Libya crackdown: the trajectory of Brother Gaddafi
Posted on Friday 18 February, 2011
Filed Under International
MAKING comparisons between Muammar Gaddafi and Hugo Chávez is inevitably invidious to the latter. Whether you approve of the Venezuelan president or not, he is where he is on the back of a clear electoral mandate.
Yet in their standing as maverick oil-rich third world radicals lionised by sections of the British left, there are parallels between an earlier incarnation of the brother leader of the revolution and today’s el comandante.
The irony is that, at the time of writing, many Libyans are on the streets, chanting for the fall of the regime. Their peaceful protests appear to have been met with a bloodbath, with human rights activists claiming that at least 24 people have been gunned down by the security forces.
Gaddafi has plainly shown himself to be on the wrong side of the Middle East barricades, after having stressed his support for mates such as Mubarak and Ben Ali. He is now just another dictator and the sooner he departs, the better for his country.
But let it be recalled that this is a man who – prior to coming back onside with the oil multinationals a few years ago, anyway – used to promote himself as a radical pan-Arabist in the line of succession to Nasser, a tradition that still has admirers who should know better.
In the 1970s and 1980s, funds from Tripoli found their way to the Irish Republican Army, the Workers’ Revolutionary Party and the National Union of Mineworkers. For some comrades at the time, it was clearly a case of ‘what’s not to like?’
I did not at the time have a problem in principle with Scargill taking the cash, and I still don’t now. As a diehard tankie, Scargill was never a man to make a fetish of bourgeois democracy – to use the sort of formulation he would no doubt adopt – anyway. Whether accepting the donation was tactically well advised, in the light of the PR debacle that resulted, is another matter.
But given their claim to Trotskyism, the WRP’s clear willingness to sing for their supper is even at this distance something to behold. An organisation that may then have been the largest on the British far left was happy to act as an uncritical cheerleader for a repressive and authoritarian strongman. Here’s how one of the subsequent splinter groups tells it:
A draft resolution adopted by the WRP Political Committee on July 28, 1980 declared that “the Workers Revolutionary Party salutes the courageous and tireless struggle of Colonel Gaddafi whose Green Book has guided the struggle to introduce workers’ control of factories, government offices and the diplomatic service, and in exposing the reactionary maneuvers of Sadat, Beigin and Carter… We stand ready to mobilize the British workers in defense of the Libyan Jamahiriya and explain the teachings of the Green Book as part of the anti-imperialist struggle.”
On December 12, 1981 the Political Committee of the WRP issued a statement which declared: “When Gaddafi and the Free Unionist Officers seized popular control in 1969, they set Libya on the road of socialist development and expansion…Gadaffi has developed politically in the direction of revolutionary socialism and he has shunned the palaces and harems of some other Arab leaders.”
Courage? Tirelessness? Mmmm. Aren’t they missing ‘strength’ here?
There is one obvious moral in all this for revolutionary socialists; if you align yourself with people like this, you are reneging on the basic understanding that the emancipation of the working class is an act of the working class itself, not of any old hoodlum who espouses populism of Islamic colouration. And no matter how much money you get for it, it isn’t worth it.
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64 Responses to “Libya crackdown: the trajectory of Brother Gaddafi”
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You must be saving your strength for the arduous journey to the start of the anti-cuts demo tomorrow.Comparisons between Chavez and Gadaffi are invidious, but let’s do it anyway. The lesson should be: don’t confuse standing up for countries fighting imperialism with supporting those states’ internal repression.
So Chavez is a “maverick – oil-rich – third world – radical” is he? Even Rory Carroll, the Guardian’s self-styled white liberal first world anti-Caracas correspondent, only calls Chavez a “self-styled socialist president”.
This is all very worrying. I wonder if Chavez is jealous of our liberties? Either way, I and every right thinking person should be with Carroll and Osler and the US-funded coup-plotting democracy activists. I think we should suspend our critical faculties, parrot lazy Western media propaganda, and return all the cash – cash that he hasn’t offered and no-one’s taken, but don’t worry about such triffling details – to the tropical hoodlum. It’s much easier than actually trying to understand what’s taking place in Venezuela and the rest of Latin America.
Having, for the most part, grown up in libya in the 70s and 80s as the son of an oil worker I witness the regime’s regular brutality on the streets and with regular executions of students on television _ I also, at first had, witnessed the arrival of a much more assertive islamist politics in the mid 80s. Accounts of mass executions were frequent and I had many palestinian friends in exile in libya who were at best treated shabbily, at worst sent off to fight in Chad as cannon fodder. In about 86/87 I can remember having an argument at the AFA remembrance sunday demo in trafalgar square with Royston Bull, then of the International Leninist Party i think, who was arguing that Libya was some kind of worker’s nirvana and that any intimidaton, violence and climate of fear were myths constructed by the Imperialists. It taught me a lesson about the third camp that I wouldn’t forget and the period also taught me a lot about faux national liberationism and islamist reaction to reaction. I have also read the Green Book in its entirety – pompous, petulant, crap of the highest order written by a tyrant of the worst order
and you don’t have to be a US funded coup plotting democracy activist to suspend your critical faculties about national liberationist/nasserite/anti semitic/demagogic robber barons. And Chavez isn’t a million miles away from that
Calvin,
But what is the line on Gaddafi’s regime?
Do you agree he should be overthrown by the Libyans ?
Or do you think that Gaddafi’s contribution to “anti-imperialism” is too important for that?
the WRP’s clear willingness to sing for their supper…
I had long gone by this time, but funny enough I did end up spending time working not that far from the Kufra oasis south of Benghazi. I do wonder why Gerry Healy was doing the rounds of strange countries with his cap in hand. A sort of John the Baptist to Gallaway’s Christ.
I guess if you have managed to convince yourself, (and others), that the revolution is just round the corner; then setting your task as building a national newspaper and succeeding; and then the revolution doesn’t come; you get a little lost. That was probably Gerry’s biggest problem, not screwing the female comrades.
Thank goodness the WRP weren’t in the position to release a convicted mass murderer in exchange for influence. Has there been any section of the British politerati from far left to far right and everything in between that haven’t been to Libya cap in hand ditching every principle they claimed to have in the process?
Whilst I am sure Chavez is a populist demagogue getting in the way of the revolution in Venezuela to compare him to Gaddafi is breathtakingly stupid. Thus far anyway.
Reg – I assume by “convicted mass murderer” you mean “terminally ill scapegoat most of the British victims’ families don’t think had anything to do with the Lockerbie bomb”?
Modernity – since you’re back demanding answers, perhaps you’d enjoy answering those you failed to answer before:did the Israelis inflict a Catastrophe on 900,000 Palestinians in 1948, was it OK with you for them to murder 350 children in Gaza during Cast Lead, why is it OK for them to engage in the ongoing theft of Palestinian land but not for the Chinese in Tibet? One might add why you continue to peddle the lie that the Left in undifferentiated fashion backs repression in Iran when you know the answer is the opposite. As you’d say, failure to provide fulsome answers to these questions, while demanding the right to set the agenda and interrogate others will expose you as a hypocrite.
Martyn on the Green Book reminds me that another possible flaw in the post is the elision of the Libyan regime with Islamism, like the Ba’ath in Iraq it had a far more secular period, and maybe it’s more comparable to a fake religious cult knowingly set up by conmen.
As a trenchant opponent of genocide denial, Modernity will know where he stands on the following debate:
“Top Genocide Scholars Battle Over How To Characterize Israel’s Actions” Read more: http://forward.com/articles/135484/#ixzz1EOkFhSsrp://forward.com/articles/135484/
cue Modernity – cough… mumble… well it’s a very complex issue.. er… not really sure about the figures… must avoid evoking classic tropes… and anyway what about the Hamas charter… cough, mumble
Gaddafi in the 1980ies basically gave material support to everyone who was considered by them “my enemies enemy”, among them also German “national revolutionaries” and “conservative neutralists”, Austrian Greens, the UDA, … especially fellow weirdos like Healy and Abu Nidal
If anyone is interested in Berlosconi’s antics, one will find that his “bunga bunga” parties are based on his mate’s Gaddafi’s harems, at least according to recent evidence.
So much for shunning the harems.
Classic pharisee!
What has been the ‘sensible’ mindset over the last few years? Support the bourgeois neo liberal agenda as a bulwark against ‘clerical fascism’, because ‘sensibles’ think the Middle East equals head bangers. Though in reality the ‘sensibles’ have just basically followed the imperialist gangsters into any conflict they have entered, making up any argument that they think will fool the ‘gullible’ public. The current protests are in nations that are to all intents and purposes secular, and who have recently embraced neo liberalism most fervently. Just as the West and Gadaffi get cosy, so the regime comes a tumbling down!
‘Sensible’ ideology (incl. Marxists for Multi nationals), along with the neo liberalism it apologises for, is crumbling. Not that they would know it!
Iranian Navy ships currently blocked at Suez, bit of a clue that there is slightly more to international relations than maximising surplus value extraction!
Dozens of people gunned down in the streets of Behghazi and all you want to talk about is Israel – will you people never grow up?
And it is already turning out that the most ‘left-wing’ and ‘anti-imperialist’ Arab dictatorships (Libya, Algeria, Yemen – with Syria no doubt to follow) happen to be the ones that whose streets are now running red with the blood of would-be revolutionaries – while the bourgeois lackeys in Egypt and Tunisia went with only a few shots fired.
”I assume by “convicted mass murderer” you mean “terminally ill scapegoat most of the British victims’ families don’t think had anything to do with the Lockerbie bomb”?”
Fortunately, the legal system is not determined by what the families of the victims think.
Possibly Al-Megrahi was innocent – in which case the correct procedure was to use all mechanisms of appeal, not bundle him off to Tripoli with the dictator’s son.
And if Libyan intelligence agents were not responsible for Lockerbie, why did the Libyan regime send a letter to the UN Security Council in 2003 accepting responsibility for the acts of its officials? Why did it pay over 3.5 billion US dollars to the Lockerbie families and victims of other terrorist acts committed by Gaddafi’s agents?
The regime implicitly accepted guilt. If Gaddaffi was really innocent then, instead of paying the compensation, he could have used his extensive Middle Eastern contacts to pinpoint and expose the real criminals.
As for the terminally ill Megrahi – he was released on 20 August 2009. That’s 18 months ago – how long a period does Skidmarx imagine that the word “terminal” covers?
The Gadaffi despotism is a blight on the Middle East and Africa and the sooner it disappears the better.
So as of this morning the scorecard appears to be Gadaffi 104 – Imperialist stooges 0.
Just googled Gaddafi and Chavez images (which just a couple of days ago would have been an amusing way to while away a few minutes) – so is there really no hand that is too bloodstained for Hugo to shake?
Muammar, Saddam, Robert, Vladimir, Hafez, Mahmoud: they are all there.
Give up dependence on oil, and injustice will almost be solved.
Roger missed imperialist friendly Bahrain from his list of governments gunning down its people. Libya and especially Yemen are not ‘anti’ imperialist, far from it. Try keeping up Roger. It is notable how tame US criticism of these actions has been.
It should also be noted that US leaders can be seen shaking hands with some of the worst despots on planet earth, as well as having breakfast and lunch with them while discussing the next arms shipment! I think Blair had some fine words for Gadaffi. Obama embraced Mubarak etc etc etc. Actually Chavez also shook Obama’s hand.
What we are now waiting for is news from imperialist friendly, that model of civilisation, Saudi Arabia. Fingers crossed everyone.
I deliberately omitted Bahrain because its initial attempt at repression was rather half-hearted and they have actually withdrawn the army and police – however given that the opposition are mostly Shia and the klepto-monarchy is Sunni it wouldn’t surprise me if there is no room for an ‘orderly transition’ and we do get a real bloodbath there.
And re Chavez I have deployed ‘you do it as well’ enough times myself to know that it is a really crap argument you fall back on when you really do have nothing better.
Blair is indeed a vile piece of shit who didn’t just shake Mubarak’s hand but holidayed no fewer than five times in his palaces – but this is just what bourgeois politicians do.
Chavez however is supposed to be a socialist and a revolutionary and in the cases I cited he went well beyond the normal diplomatic niceties and handshaking to enthusiastically embrace these comrades and declare at interminable length his undying political solidarity with them.
Given his penchant for talking all day on his very own presidential TV chat show I suspect he may even be singing (perhaps quite literally) Gaddafi’s praises at this very moment and that Muammar has a standing intervention to pitch his tent in Caracas if things pear-shaped in Tripoli.
You can support idiot mini-Bonapartist adventurers like Chavez for reasons of expediency but you should at least do so with open eyes.
There are some very short memories around on the left and, for whatever reason a tendency to create a cult of the personality. Chavez is one example. Taking what Roger says a step further we should support the Venezuelas of this planet against American imperialism but that support should be critical. So while there may be good tactical reasons for Chavez to support Libya and Iran particularly in the context of OPEC and the need to fund anti poverty and other programmes. BUT the there is no need for the fulsome praise for Ghadaffi and Ahmadinejad – this goes far beyond diplomatic and tactical niceties.
This third world romanticism is yet another form of substitutionism which betrays a lack of confidence in the working class to be the actors and agents of change in all societies.
Apparently its the junkies who are coming to get them….
http://maxatkinson.blogspot.com/2011/02/dr-gadaffi-comes-to-rescue-with-real.html
The shades of Laski, Hayek, Popper and Miliband (Ralph) must be proud that the LSE is turning out alumni of this quality.
georgier,
No, you have to go further – if one ever finds oneself supporting the likes of a Chavez it must be only as in Lenin’s characteristically brutal words ‘a rope supports a hanging man’.
His affinity for bloodstained psychopaths is clearly far more than just a tactical ruse forced upon him by imperialist encirclement (oh those cunning Yanqui imperialists buying all his oil and funding whatever genuinely progressive social reforms he has instituted just to lull him into a false sense of security).
What we are seeing (if we and the oppressed Arab masses are lucky) is a much-delayed cleaning of those many corners of the Augean stables that were left untouched by 1989 and by the neocons abortive crusade to liberate the Middle East.
Strip away the last illusions of Leninist and Trotskyist substitutism and see all this for what it is – a series of bourgeois revolutions aimed at replacing the half-fascist and half-stalinist structures imposed by anti-colonialist military and political adventurers in the Bandung era with more modern national states.
If any of these are more democratic than what is being swept away this will be a huge step forward historically.
@ skidmarx
I wasnt eliding Islamism and the Libyan regime – I was unclear maybe – I witnessed the development of Islamism in Libya in the 80s against the regime. Reactionary Islamism against Quadafi’s nasserite, semi-secularist use of traditional islam
Paul -
Hmmm…
The Libyans might be lying, yes, but they haven’t admitted guilt.
I am confused…on the one hand we are told that the imperialists should not intervene in the Middle East, but on the other, poeple are calling out for imperialist intervention, ‘make them stop the killings..’. What’s it to be?
I wonder what Dave thinks of the likes of John McDonnell when he, quite rightly, supports Chavez e.g see http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=28723
To compare the broad support of the left for Chavez to the tiny WRP is ridiculous.
SueR. I am sure the imperialists are intervening in there own interest. The killings mean nothing to them. It has been going on for decades. The free flow of oil and trade is what matters.
URGENT UPDATE 21st February 2011
Venezuelan government rejects totally false claim by William Hague that Gaddafi is on way to Venezuela
Venezuela’s Information Minister and its Deputy Foreign Minister moved swiftly earlier today to reject the false claims made by Britain’s Foreign Minister William Hague that Colonel Gaddafi was heading to Venezuela.
The Venezuelan Embassy in London also strongly rejected claims from Hague that he had “seen some information suggesting he [Gaddafi] is on his way there [Venezuela] at the moment”.
Venezuelan Information and Communication Minister, Andres Izarra, said to the Associated Press that “it’s false” that Gaddafi is flying to Venezuela.
The Venezuelan Embassy in London has said that Deputy Foreign Minister Temir Porras had denied that Gaddafi was travelling to Venezuela. The Embassy added that “those British media outlets which have published the statement made by William Hague, should equally make clear the mistaken aspect of that statement.”
The Associated Press has also reported that EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton dismissed Hague’s comment, saying she knew nothing about it, whilst the BBC News is now reporting that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was on the phone to Gadaffi in Libya at the time Hague made his remarks.
Venezuela Solidarity Campaign Secretary Francisco Dominguez said:
“All media outlets have a responsibility to make sure that the truth on this important matter is clearly reported and should make it explicit in their coverage that the Venezuelan government have totally denied these baseless allegations that Gaddafi was flying to Venezuela.
A former British Prime Minister once wrote that ‘A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on’. It is a disgrace that William Hague has helped false and totally unfounded claims gain widespread coverage. He should now withdraw these false allegations and reveal which sources provided the wholly unfounded claim”.
Tut tut,
The Venezuela Solidarity Campaign quoting from the Arch-imperialist, Winston Churchill!
Whatever next?
Will Chavez be getting chummy with dictators from the Middle East? Ops, he’s already done that.
Will Hugo return the tent?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11974818
Will modernity admit he’s a hypocrite who demands answers but never answers himself?
Let’s try again:
Did the Israelis inflict a Catastrophe on 900,000 Palestinians in 1948, was it OK with you for them to murder 350 children in Gaza during Cast Lead, why is it OK for them to engage in the ongoing theft of Palestinian land but not for the Chinese in Tibet? Why do you continue to peddle the lie that the Left in undifferentiated fashion backs repression in Iran when you know the answer is the opposite?
Tankies, “anti-imperialists” and “defending” dictators:
Shades of 1956?
It’s not just revolutionary socialists who put their hopes in Gaddafi.
“The first thing that must be understood about the Megrahi affair is the vastness of the entanglements among Libya, the oil companies, and the Blair government. This is no ordinary set of relationships, and the economic stakes are high. As the Blair era wound down, and as officials began looking toward wealth and security in the afterlife, the opportunities available in Libya loomed very large. They had everything to gain by a show of cooperation. As a result, what one sees in the final years of Tony Blair’s government is the transformation of New Labour into something that might be called New Libya.”
Is this a correct account of the early days of Gaddafi and his liberation on the Libyan people?
http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/point-of-no-return2.html
Well, where else can Gaddafi and his harem of nubile young female bodyguards actually go?
Although Saudi Arabia has long been the psychotic Muslim dictators haven of choice how long before it too totters and falls?
Ditto for Syria and Iran.
Italy would have been a sure choice but Berlusconi himself may shortly find himself forced to spend more time with his family (or rather with under-age hookers).
So Venezuela may indeed be his last best hope for refuge.
And do you think if he does fall we can ask for Comrade Megrahi back?
The above “A world to Win” is a strange link.
It is written by a long term comrade of Gerry Healy, Corinna Lotz, and rather sympathetic to Gaddafi’s regimes.
Essentially, it argues that until the late 1980s his regime wasn’t too bad, and that its isolation by the West produced the turn towards reaction, and thus not his fault.
Basically nonsense.
I think the most objectionable aspect of this piece is the comparison of Chavez to Gaddafi. Unfortunately, it has always been the case that Dave’s talents as a writer far exceed his capacity for serious political analysis.
The statement I want to challenge, however, is the one that reads “in the 1970s and 1980s, funds from Tripoli found their way to … the Workers Revolutionary Party”.
To quote that political biography of Gerry Healy I wrote ages ago:
My conclusion was: “All in all, there is no question that Healy tried to sell himself to the Arab bourgeoisie. What is rather more doubtful is whether they thought it was worth paying very much for him.”
I remember discussing this with Mike Banda some years ago and he supported Dave Bruce’s account. Referring to the WRP winning the Libyan printing contracts by offering below commercial rates, Mike said: “It wasn’t Colonel Gaddafi who subsidised us. It was us who subsidised Colonel Gaddafi”!
The only actual donation the WRP ever received from Libya, he told me, was towards one of the Youth Trainiing Centres that they were trying to set up at the time.
This does have some relevance to politics today, as there have been attempts to smear Ken Livingstone by associating him with the WRP’s supposed receipt of “Libyan gold”.
In his long rambling speech earlier, Gadaffi said that the people of Libya don’t need to go on the streets and protest; they have peoples’ assemblies. Like this one? 10 people in the park talking to themselves. I suppose the main difference is that the aeroplanes and helicopters drowning out the speech in the video aren’t about to bomb the speaker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJh1S5vDZnM
Forgetting the money for the moment.
Perhaps comrade Bob would tell us about the spying escapades that the WRP are suppose to have got up to?
Was that too subsidising Colonel Gaddafi?
Yes – sending News Line’s so-called reporters to photograph anti-Saddam demos and then despatching the pictures straight to Baghdad so the Iraqi secret police could work out who to assassinate or whose relatives to torture, rape and kill strikes me as infinitely worse than taking money.
Incidentally Israeli left blogger Lisa Goldman has many Arab contacts and publishes an account from one she spoke to in Tripoli last night:
http://lisagoldman.net/2011/02/22/letter-from-tripoli-an-eyewitness-account/
It is terrible, as Bob Pitt says above the way people would want to “smear” Ken Livingstone (and Ted Knight, presumably) by associating them with the WRP and their “receipt of ‘Libyan Gold’”.
Of course, there could be no connection whatsoever between “Libyan Gold” funding the “Newsline” on one hand, and the WRP-produced, (yet fronted by Ken and Ted) “Labour Herald”, printed – in full colour! in the early 1980s! – in the non-union WRP printshop in Runcorn.
No connection whatsover. A slur and nothing more. I am sure that the figures always could show that “Labour Herald” funded itself entirely.
I don’t expect an answer from comrade Bob.
Bob Pitt is only trying to whitewash history, but sadly he hasn’t counted on the Internet or the previous reports on the subject.
Apparently, the WRP took over £1,000,000 pounds from Middle Eastern sources, part for printing and part for services to be rendered, ie, spying.
Readers should examine:
http://libcom.org/library/revolution-betrayed-wrp-iraq
There’s plenty more on the WRP, lest comrade Bob forgets.
Islamophobe!
My recollection of the Workers Press is it was always in crisis. They needed money to fight the cause. Just as it was about to go bust a last minute loadsamoney flowed in to save it. The CP always claimed they were sponsored by the establishment to split the workers.
But we all know who funded the CP with Moscow Gold, with much more money than the WRP ever got from Tripoli. Yet the CP were always begging for cash.
d. The WRP got money from all sorts as did the CP. SOCIALISM IS LIKE CAPITALISM. They need money to exist.
Neither Dave Bruce nor Mike Banda disputed the fact that the WRP was paid money by the Libyan government. Their point was that the money was in payment for legitimate printing contracts, for which the Libyan government was quoted below commercial rates.
The ICFI report that Modernity cites misrepresented the position by implying that these were direct donations to the WRP.
I hold no brief for Healy or the WRP, but I can’t see the point making false accusations against them. Their politics were bad enough already, without having to invent stuff. Obviously David North and his friends felt differently.
Labour Herald may possibly have been printed at below commercial rates too, just like the Libyan newspapers and the Green Book (though I recall Livingstone and Knight stating during a libel action against the listings magazine City Limits that the main advantage they got from the deal with Astmoor Litho compared with an orthodox commercial contract was more to do with the leeway they were given when it came to paying their bills).
But you’ll note that completely contradictory arguments are used in the two cases.
Apparently the WRP was subsidising Ted Knight and Ken Livingstone when charging the latter for print jobs, but Gaddafi was subsidising the WRP when they provided the same service to him!
“A second one is the oil dynamic – now spectacularly unfolding in Libya. If the regime falls there will be a temporary glitch in the world’s oil supplies and the price will spike. It would spike even higher if Iran blew up. But ultimately, western leaders are presuming, “democracy” or democratic values will win out and in the ensuing stability prices will fall.”
Paul Mason
Bob:
you’ll note that completely contradictory arguments are used in the two cases.
Apparently the WRP was subsidising Ted Knight and Ken Livingstone when charging the latter for print jobs, but Gaddafi was subsidising the WRP when they provided the same service to him!
I thought you were supposed to be an educated marxist (or have you just read ‘Security and the Fourth International’)? It’s dialectics, comrade. Didn’t they learn you any Marxist-Healy philosophy when you were in the WRP?
What’s this lefties, you kept this site secret from we neocons, I see there are lots and lots of leftist loons here, marvelous, just up my alley.
Hey, I heard Gaddafi was a socialist?
That’s not true is it?
Sandal. I thought you were a slightly short of left right winger.
The great Gaddafi did fund the fascist IRA that went on to kill working class Irish. But they were protestant so that does not matter. Gaddafi is now killing his own working class. That hardly matters does it. The loony leftie socialists supported Gaddafi. They are terribly silent now.