spoke. He spoke via video conference, okay.
Speaker 3: Which they paused while they removed us for protesting Gaddafi's
Speaker 3: Like it just seemed like this decades of abuse of
Speaker 3: his own people had been completely forgotten, right, because he
Speaker 3: was now prepared to do abuse of other people that
Speaker 3: was beneficial to the United Kingdom of the United States.
Speaker 3: And we felt like that was apparent and wrong, so
Speaker 3: we went to make our feelings known. And the Oxford
Speaker 3: Union is very silly institution, right, which prizes itself on
Speaker 3: free speech, and really it just does kind of class
Speaker 3: reproduction for the most part, right, And of course, like
Speaker 3: there was not freedom of each for people who are
Speaker 3: going to be rude to someone who was in charge
Speaker 3: of a state, even if they were being rude on
Speaker 3: behalf of the thousands.
Speaker 2: Of people he's had murdered and tortured.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that was my little personal run in with
Speaker 3: Goodafi when I was what like eighteen, But yeah, I
Speaker 3: can't remember if we were not allowed in or we
Speaker 3: were booted out, because I am like two decades and
Speaker 3: half a dozen traumatic brain injuries since my eighteenage years.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I do remember just being like, people are
Speaker 3: triating this like aus some kind of fucking novelty, and
Speaker 3: this person has real blood on his hands, like real
Speaker 3: people have suffered tremendously and died because of actions he's taken.
Speaker 2: Like it's not funny or cute.
Speaker 1: Wow, what a year was that?
Speaker 3: It would have been in the early two thousands, the
Speaker 3: Bush era, because that's when I was in my undergraduate
Speaker 3: second Bush term, so like it would have been brought
Speaker 3: in two thousand and six some of somewhere there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thankfully I never had any run ins with Gadaffi.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even at that time, I can remember just being
Speaker 3: sort of somewhat appalled by the Marxist learninist tendency to
Speaker 3: excuse crimes against humanity if as long as they were
Speaker 3: done by people who who said the right things, who
Speaker 3: had the right vibes, who condemned the right people, and
Speaker 3: the liberal tendency to excuse crimes against humanity so long
Speaker 3: as they were done in service of capitalism and the state.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, shockingly similar tendencies in some ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, like this fundamentally not rooted in the idea
Speaker 3: that people have a right to dignity. Both of them
Speaker 3: hold people as less valuable than other things, right, be
Speaker 3: it capital or I mean the Marxis learnins tendency, honestly, Like,
Speaker 3: it's not even the revolution that they believe it's more
Speaker 3: valuable than people. It's the revolutionary rhetoric. Yeah, like with
Speaker 3: a sad right, Like you can murder your own people
Speaker 3: with chemical weapons so long as you pretend to give
Speaker 3: us a shit about Palestinians, even though you've spent decades
Speaker 3: using your weapons to kill your own people and never
Speaker 3: once use him to actually help the people of Palestine,
Speaker 3: to actually protect.
Speaker 4: People, exactly exactly, So at this point, now, you know, good,
Speaker 4: after he's trying to be your chummy with the US,
Speaker 4: after he spent some time being chummy with Africa, and
Speaker 4: spend some time being chummy with USSR and with rebel
Speaker 4: groups around the world.
Speaker 1: But that was just the thing, right, he had this
Speaker 1: track record of flip flopping, you know, and even though
Speaker 1: relations had normalized, these Western powers could not trust him.
Speaker 1: They still saw him as that mad dog. They still
Speaker 1: saw him as unpredictable and unreliable. In fact, even while
Speaker 1: he was cutting deals with these multi billion dollar corporations
Speaker 1: for the oil contracts and so on, when he wasn't
Speaker 1: getting what he wanted, he would threaten to nationalize to
Speaker 1: get what he wanted. And so to West, being opportunistic,
Speaker 1: we're just waiting for an opportunity. They were done with
Speaker 1: playing his game, and that opportunity came when the people
Speaker 1: organically rose up against Gaddafi in twenty eleven, not long
Speaker 1: after NATO intervened. In the years since, Libyans have suffered
Speaker 1: and died with no end in sight. It shouldn't be
Speaker 1: uncontroversial to say this Gaddafi was not a true antime perialist.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's possible for a statesman or a
Speaker 1: government to be truly anti perialist. Government is fundationally exploitative
Speaker 1: internally and when turned externally, that drive exploitation is what
Speaker 1: we understand as imperialism. All the markers of imperialism worthy
Speaker 1: of condemnation, be it economic exploitation, cultural dominance, military violence,
Speaker 1: et cetera, is carried out under the label of governance
Speaker 1: when done within its own borders, when done against, for example,
Speaker 1: the non Arab minorities in Libya. I think what's missing
Speaker 1: from now popular anti imperialist narratives is that connection, that analysis,
Speaker 1: and a gap in the analysis is what's creating this
Speaker 1: false consciousness that leads people to come to conclusion that
Speaker 1: anti imperialism means that XYZ government is anti imperialists and
Speaker 1: good and ABC government is imperialists and bad. That's not
Speaker 1: how the world works. States are never going to be liberatory.
Speaker 1: They're not able to produce a liberatory framework. At their best,
Speaker 1: they function as a welfare state. At their worst, you
Speaker 1: get mass suppression and cults of personality. Sometimes you get
Speaker 1: a combination of both, as with Libya and Giaffi. And
Speaker 1: that's my message for today. Please stop lionis and leaders,
Speaker 1: stay woke. Yeah, and all power to all the people.
Speaker 1: Aber Andrew Sage. This is it could happen here. Peace.
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