Ian Black: Gaddafi the Younger Looks to Scrap Libya's Pariah Statu
[Ian Black is the Guardian's Middle East editor]
It looked, for a while, just like the bad old days: a handful of angry demonstrators on one side of a London street, shouting "Gaddafi is a murderer" and waving placards as a larger group of men on the other pavement lobbed back Arabic insults over the heads of the watching policemen. But the past was swiftly banished when Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, began to speak from the podium in a university lecture hall packed with businessmen, diplomats and students.
Saif, 37, is the face of modern, reforming Libya, emerging from its long years as a pariah state to become a dazzling mecca for western investment, with a reinvigorated energy industry, billions of dollars in cash reserves, a re-opened US embassy, and even plans for mass tourism....
Libya's colonial legacy, the curse of an oil economy and the lack of a tradition of civil society were all serious obstacles to be overcome. In theory, Libya was "the most democratic state in the world" because of its idiosyncratic system of "peoples' congresses". In practice, he added – pausing for knowing laughter from an appreciative audience – "the reality has fallen far short of the ideal"....
But it is clearly hard for him to escape that giant shadow. "Muammar al-Gaddafi is not just my father," said Saif. "He is the father of the nation. We cannot do anything without his approval. He is not against reforms – he has been very supportive. Without his support nothing will happen."
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
It looked, for a while, just like the bad old days: a handful of angry demonstrators on one side of a London street, shouting "Gaddafi is a murderer" and waving placards as a larger group of men on the other pavement lobbed back Arabic insults over the heads of the watching policemen. But the past was swiftly banished when Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, began to speak from the podium in a university lecture hall packed with businessmen, diplomats and students.
Saif, 37, is the face of modern, reforming Libya, emerging from its long years as a pariah state to become a dazzling mecca for western investment, with a reinvigorated energy industry, billions of dollars in cash reserves, a re-opened US embassy, and even plans for mass tourism....
Libya's colonial legacy, the curse of an oil economy and the lack of a tradition of civil society were all serious obstacles to be overcome. In theory, Libya was "the most democratic state in the world" because of its idiosyncratic system of "peoples' congresses". In practice, he added – pausing for knowing laughter from an appreciative audience – "the reality has fallen far short of the ideal"....
But it is clearly hard for him to escape that giant shadow. "Muammar al-Gaddafi is not just my father," said Saif. "He is the father of the nation. We cannot do anything without his approval. He is not against reforms – he has been very supportive. Without his support nothing will happen."