Conflicted S3 E11 - Gaddafi: The Arab Madman Cometh

Thomas Small Aimen, guess what movie I saw last night?

Aimen Dean Which one?

Thomas Small The new Top Gun movie, Top Gun: Maverick. It was so awesome.

Aimen Dean I hate you. I really want to watch it.

Thomas Small You've got to see it, man. And also, you know, it really put me in the right mindset for today's episode, which is about Colonel Gaddafi. So, it put me right back in the mid-eighties when, you know, America's neo-conservative, muscular sort of confidence was – was at its – at its peak and Gaddafi was the great enemy of the world.

Aimen Dean What did Reagan call him again?

Thomas Small The mad dog of the Middle East.

Aimen Dean Except – except this is the problem with Reagan. He never knew his geography. Actually, he was supposed to be, technically, the mad dog of North Africa.

Thomas Small That's true. That's true. You know, poor North Africans, they're always being lumped in as Middle Easterners. They must think, "We're not Middle Easterners. We're not Middle Easterners. We're North Africans." Frankly, given the history we're going to talk about today, I don't know which one I'd rather be.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small Right. Let's get into it.

Aimen, I've got to be more careful about what I say during these recordings. In our last episode, I just, you know, casually announced that we'd be discussing the notorious 1973 oil embargo today. But, in fact, we're actually not going to discuss the oil embargo. So, for any dear listeners who have tuned in, hoping for our take on the oil embargo, you're out of luck. Maybe another time.

Aimen Dean No. We are talking about something far more interesting than the oil embargo. We are talking about the king of kings of Africa, the dean of the Arab presidents. You know, the—. What did he call himself also? The – the – the imam of all Muslims. You know, the – the colonel. The leader of the great glorious revolution of the conqueror. Yeah. That's the name of the official revolution in Libya. Muammar Gaddafi.

Thomas Small Yes. Today we're focusing on Libya, a country that we've rather ignored over these three seasons, but not today.

Before we go back in time, Aimen, tell us what's the situation like in Libya at the moment?

Aimen Dean It's a scrambled egg of politics. Let's put it this way. I mean, you have former Libyan regime, you know, military figures, like Khalifa Haftar—you know, the field marshal Khalifa Haftar as he called himself—in the east of Libya and you have remnants of the jihadist LIFG (the Libyan Islamic Fighter Group) led by Abdelhakim Belhaj, you know, based out of Tripoli. And then, you have, you know, the Turkish- and Muslim Brotherhood-backed Bashagha, the former prime minister. And you have Dbeibah, who is kind of the prime minister who is, you know, agreed upon by everyone because he is quite weak, you know. And – and still there is no end, you know, in sight for, you know, the current chaotic scene of Libyan politics. It really needs a strongman again.

Thomas Small Oh, man. So much unrest. So much disquiet. So much chaos. It's all largely fallout from the forty-two-year rule of Libya's handsome, charismatic, and pretty batshit crazy dictator, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Aimen Dean You know, he was my favourite. He was my favourite dictator of all time.

Thomas Small Well, because he made you laugh more than any dictator.

Aimen Dean We have a saying in Arabic, "[speaks in Arabic]," which means that you should collect wisdom, you know, from the mouth of the insane. So, for me, he really personified that proverb.

Thomas Small Well, dear listeners, now that we've told the story of the rise and fall of Nasserism, we turn to Gaddafi and other mad men like him who believed themselves to have inherited Nasser's mental of era of leadership. Gaddafi's brazen, narcissistic insanity is the stuff of legend. And, Aimen, you've got a caravan load of funny anecdotes to illustrate just how nuts he was.

But, more seriously, Gaddafi symbolises the tragic turn towards unhinged dictatorship, which much of the Arab world underwent in the second half of the Cold War. Gaddafi, Assad, Saleh, Mubarak, Ben Ali, and, of course, Saddam Hussein, they all stalked the Middle East, like undead zombies of Nasser, a nightmare from which the Arab world is still recovering.

Dude, Aimen. Gaddafi, he was nuts.

Aimen Dean Well, I mean, can you imagine being twenty-seven-year-old and you become the undisputed leader of a large country like Libya? One-point-seven million square kilometres. Well, mostly desert and underpopulated. But still, like, you know, I mean, with oil.

Thomas Small Well, it certainly went to his head. I don't know what was inside that head of his, but there was a lot of crazy stuff. During the reading I – I've been doing, preparing for this episode, I kept thinking over and over, "Wow. I mean, how in God's name could a man like this maintain rule over a whole country for forty-two years?" I mean, he—. How is this possible, Aimen?

Aimen Dean You know what? Actually, I looked at this, throughout history, that insane and unhinged rulers tend, actually, to last longer. And there are good examples throughout history, including in North Africa. Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, Fatimid caliph. You know, he was insane and one of his anecdotes is that he ordered all of the people of Egypt to shave one eyebrow and keep the other one. So, I mean—. And people complied. And he lasted long, because, just like every insane and unhinged ruler, people are always afraid. They are so unpredictable. People don't know how—.

You see—. You know, if you have the classical ruler, the classical leader, you know how to manoeuvre around them, you know how to outmanoeuvre them. But when you have an insane person who could just, you know, turn the entire table with a chess board on it, you don't know how to deal with them. So, this is why they last longer. People don't know how to deal with them. They are so unpredictable.

Thomas Small Well, certainly, that was true of – of Colonel Gaddafi. And this is how I want to frame the episode, really. I mean, in our last episode, we covered the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, and we said that those wars marked the demolition of Nasserism, the demolition of the dream of pan-Arabism, and that the first generation of post-colonial Arab republicans were thoroughly discredited.

And when I'm thinking about Gaddafi, I'm thinking, you know, the Arab world, in a way, following its defeats to Israel and the smashing of its prevailing ideological framework, after this, the Arab world kind of went nuts.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small And Gaddafi symbolises it perfectly. It's almost like Gaddafi personified the mental breakdown that the Arab world was undergoing.

Aimen Dean Indeed. Oh, my God. When you say he went nuts, he went nuts in terms of every variety. Pistachios, almonds, cashews. Everything.

Thomas Small Also, it's interesting that, you know, this whole series, we've been talking about the – a period of Arab and Middle Eastern history through which Gaddafi grew up. He is really the product of everything that we've discussed. He grew up, you know, after the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, after the First World War changed the – the map of the Middle East, after all of these trends became firmly established. So, Gaddafi is the results of all of this history. In a way.

Aimen Dean Indeed. And this is why I think he is the product—. To – to – to an extent, he is the product of the overhyped rhetoric of Nasserism and of Arab nationalism.

Thomas Small Yeah. You told me that you – you think he sort of symbolises a continuation of Nasserism in a more radical mode.

Aimen Dean Indeed. The problem with Gaddafi was his, apart from his insanity was his excessive narcissism.

Thomas Small That is for sure. The man was—. I think he was certifiable. I mean, honestly. You've got so many great stories in our conversation leading up to this episode, man. I just laughed so much.

Aimen Dean The problem is that we have to also understand that the story of how he became the leader of Libya is as interesting actually as how he was able to continue through Libya for forty-two years.

Thomas Small Yes. And—. But before we get to the story of Gaddafi, let's talk about Libya, as we are wont to do this series, by going far back into history. Libya, you know, well, the question is, of course: What is Libya? The word "Libya" for the ancients was really the word they used for all of Africa outside of Egypt. So, it was an extremely broad term, Libya. Ancient Libya appears in Herodotus, the father of history, the ancient—. Well, you call him the "father of lies," Aimen.

Aimen Dean Yeah. I call him the "father of lies."

Thomas Small He mentions Libya. He says, "The people who inhabit Libya are four and no more than four. Two of these people are indigenous and two of them are not. The Libyans who live in the north and the Ethiopians who live in the south are both indigenous while the Phoenicians and the Greeks are immigrants."

So, this shows very clearly that Libya meant much more than what it means to us today. All of Africa outside Egypt. So, when Herodotus talks about Libyans, he's referring to the people we know as the Berbers. We don't—. We – we haven't talked much about the Berbers, Aimen, in Conflicted, but they are a very important people, especially in the history of the Islamic world.

Aimen Dean I mean, yeah. The—. We—. When we talk about the Berbers, we talk about, you know, a variety of tribes, you know, from – stretching from Egypt, from the, you know, the oasis of Siwa all the way to Mauritania, and it encompass so many of them that. There are Berbers of the mountains, of the north, in Algeria and in Morocco. And there are the Tuaregs, who, you know, straddle the – the Great Sahara to the south of the coast. And then, you have the coastal Berbers. You know, like the people of Tobruk, you know, which is known as Cyrenaica. I mean, and the people of Tripoli. And – and – and then, you have the Berbers who were the Numidians, you know, going around, you know, in Tunisia.

So, there are so many of these tribes. You know, Zenata, Sanhaja. You know, Kutama. We could go on and on and on about, like, you know, how many Berbers and Tamazight as they are known. You know, they don't call themselves Berbers, by the way. They call themselves the Tamazight people.

Thomas Small The free people. It means the free people.

Aimen Dean Exactly. They refuse the, you know, the word Berber, because this is what the Romans gave them.

Thomas Small Well, in fact, the Greeks called them Berber, and it's the same word as "barbarian."

Aimen Dean Exactly.

Thomas Small They – they just called them the barbarians. It's not very flattering.

Aimen Dean Because, for the Greeks, anyone outside of Greece is barbaric. That's how they saw it.

Thomas Small Berber tribes have inhabited the land that we now call Libya for at least twelve thousand years, and they're mentioned in Egyptian records as calvary officers and the Egyptian army for some period. And even at one point, they conquered Egypt and became pharaohs. For about two hundred years, there was a Berber dynasty overseeing Egypt. So, they're a very ancient people.

The—. Hero – Herodotus specifically talks about a tribe known as the Garamantes, a large Berber tribal confederation based in what is now the Fezzan, in southwestern Libya. They had cities, they had advanced irrigation, and they formed extensive trade networks across the Sahara to the south. So, we're talking about a serious people, really, that have played a big role in history.

The next category that Herodotus mentions. Ethiopians was his word for Black Africans in general. And they don't really fall into this podcast, because, you know, Libya is mainly Berber and Arab. However, Colonel Gaddafi did fancy himself to be the leader of all Africa and formed close ties with a lot of African countries.

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah. He called himself the king of kings of Africa.

Thomas Small Typical narcissism, honestly.

Finally, the two non-indigenous peoples: Greeks and – and Phoenicians. So, the Greeks founded the city of Cyrene, in – in eastern Libya, and – and that city gave its name to the whole region, which was known in classical antiquity as Cyrenaica. And this was a major urban centre of the eastern Mediterranean, and it particularly had a huge Jewish population. Cyrene had tens of thousands or even a couple hundred thousand Jews at the time of Christ. I mean, really quite a remarkable fact. You know? 'Cause back – back then, Jews were – were widespread across the Mediterranean world.

The city of Cyrene is perhaps best known because it's the place where Simon of Cyrene came from. This is the man who, according to the Gospel accounts, carried Christ's cross for him on his way to Golgotha before the crucifixion. Now, this, Aimen, bear with me, this is a random, but, I think, quite a fun digression. So, Simon of Cyrene became a very important figure in what's called Gnosticism, right, an early form of Christianity considered heretical by the Orthodox churches, which, among other things, denied the materiality of Christ's body.

Now stay with me, Aimen, here. So, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, who compiled a compendium of heresies in the late second century AD—so about 150 years after Christ—he described the beliefs of one of these Gnostic groups, the Basilides. He said—. They—. This is what they believed: Christ himself did not suffer. Rather, a certain Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry his cross for him. It was he who was ignorantly and erroneously crucified, being transfigured by God, so that he might be thought to be Jesus.

Aimen, why do I find that so interesting?

Aimen Dean Because that's what the Islamic belief is.

Thomas Small I know. Isn't that—? And I think that's how the – the majority interpretation of the Quranic verses about the crucifixion go. That Jesus wasn't crucified. That someone was transformed to look like Jesus and he was crucified instead. So, this – this – this belief, this idea may have originated amongst Gnostic Christians in Cyrene. I – I just think that's amazing.

Aimen Dean Interesting.

Thomas Small Anyway. So, eventually, Cyrenaica, this is eastern Libya, was conquered by the Persians, incorporated into their empire, and ruled as a part of Egypt and then, as a part of Alexander's empire and so on. So, it was basically, for many, many centuries, a faraway outpost of Egypt. This is eastern Libya.

The Carthaginians, these are people who originated in – in modern Lebanon, they founded three cities in what is now western Libya. And because there were three of them, the Greeks called the area Tripolitania, i.e., the land of three cities. And though the cities were not Greek, they were Carthaginian. Modern-day Tripoli is one of those cities. The Carthaginians were an extremely powerful imperial power. They subjugated the Berbers, who sometimes revolted. It was quite a chaotic time, I think. Eventually, the Romans crushed the Carthaginians. They incorporated triple attained into their empire, which became part of a province of Africa as they called this province based in modern-day Tunisia. So, from that point on western Libya was basically always in the orbit of Tunis.

What's the main point here? What we think of as Libya was never a single, unified political entity until the twentieth century.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small Modern Libya is the cobbling together of three regions that were always marginal parts of other larger polities: Tunis and Egypt, basically.

Aimen Dean Actually, everything you said, Thomas, is absolutely accurate. To this day—to this day—you can tell that Eastern Libyans and Western Libyans don't see eye to eye re – whether – regarding politics, regarding, you know, traditions. You know, even, you know, dishes and culture and, you know, cuisine and all of that. I mean, both sides of Libya are not only just separated by a massive desert between them and a long coast, but also by, you know, centuries of being attached to two different political entities.

Aimen Dean Right. Okay. So much for ancient history. Let's talk about Islamic Libya. The – the Arab conquest came to Libya, as it came to all of North Africa shortly after the death of the prophet. But the Berbers, they strongly resisted the Arabs, didn't they?

Aimen Dean You know, Thomas, the story of the Muslim conquest of North Africa is so fascinating. It took fifty years. Actually, fifty-five years. And it is the story of conquest, reconquest, re-reconquest, and re-re-reconquest, because the Berbers kept pushing the Arabs back and kept defeating them and kept pushing them back. But the Arabs were so persistent. "No. We're coming back."

So, in the end, the Berbers just got sick of – of it and they said to the Arabs, "What would it take for you to just get lost?"

So, they said, "Well, I mean, convert to Islam."

"Here. That's it. We convert to Islam. We're all changing our names. That's it. We're all Muhammad and Abdullah and Abdulaziz and everything. That – that's it. Leave us alone now."

So, this is the story of how Islam came to North Africa.

Thomas Small Does that mean that, to this day, Berbers have a reputation? Maybe a bit like the past tunes, actually, of – of being Muslims, of being pious Muslims, but, in a way, being Berber first?

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah. I mean, there is no question that the Berber identity was so strong, and it will actually carry on in later years into Andalusia and the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, Spain and Portugal. You know, the armies that went to conquer were two separate armies: one is a Berber Muslim and one is an Arab Muslim. From the beginning, they had their separate armies, their separate entities, their separate identity. You know? And they remained like this for a very long time.

Thomas Small We're spending all this time talking about Berbers. But, in a way, we shouldn't be because Libya, amongst all those North African places, was the most Arabised. Though this happened later than the conquest themselves, in the eleventh century, two notoriously riotous, Arabian tribes, one of them from the Nejd, you know, from the heartland of Saudi Arabia, they came to the land that is now Libya and they – they didn't – they didn't really make themselves so welcome, did they?

Aimen Dean Indeed. The Banu Hilal and the Banu Salim.

Thomas Small The Beni Hilal and the Banu Salim.

Thomas Small So, who are the Banu Hilal and Banu Salim? I mean, they are Nejd tribes from Arabia and they were actually contracted by the Fatimid caliph at the time in order for – to use them as mercenaries against rebels in Tunisia, in modern-day Tunisia. And, you know, oh, boy, what they – what did they do to North Africa? I mean, they laid waste, not only to the rebels, but to Carthage and to Tunis and Kairouan and all of these cities that were rebelling. And then, they settled in Libya. And their settling in Libya—. Although some of them, when they wanted to go back to Nejd, actually, they settled in Sinai. And, actually the Bedouins of Sinai and the Bedouins of Libya were always known to be notorious. Sometimes, they were pirates or brigands or highway gangs. I mean, they were not exactly an exemplary citizens. Let's put it this way. And funny enough, our subject for this episode today, Colonel Gaddafi himself, is from Banu Hilal.

Thomas Small Yes, indeed. The Qadhadhfa tribe from which he gets his surname were – were among the Bani Hilal. And a few hundred years after the Bani Hilal and the – the Banu Salim came and conquered Libya, the famous North African polymath, Ibn Khaldun, in his potted history of the region, still re – recalled their arrival with great sadness. He said, "It was at this point that our civilisation, that our irrigation, that our great wealth, it was undermined. Agriculture declined, and we became a more sort of backwards, rather chaotic collection of city states, always warring with each other."

He blamed the Bani Hilal, i.e., in a way, Colonel Gaddafi's grandfathers.

So, from that point on, Libya is something of a backwater to history. Obviously, it fell within the Ottoman Empire to some extent, although it was sort of marginal a – a dynasty of – of Turkic leaders called the Karamanli ruled it when it became infamously piratical. In fact, the first ever foreign war that the United States fought very early on in its history were called – are called the Barbary Wars against – basically against the Libyan city states who were harass – who were harassing shipping in the Mediterranean.

So, we just want to skip ahead, really, to when Libya enters the modern period, and that's in October 1912, when the Ottomans signed a treaty with Italy, inaugurating, really, what is the most, in my view, the most horrendous period of European colonisation in any Middle Eastern or Arab country.

Aimen Dean You know what, Thomas? Our image of Italy and the Italians always that they are the easy-going people. You know, they're just busy drinking, eating, having a good time, dancing, concerts, you know, and just falling in love. You know, amore. You know, that – that's what the Italians are.

But that's not the Italy or the Italians that the Libyans experienced in 1912 and beyond. Oh, my God. When the Libyans – when the Libyans saw the troops landing in Tobruk, in Zuwarah, in Tripoli, in Misrata, I mean, that was like the gates of hell opening.

Thomas Small Especially from the 1920s, when – when Mussolini came to power and – and he decided to make an example, really, of Libya. Libya became his – his sort of petri dish of Italian fascist imperial power.

Aimen Dean Indeed. I mean, you know, in Benghazi and Tripoli and other places, you know, there was this Italian fascist tradition of hanging people just as an example. So, they will hang them in the public squares and the streets and then, they will take photos and make these photos the postcards. So, if an Italian immigrants, you know, in Libya—. Settlers. They call them the Italian settlers who settled there. If they want to send a postcard back to their family in Italy, it will be actually the picture of hanged Bedouins. And Mussolini, in particular, loved to collect these postcards and he used to love, you know, looking at them, basically. It's just—. Wow.

Thomas Small The fascist rule in Libya was ruthless. It was brutal. No Libyan, for example, was allowed any education beyond primary school, and the education that they did receive was explicitly Italian-ising. I mean, they were trying to turn them into Italians, if possible.

Also, as you told me, Aimen, they – they had a network of concentration camps in Libya.

Aimen Dean General Rodolfo Graziani, who was, you know, one of the most, you know, brutal and bloody generals of the fascist war machinery in Italy, he started the process of what he called "concentrating the Bedouins." So, he took roughly about seven hundred thousand Bedouins and he put them behind barbed wires. Like, you know, I mean, he actually started the first concentration camps built by fascist in the African continent.

So, from 1929 onward, you know, seven thousand Bedouins were concentrated. And then, when he wanted to cut off the Libyan resistance, you know, led by the Senussis, who we'll talk about later, and by Omar Al-Mukhtar, you know, who's a – the national hero of Libya, he wanted to cut off their support from Egypt, because the British, as well as the Egyptian Muslims, were – were supporting the resistance against the Italians and the Mussolini fascists. So, he used a hundred thousand Bedouins to build a massive barbed-wire wall from the Mediterranean all the way to the desert. And tens of thousands of people died during the construction of that barbed wire, you know, across the sand. It was a tragedy beyond belief.

When the Italians came to Libya, there were one and a half million, you know, Libyans living in Libya. When—. You know, by the end of World War II and the fall of Mussolini in 1943, there were only eight hundred thousand left. Half of the population died at the hands of the Italians.

Thomas Small That's amazing. Unbelievable.

You mentioned this man, Omar Al-Mukhtar, the Libyan national hero, someone who Gaddafi felt particularly inspired by. Tell us about him and – and the battle of Jabal al Akhdar.

Aimen Dean Indeed. I mean, Omar Al-Mukhtar is one of the followers of the Senussi Sufi Tariqa. And the Senussis were the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. They are ashraf. You know, we talked about the Hashemites before. They were the Hashemites of Libya. And they were leading the resistance against the Italians. And so, he was the military commander of that movement. And, you know, and, you know, even when he advanced in age, even at the age of seventy-one, in 1929, he scored one of his greatest achievements. It is a military history, really, and it still reverberates to this day. The reason for that why, because, in the Battle of Jabal al Akhdar and the Battle of the Bridge in the Jabal al Akhdar, or the Green Mountain as it's known an Arabic, Omar Al-Mukhtar and his people did the first thing, you know, that, in – in terms of jihadi tactic, that is still being used to this day.

First of all, it was the last battle in, you know, history where a cavalry charge was successful against a mechanised army.

Thomas Small So, these are warriors on horses against tanks, basically.

Aimen Dean And—.

Thomas Small And they succeeded? They won?

Aimen Dean They won, because it was an ambush. But they won, because, thank God for the IEDs they used. And so, it was the first time ever that IEDs were used against tanks. So, where they planted many dynamites charges in that killing field. And when they lured the tanks and the armoured personnel carrier into that field, the Italian ones, the Libyans then, set off all of these dynamite charges, and that destroyed a few of the tanks and the armoured personnel carriers, confused the defenders. And, of course, with the cavalry charge, you know, closing on them from four sides, it was a massacre. So, that was the last time in modern history, in modern warfare history, that cavalry was able to, you know, overrun a mechanised division.

Thomas Small A little sliver of Libyan history that re – resonates to the present, because jihadists have taken that – that strategy on board ever since.

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah. IEDs everywhere. From Afghanistan against the Soviets. You know, from Chechnya against the Russians. From Iraq against the Americans. You know, in Syria against Assad. You know? And so on and so on. So, the use of IEDs now was pioneered by a Libyan leader of the jihad at that time, a seventy-one-year-old Omar al-Mukhtar.

Thomas Small Well, as you said, eventually, Italian rule came to an end in Libya at the hands of the British, who conquered the country during the Second World War. Well, with the help of the French. They conquered a part of it, too. But it really fell within the British sphere of influence. And after the war, the question arose: What sort of country would Libya become? You know, as we've said, it had never been unified. It had always been split between different, competing political centres in west and in east.

In the end, the British, through a very confused and confusing the sequence of events, oversaw the coming to power of a king of Libya, Idris al-Senussi. King Idris, as you said, Aimen, was a Hashemite, just like, you know, his – his distant, distant, quadruple cousins who were ruling in Jordan and in – and in Iraq. He was a Hashemite, a sharif. He was a British client. He had been in Egypt, which Britain oversaw, from 1922 onwards as a Libyan freedom fighter. And so, he had very close ties with the British Empire and the British – and British politicians in the Middle East.

And on the 24th of December 1951, the United Kingdom of Libya was established, a federal constitutional monarchy. Now, at the time, Libya was literally the poorest country in the world. Its illiteracy rate was ninety percent. And in the whole country, Aimen, in the whole country, there were only sixteen university graduates. This did not auger well for King Idris's new state.

Aimen Dean Indeed. I mean, this is the legacy of the Italian colonisation, you know. And, you know, it shows basically that, you know, no matter how much the Italians tried, they are not as organised as a British. Because if you look at Egypt next door, the education was far, far better thanks to the British rule there. So—.

But the reality here is that, you know, this is the hand that, you know, the Libya was dealt. You know? King Idris comes to power after many years of fighting against the Italians and then trying to convince the British that it's time for Libya to become independent. And he realised that Libya is in dire state. But thank God. I mean, at the end of the day, the king was praying and praying. And by the way, that king was a saint. I mean, you know, we – we have to say from the beginning that king was truly a saint.

Thomas Small Yeah. Let's talk about that.

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small Let's talk about King Idris as a personality, because he is very different from the other leaders of the Arab world at the time, including other monarchs like – like King Hussein in Jordan or, as you know, King Faisal in Iraq. He was a very traditional ruler in the mode of a holy man, which is an archetype throughout Muslim history, especially in North Africa. A holy man, a holy warrior, essentially, who becomes king and rules very religiously, very ascetically. He was a great ascetic. He had a very austere, rather sort of unadorned style of governance. He was very traditional in that sense.

Aimen Dean Let's put it this way. He was frugal also. I mean, the man was frugal on himself. I mean, he was generous with the Libyan people, but he was frugal on himself and the family and the royal family. And the reason is because, basically, he really believed that he should not live, you know, in great extravagance while the Libyan people are, you know, living in poverty. And as I said, the man, you know, was more concerned with the afterlife than this life. So—. Yeah.

Thomas Small And – and he had a certain humility. For example, he refused to have his face on the currency.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small He refused to have any monument in the country named after him. This is not typical of Arab leaders at the time.

Aimen Dean King Idris, you know – you know, even though there were other Hashemite kings across the Arab world, not only, you know, in the Middle East itself, but also in North Africa—. Don't forget that the royal family of Morocco are also Hashemites …

Thomas Small Absolutely.

Aimen Dean … who's been, you know, rolling the – the kingdom of Morocco since the 1700s, you know. But, you know, in the case of King Idris, being a saint doesn't mean, unfortunately, being a capable ruler, because sainthood could be mistaken for weakness. And, unfortunately, while he commanded the respect of the country, the country needed a firmer grip. However, he was lucky also and he always believed that it was his prayers, you know, that God will send some providence and deliverance to Libya, that oil was discovered during his time.

Thomas Small That's right. In 1959, oil was discovered in Libya, and this meant, well, many things. First of all, it meant that Libya was no longer as dependent as before on foreign aid. You know, it had been receiving a lot of money from both the British and the Americans, who had a – a big airbase in Libya, and Libya had become an important node in the American Cold War military sort of world. So, Libya no longer needed to rely so much on foreign aid. But it also—. Sadly, as it does pretty much everywhere, oil money led to increasing corruption throughout the country. And this became endemic towards the end of King Idris's period.

Aimen Dean Indeed. Because, you know, while he commanded respect, he did not come on the authority. Unfortunately. He couldn't keep an eye on everything. And he was – started to become, in the later years, distant and distant and distant as if he doesn't want to rule.

Thomas Small Oil really was the watershed moment. So, before the discovery of oil, the – the governance in – in Libya was very traditional. King Idris had a very hands-off approach. He based his rule on the principle of shura, on consensus amongst elites, amongst nobles. It was very patriarchal rule and – and it was focused on the palace just – just like a kind of traditional, even medieval, kind of state. The administration was basically subjected to tribal structures. Power was very diffused. Political parties were banned. King Idris wanted nothing to do with that sort of modern style of – of politicking. He distrusted democracy immensely. So, this is before oil. It was so—. It was – it was traditional. It was old school.

After the discovery of oil, in order to manage the industry that built up around it, Libya was forced to become more centralised and was forced to build more modern state institutions. This, in the end, would play into Colonel Gaddafi's hands when he decided to launch a revolution there. So, King Idris, in a way, against his will, in order to build up the oil industry, created or allowed to be created a state apparatus that then could be turned against him.

Aimen Dean Indeed. While King Idris was lucky, by the way, in regard to the discovery of oil, he wasn't lucky with his neighbours, especially his neighbours to the east, Egypt, because the Nasserism was in its prime. I mean, the Libyan people were listening to Nasser and thinking, "Oh, look at this dynamic figure that is standing up against America, against France, against Britain, against—. He—. Against Israel. You know? While our king is just meek and weak and doesn't want to get involved, you know, and all of this war rhetoric that is going on."

Unfortunately, that played into the group of officers led by Gaddafi, the young, you know, captain in the military and the military communication and intelligence, that, you know, in the end, decided to overthrow him.

Aimen Dean And so, we have reached Colonel Gaddafi. According to my reading, Aimen, his birthday is unknown. I mean, he – he—. At times, he said it was 1943, 1941. You – you say it was 1942, for sure. I think – I think though, as a Bedouin, it's – it's possible that his birthday wasn't really recorded. Isn't that right?

Aimen Dean Yeah. It might not have been recorded. But actually when he launched the coup in 1969, he was described as a twenty-seven-year-old. And these were the official records of the Libyan military. So, you know, 1942 is possible. But also, because one of – one of Gaddafi Gaddafi's Egyptian biographers said that Gaddafi was born one year before the fall of Mussolini. You know, the fall of Mussolini from power. So, he fell from power, you know, and fled Rome, I think, in 1943. So, it is safe to assume that Gaddafi was born 1942, and that corresponds with him being twenty-seven-year-old when he led the coup in 1969.

Thomas Small So, basically, he was born at the very end of the Italian period, at the very beginning of the modern period of Libyan independence under King Idris. So, Gaddafi was a thoroughly modern Arab man. He was born a Bedouin to family in the Qadhadhfa tribe, born in a small desert village south of Sirte, which is in the western half of – of Libya, long the coast. His father was a goat herder, and Gaddafi grew up in a tent. So, he was the real deal. And when he ended up going to primary school in Sirte, he had to walk there and sleep the nights during the school week in a mosque, because his family remained in the desert. And in—. Its—. At school, he was bullied for being a Bedouin. And this – this rather scarred Gaddafi, I think. It may be the roots of the narcissistic shell of grandiosity that he began to build up around himself.

Family eventually moved to Sebha, in the Fezzan, in the south of Libya. And this is where Gaddafi went to secondary school. And it's at this time that – that Nasser becomes his idol. He – he claimed later on that he would memorise Nasser's speeches because he loved him so much. Inspired by Nasser, he would be – he – he began railing against the British and the Americans at school. He sounds like a major pain in the neck, really. And he was expelled and so went to Misrata, where he went to school there.

In the end, he landed up in a military college in Benghazi, where a British officer—this is very interesting—described him as "inherently cruel." At one point, Gaddafi hogtied and murdered a young cadet who was accused of homosexual acts, for example. So, not a nice guy.

Aimen Dean This – this is absolutely, like, you know, I mean, the same way with Saddam Hussein and his childhood, you know, and the same with Stalin and his childhood. It – it's just mirror – mirror image of all of these, you know, famous tyrants.

Thomas Small Traumatised children growing up to inflict trauma on others. It's a classic dynamic.

So, Gaddafi was insolent. He was opinionated and he was cruel, but—and this cannot be denied—he was also charismatic, inspiring, and intellectual, though, idiotic. But he was intellectual. He believed himself to be a man of ideas. And – and he – he did write – he did write books and he wrote poetry. He was—. He was—. He had intellectual ambitions. And we'll discuss some of his ideas in a little bit there. Particularly ridiculous.

Aimen Dean You know, Hitler thought of himself as an artist, you know.

Thomas Small Well, I mean, I—. The trouble with artists and intellectuals, when they get power, man, you got to go far away.

Aimen Dean Indeed. Absolutely.

Thomas Small So, Gaddafi had long dreamt of – of emulating his idol Nasser and launching a revolution in Libya as long ago as when he was in secondary school. And when he finally became a military officer, he created what was called the Revolutionary Command Council, and they – they began the – the process of – of building up a network of officers to overthrow the government. Though, you know, unlike Nasser's similar movement, the – the Gaddafi version was – was almost farcical.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. It was really like a, you know, young school boy is trying to play politics. And, you know—. And, actually, like, you know, they were planning. "How do we do it?"

Thomas Small It—. In fact, it was farcical. In fact, they had to postpone the coup twice because of – of hijinks that ensued. The first one, the first date that they'd chosen was the 12th of March 1969, but they realised, on the day, that the famous Egyptian singer, Umm Kulthum, was performing a concert in Libya that day, a benefit concert for the Palestinian cause. So, they thought, "Well, that's not really a good day to launch the coup." So, they postponed it. And they postponed—.

Aimen Dean Very considerate.

Thomas Small They postponed it for a couple of weeks, at the end of March. But then, someone in Libyan intelligence got wind of the plot. And so, King Idris was sent to Tobruk for British troops to protect him. So, again, Gaddafi cancelled. So, so far they're not having good luck.

Aimen Dean Indeed. However, in September, they got their break, because the king went for an extensive medical treatment in Turkey. And, actually, the king realised that his conditions were, you know, really severe. And so, he was going to send a telegram. And he sent a telegram informing the palace and the government at the time of his application in favour of his son, Prince al-Hasan.

However, who received, you know, that telecom was the – the communication intelligence division of the Libyan military and who was in charged, you know, in that day was good Gaddafi. So, he received that and he was thinking, "Great. Come on, guys. Now is our moment. Mobilise, mobilise."

And so—. You know, and so they went and they launched their coup.

Thomas Small The coup itself was – was pretty ridiculous. At one point, Gaddafi who was in a Jeep leading the other plotters, you know, he turned left. They turned right. They got separated. They had to come back to each other. You know, it – it wasn't an auspicious beginning to his forty-two years in office.

Aimen Dean Indeed. And at the end of the day, you know, many historians in the Arab world, they say, "Well, look he was confident enough to launch the coup, because he knew the king wasn't going to resist. That the British garrisons in Libya are not going to, you know, fight, because the king will say, 'Well, look, I mean, I don't – I don't want to fight. I don't want to be restored to power.'"

And really, you know, the British actually consulted with King Idris. They said, like, you know, I mean, "If you tell us right now that we should, you know, counter the coup, we will come through the coup."

King Idris refused. He refused outright to counter the coup.

Thomas Small I think that rather suited the British to be honest. Because by 1969, they were no longer able or really willing to employ their military to shore up their Middle Eastern allies. Their empire was on the way out. But yes, indeed.

On the 1st of September 1969, a bloodless coup unfolded in Libya. The king's guard did not intervene. There he was, Captain Gaddafi, soon to be self-designated Colonel Gaddafi, in charge of Libya, which, at that point, had no real sense of unity, really, or nationhood. As we'd said, King Idris's rule was very traditional. Power was very diffused. The regions largely determined the identity of Libyan citizens. So, the country was like a blank canvas for him to paint his weirdest political and economic and even religious ideas upon.

Aimen Dean Oh, dear. And what an affliction. I think, in hindsight, I think the British, you know, regretted deeply not countering that coup and reinstating King Idris as the king. Fifteen years later, they would have said, "Why didn't we do it?"

Thomas Small Absolutely. You know, for the first year or so after the coup, you know, no one knew for sure what was going to happen. There was a brief moment of – of – of pure narcissism. In 1970, Gaddafi had a jamboree in Tripoli, where leaders from around the Arab world gathered to celebrate the evacuation of American troops from Libya. Gaddafi had expelled them. And during this jamboree, Gaddafi turned to Nasser—who was his idol, remember?—and suddenly, in anger, threatened to expose him as a coward and a hypocrite if he didn't move faster toward Arab unity. In the midst of all of these Arab leaders, he – he – he, you know, shouted at Nasser. A sign of things to come, I think.

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah. Shouting at other leaders is going to be his tradition. And we're going to talk about it, you know, in a few moments. But the man was unhinged. And the – the signs were there from early on.

Thomas Small A few months after this jamboree in the desert, Nasser died. And this changed everything. Earlier, Gaddafi had said that Libya's oil wealth could be at Nasser's disposal to help create Arab unity. But after Nasser's death, Gaddafi decided that he was the guardian of his legacy. And he – he made it his – his life's mission to bring the Arabs together, unite Muslims against the West. All sorts of stuff. He – he became—. I don't know. How do you—? How do we even describe this man?

Aimen Dean Be—. You see, we can't, because of his unpredictability. Because he was unhinged. It's very difficult to. Because, you see, the mood swings were so frequent and violent that, forget the whiplash, you could be decapitated. I mean, this is how – how – how violent these mood swings were.

You know, the – the issue here is that he was so narcissistic in his own mind that he didn't believe that there was a greater man ever living at the time. He wanted to be the new Che Guevara. So, what did he do? He started, you know, supporting all these revolutionary groups and terrorist groups: the Ba'aths, the ETA, IRA, the Red Brigades, you know. You know? He – he—. You know, the—. He'd left no revolutionary group or a terrorist group or insurgent group in the world he didn't support. With weapons, with money and everything. And then, he started engaging in terrorism. You know, bombing nightclubs and bombing airliners and, you know, masterminding all these things.

And then, after that, he started, you know, picking up fight with other Arab leaders and especially Sadat. You know, his own neighbour.

Thomas Small President Sadat. The president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat.

Aimen Dean Which is, by the way, my favourite Egyptian president ever anyway.

Thomas Small You always remind us.

Aimen Dean So, you know, my favourite quote from Sadat when, you know, when he was told about how Gaddafi is, you know, spending hours and hours insulting him, you know, during long – long-winded speeches. You know, just like Castro and Chavez, like, you know, Gaddafi had the tendency to speak for hours. So, you know, all that Sadat, you know, while he was smoking his pipe, he said, "And why do I care about what this, you know, mad boy of Libya think of me?"

The mad boy of Libya. And, you know, the – the way it's said, and it is said in Arabic is even more. He said, "[speaks in Arabic]."

I mean, you know, when – when you – when you hear it in Arabic, it's even more, you know, insulting. So, Gaddafi didn't like it. And that's why Gaddafi celebrated the day that Sadat was assassinated by Islamists.

And Gaddafi also wanted to always stay against the Americans. So, when the Americans started to support the Afghans against the Soviets, he supposedly the Soviets against the Afghans and he banned in Libya any mention of jihad or Mujahadeen or anything. And then, when the Arabs, you know, basically, like, you know, wanted to have nothing to do in terms of support of the Khomeini in Iran, he actually was supporting Khomeini until he fell out, you know, basically, with them again.

And then, he—. In terms of foreign policy, he was always swinging from one end to the other, but it is always seeking that recognition as a revolutionary, as someone who stands against the West. But he always chose the wrong causes, the wrong time, the wrong place, and the wrong players. Always.

Thomas Small One way of understanding Gaddafi, I think, which helps – helps to sort of make sense of – of this madness is that he was, at heart, a Bedouin. For example, he – he styled himself as a modern – hypermodern, radical revolutionary on the one hand. But on the other hand, he also considered himself to be a defender of Islam as he understood it.

After he came to power, sharia law was integrated into the Libyan legal system for the first time. Zakat was made obligatory. You know, the – the – the charitable tax that Islam imposes. And – and so, he had—. On the one hand, he had this kind of traditional Islamic piety. I don't even know if that's – that's the right word. But on the other hand, in 1973, he announces a popular revolution. So, all existing laws are repealed, all anti-revolutionary "perverts and deviators," as he called them, were weeded out. Bureaucrats and the bourgeoisie, in general, were targeted for elimination. So, this is very sort of Maoist Chinese style, cultural revolution stuff. But – but then, at the same time, all foreign ideas contrary to the Quran were to be destroyed. So, he – he said, "Trample under your feet any bourgeoise bureaucrat. Tear up all important books that don't support Arabism, Islam, socialism, and progress. Burn and destroy all curricula that do not express the truth."

So, Arabism, Islam, socialism, and progress. How are you going to – how are you going to balance these four pillars, you know, in – in a stable structure?

Aimen Dean And that's why, you know, he wrote that, you know, ridiculous book of his, trying to mimic Mao, which is, you know, the – the Green Book.

Thomas Small The Green Book. Yeah. Published in 1975. I have read the Green Book, and it is a real—.

Aimen Dean How did you go through it without traumatised?

Thomas Small It's a real mind-scrambler. I tell ya.

Aimen Dean You see, my – my favourite quote from there, when he said it is important for, you know, for the woman to advance to a position of power regardless of her gender.

Thomas Small So, there you go. You see, this is the strange – that strange combination of hypermodern and hyper-traditional. It's like a modern Bedu. It's very strange.

Aimen Dean I mean, – I mean, it was a rollercoaster. Let's put it this way. By the way, he wrote a book later called the, you know, [speaks in Arabic]. You know, the White Book. And I will tell a speak about it later. But, you know, the issue here is that the man started to behave pretty much like, you know, the Fatimid caliph, Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who ordered people to shave one eyebrow, as I said before, and leave the other. He started to come up with the weirdest laws. For example, he would come with a decree. He will say that, you know, "Why do we have shampoo, which contains eggs? Eggs is the food of the masses. And, therefore, we should get rid of every shampoo that contain egg." So, people displaying obedience to him, they will take all of these shampoo containers and they will pour them – pouring them on the streets, you know, in obedience.

And then, he said, in 1986—I remember I saw this on TV when I was young—he said that music is haram. You know? "Music is forbidden in Islam. I mean, what do we have music?" And so, he ordered all the musical instruments in Libya would be destroyed. And the people gathered in the public squares and they were destroying the guitars and the drums and the pianos and everything. But then, six months later, he ordered – he said, "Why there is no music in the country?" You know? "Bring back the concerts again." I mean, come on.

Okay. You know, I'll give you another one. He really was, you know—. You know, he was pretending to be, you know, a pious Muslim. As you know, Islam, you know, in the Sunni sense, which is what followed by the majority of Muslims, is based on the Quran, you know, which is the equivalent of the Jewish Torah or the Bible and the Hadith, which is the equivalent, maybe, of the Talmudic tradition. But, you know, it is the statements of the Prophet Muhammad on the Quran. And so, you know, it is accompanying the Quran and it is understood that it is the two pillars upon which Islamic tradition and faith and creed stands. This is something accepted by all Muslims, you know, under the Sunni umbrella. So, he then came up with this insane idea that "No, no, no, no, no. Only the Quran, because, you know, Muhammad was just a messenger. He was just, like, you know, the guy. He got the message. He gave it to us. So, why do we have to revere what he has to say? I'm a man and he's a man."

Thomas Small Oh.

Aimen Dean And after that—.

Thomas Small That's a real – that's a real narcissistic gaslighting right there.

Aimen Dean Exactly. He couldn't believe. He said, "Why do we say [unintelligible], you know, 'I bear witness.' There is no God. But God. And Muhammad is his messenger. Just keep God there and keep Muhammad out of it."

Thomas Small He wanted to just say, "There's no God but God, and Gaddafi is god."

Aimen Dean Yeah. That's it. And then, went further than that by, you know, banning the Hadith, you know. For a few years, you know, he abandoned. And so, Muslim scholars from Saudi Arabia and Egypt and everything declared him to be a heretic. And he was angry about that. And he said, "I understand Islam more than they do."

Okay. Okay, Gaddafi. Just calm down. And then, he started to come up with the weirdest, you know, economic ideas, you know, from establishing what he called the Great River of – of Libya, you know, which wasted all of Libya's aquifers, you know, pumping them into the sea. I don't know for what reason. For a great agricultural project. But, actually, it was a failure. $27 billion failure. Let's put it this way.

And then, he went on to—. After the project started to fail—. Well, you know, in 1996, he was talking to the Libyan people. He was saying, you know, "You know what, my fellow Libyans? Libya is so uninhabitable. I mean, there was hardly any water. It's too hot. It's just desert. There is nothing there for us. Yes, there is a little bit of oil, but that's it. You know what? How about we give every Libyan $10,000 a month and, you know, let them just go somewhere else, find somewhere else to live, and we close Libya."

It's not a restaurant. It's not, like, you know, I mean, a failed business. And – and this actually shows that, you know, he was dealing with Libya, you know, as if it was a, you know, just a group of tribes, you know, wandering in the desert. What was he, Moses, and, you know, the Libyans are the Israelites?

You know, one of my favourites is that how he altered the name of Libya.

Thomas Small Oh, yes. The—. He gave Libya the – the longest. It's a real mouthful.

Aimen Dean Okay. So—.

Thomas Small Say it in Arabic. I love hearing you say it in Arabic.

Aimen Dean Okay. So, – So, basically, I love how Sadat used to say it, you know. So, he was—. He will say—. Sadat, he will say, "Okay. What – what did he name this – his country, this mad boy of Libya?"

"Oh, yeah. You know, Jamahiriya Al-Arabiya Al-Libiya (take a breath) Al-Shabiya Al-Ishtirakiya (take a breath again) Al-Uzma."

So, you know—. So, which is means that the Republic of the Masses of the Libyan Socialist Arab Great, you know, Republic or something like that. I mean, it was – it was—.

Thomas Small The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small That's [crosstalk]. And I want to talk about this word, jamahiriya, because it's – it's – it symbolises much of what we're saying, 'cause it's a nonsense word. I mean, already, it's such a—. it's a word – it's a word that – that he made up.

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small It's sort of, I mean, the word jumhur in Arabic is – is mass – the mass, a mass of people. So, a republic is jumhuriya. A mass. You know, the – the people's state. And—. But the – the plural of jumhur is jama – jamahir. So, he was like, "No. We're not just a republic. We're like republics. We're like many. We're a huge republic." It's – it's insane.

Aimen Dean It's a super republic.

Thomas Small It's so narcissist. A super republic. The Great socialist People's Libyan Arab Super Republica.

Aimen Dean I mean, it's such a mouthful. And, you know, and not to mention the other antics, like, you know, living in a tent, having only female body guards, by the way, you know, which—. What was that about? No idea. Only female bodyguards.

Thomas Small But what – what about his infamous, you know, hashish smoking ? I think—.

Aimen Dean Oh, my God.

Thomas Small I think he was—. I think a lot of this can be explained by the fact that the man was high as a kite most of the time.

Aimen Dean High as a kite. More like high as a satellite. I mean, I will tell you, actually, a story of what happened. You remember I told you about how he's always had spats with other Arab leaders? One of the most famous one, which was—. Because of high—. You know, and because he was high at the time with hashish, he had a spat with King Abdullah.

Thomas Small King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia? This is, in fact, when Abdullah was still crown prince. This is in 2003.

Thomas Small So, this was in Egypt and, you know, and Mubarak, President Mubarak was – of Egypt was the chairman of the summit. And when it came time to introduce Muammar Gaddafi, he, you know—. So, he said, "This is, you know, the—. And now I have the pleasure to introduce." And, of course, he – he pulled—. So, he pulled a big paper in order to read it, you know. "The dear brother Muammar al-Gaddafi, the leader of the great revolution of the September of 1969. You know, the king of kings of Africa, the dean of the Arab leaders, the – the supreme guide of the Libyan revolution, you know, and – and – and the imam of all Muslims, you know." Yeah. "Brother Muammar, you know, the floor is yours." So—.

And he started talking rubbish about King Fahad. You know, the—. At the time, King Fahad was having a stroke. So, King Abdullah, as the prince regent and the crown prince, was there. And so, he started talking rubbish about, you know, King Fahad was afraid of Saddam, you know, and how King Fahad was running to the Americans to ask them to come to defend him during the Iraq invasion of Kuwait. And that's when King Abdullah lost it.

Thomas Small Well, this—. It climaxed with – with Gaddafi saying, "The Saudi king would cooperate with the devil himself to protect his kingdom."

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small And this was too much for Abdullah.

Aimen Dean Yeah. So, you know, he said to him, "You know, you do not talk about things that do not concern you." You know, he – he said, "We, you know—. We, you know, in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, we are Arabs and we are Muslims and we do not, you know, ally with the devil. And speaking of the devil, who brought you to power?" You know, he was talking about "Who brought you to power?" He was accusing him of being, you know, a – stooge – a stooge of the Soviets and, you know, others and another colonial powers. And so, – so, you know, so, he said to him, "Don't lie, you know. Otherwise, you know, the grave is before – before you." What he meant is that, you know, if you keep lying, you know, one day you will die and he will answer before God.

So, you know, Gaddafi was, you know, laughing to his delegation and he said, "What is this old man is saying? I don't understand what he's saying." He was making fun of the Bedouin accent of King Abdullah and also making fun of "I can't hear what he's saying."

So, two, three years passed, and there was the uncovering of a plot by Gaddafi to kill King Abdullah, because he felt that he was insulted by King Abdullah. You know, it shows the vindictiveness of this guy. So, they met in a summit in Qatar this time. You know, while—. You know, King Abdullah was there. Now, he's a king. And Gaddafi is there again in the summit. And the – the emir of Qatar was speaking. And suddenly, Gaddafi interrupted him and he started talking on the microphone. He was saying, "Abdullah. Abdullah." You know, he was call – calling the king. He said, "Abdullah. Abdullah." You know? ""Why are we fighting? You know, why are we—?" And he was talking really heavy. He was under the influence of hashish. "Why are we fighting? Why are we arguing, you know? You know, how about you visit me, I visit you, and we sort of this thing between us, you know?"

And then, he started looking around and he was wearing sunglasses. He was saying, "Why am I here?" You know? And he was looking around. "Why am I here? How come I'm here? I'm the king of Kings of Africa. I am the dean of the Arab leaders. I am the imam of all Muslims. And my international status doesn't allow me to be in a gathering like this."

And then, he finished his speech.

We all watched this in the horror and we were thinking, "God, save Libya, because this guy—."

Thomas Small I feel bad for those other Arab leaders, other Muslim leaders. I mean, can you imagine having to sit opposite Colonel Gaddafi and treat him with respect? I mean, my God.

Aimen Dean But then came the final insult to everyone is the UN speech. That UN speech was hilarious. Even the translator gave up and left the auditorium altogether. Couldn't keep up at all.

Thomas Small Tell us the story.

Aimen Dean Well, in that speech, he was angry that people were falling asleep. He was saying to everyone in the UN – in the UN main hall, addressing the delegates, he said, "Why are you sleeping, huh? Didn't you have enough rest? You know, I—. am I too boring for you?"

So—. And then, he was holding his new book, the White Book. Now the White Book is one of the funniest read you'll ever have. He's talking about, you know, a new solution for peace in the Middle East. It is called Isratin. So, Isratin is a country that is both Israel and Palestine.

Aimen Dean Isratin.

Thomas Small Isratin.

Aimen Dean So, Isratin is, you know, the new country that will usher in a new era of peace in the Middle East. And he said that – "This is the White Book. It's all there." And then, he threw the White Book at Ban Ki-moon, the second gen of the UN at the time. And you can hear the people in the auditorium taking a deep breath and, you know, like, you know, they couldn't believe what he did. He—. How could you throw a book, you know, at the face of Ban Ki-moon? And then, he grabbed the UN charter. He tear it apart, you know, in front of everyone. He said, "This is from 1945. It's not fit for this world anymore." And then, he started, you know, talking about, you know, the – all the international conspiracies and how, you know, the world is going into rubbish. And that's it. Like, you know, I mean, he was done. But after, you know, many hours in which, you know, several interpreters, you know, in many languages, like, you know, basically we were drafted in, you know, to relieve the other interpreters who were having a nervous breakdown.

Thomas Small Well, I mean, Aimen, you could speak forever about Colonel Gaddafi and his madness. I think we – we—. Let's take him a little bit seriously for a while. I'd like to go back to his Green Book, which, as I said, was published in 1975 and which he considered to be a blueprint, not just for the solution to Libya's problems, but he believed he had cracked the secret to governance everywhere. And – and when you read this book, you realise that the man was a Bedouin. And I don't actually mean to insult Bedouins. I – I've – I've met Bedouin. They're very—. They're charming people. Lovely people. But if you remember, dear listener, back in episode two of this series, we talked about the difference between and al-bedawa and al-hadara, the Bedouin and the civilised man. And, you know, Gaddafi. a symbol or a – a son of al-bedawa. He was a Bedouin. And he seemed to be animated to some extent by a kind of instinctive hatred for the city, the things of the city, state institutions, you know, hierarchical organisations that weren't just, you know, surrounded by him, with him at the centre.

So, the Green—. He presents the Green Book as "the ultimate solution to the problem of the proper ruling apparatus." We're already in the world of 1970s radicalism. It's a bit – it's a bit nuts. And his – his solution is basically this: Abolish all state institutions so that society can rule itself directly. So, he – he's really trying to create a stateless society. He wants to go back, in some modern way, to the way that the Bedouin life has always been. No state. Just people kind of doing their own thing in subservience to a stronger patriarchal personality.

Now, for this reason, he opposed all parliamentary or representative democracy as false. He opposed political parties. He said that they led to deceit, to internal discord, and to partisanship. In fact—and this I find fascinating—he wasn't wrong about this, really. And one of the things about reading the Green Book is, every now and then, a sentence will jump out at you as like, "Oh, that's actually true." And then, you don't know what to think. "Maybe Gaddafi was a genius." Who knows? This is what – this is what it's like to be in conversation with a narcissist.

He said, "In parliamentary democracies, the opposition party must minimise the government's achievements and cast doubt on the government's plans, even though those plans may be beneficial to society. Consequently, the interests and programmes of the society become the victims of the party's struggle for power. Such struggle is therefore politically, socially, and economically destructive to society despite the fact that it creates political activity. Anyone who lives in a post-modern democracy can see the truth in this, where you have an opposition party that must rubbish everything that the government's doing, a government is constantly having to defend itself. And in the meantime, society just fragments."

But for him, as an outsider, as a Bedouin, he's looking at this process and he says, "This is just corruption. This is too complicated. Why – why is it so complicated? Listen. Listen, my friends, it's simple. Just do what I say."

Aimen Dean Exactly.

Thomas Small "All will be well."

Aimen Dean Exactly.

Thomas Small So, instead of this sort of democracy as we understand it, he advocated direct democracy. He – he thought—. And he – he created these things. What are they called? The people's councils?

Aimen Dean Yeah. The people's councils and [speaks in Arabic].

Thomas Small Everything would be ruled according to what he called the Third Universal Theory. He says, "The Third Universal Theory now provides us with a practical approach to direct democracy. The problem of democracy in the world we'll finally be solved. It will be replaced by its true definition. The supervision of the people by the people."

I mean, you read it and you start losing your mind.

He says, "The people become the instrument of government, and the dilemma of democracy in the world is conclusively solved."

So, he thought that he's going to create these peoples' councils. And he did. They were all around – around Libya. He even had these sort of revolutionary councils that were – that were in charge of – of dispensing with justice, revolutionary justice, against, you know, against criminals or whatever. You know, the sinners against the revolution. And he thought it would just all run itself.

At the same time, he believed in radical equality. He did not believe that some people should have more than other people, that some people should have money while other people don't have money. So, he said, "The ultimate solution in the problem of inequality in society is to abolish the wage system. This would emancipate people from the bondage of wage slavery. And we revert to natural laws, which define relationships before the emergence of classes."

So, for this—. For example, it meant that farmers were no longer allowed to hire labourers to help them run their farms, 'cause they weren't allowed to pay anyone a wage. It was illegal to pay a wage to someone in Libya. So, what do you suppose happened to the farm?

Aimen Dean Well, again, we come back to, you know, the problem of insane people trying to experiment with people's lives. And that's exactly the consequence. Yeah.

Thomas Small He also had a solution to the housing crisis. Housing crisis is a big – a big thing that whips around the Western world today. He said, "Housing is an essential need for both the individual and the family and should not be owned by others. Living in another person's house, whether paying rent or not, compromises freedom." So, he abolished rent. And this meant, of course, that – that people, you know, had no money to build houses, to maintain their houses.

In the end, the irony is that by trying to create this so-called classless, stateless society, Gaddafi allowed the state to take ownership of everything.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small In his stateless society, the state was all that there was and the state was Gaddafi. That's how the system played out. Libya became a—. What was it called? A centrally unplanned economy. It was a chaotic, unplanned economy where the state dominated everything and the state was reducible to Gaddafi the man.

But then, this – this is the – the final gaslighting moment. He even pretended that he wasn't in power. He refused to be given any official title like president. No, no. He was—. He – he was simply the brother leader. He was the brother of the – of the – of the Libyans. He wasn't their official leader at all.

Aimen Dean He was only the leader of the revolution. But that's it. No more than that. Just the leader of the revolution.

Thomas Small So, I always knew that this episode was going to be a bit looser, a bit more conversational than our other episodes. And, you know, God knows we could talk for another hour or two about Gaddafi and about the times – the life and times of Colonel Gaddafi. And perhaps, we'll have to do another episode one day, because there's lots that we're not talking about. I mean, he had an infamous rivalry with Yasser Arafat, an infamous rivalry with Saddam Hussein. We mentioned his spat with King Abdullah. But he, you know—. My goodness, I'm just looking at my notes here, Aimen. You know, his African adventures, you know, supporting liberation movements in countries in Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique. He helped Idi Amin for goodness sake. He had – he had a network of mercenary armies all around Africa trying to spread his – his revolution or whatever the hell he was trying to do.

I mean, you mentioned how he made Libya a centre of organisation for all sorts of terrorist groups: the IRA, the Red Brigades, the Ba'aths, the Sandinistas. You know, Carlos the Jackal who led the 1975 OPEC hostage crisis, which, you know, Muammar Gaddafi, it is understood, mastermind.

You know, the – the killing of Louise Fletcher in – outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984. Terrorist attacks, hijackings of airplanes.

Aimen Dean Bombing of airplanes.

Thomas Small Bombing of airplanes. Most famously the – the infamous Lockerbie bomb – air, you know, airplane disaster of 1988. This caused, you know, America to become increasingly infuriated with him. They bombed Libya in 1986, including his own palace, to try to, you know, bring him to heel.

Oh, my goodness. You know, he—. His—. The life and times of Colonel Gaddafi are – are really—. They're – they're huge, and we can't do them justice. So, I just want to talk here about two – two things, really. First of all, Islamism. Colonel Gaddafi comes to power as a – as a Nasser-ite – a Nasserist. He rules as a kind of weird, psychotic Nasserist, Islamist to some extent. But then, he, as you said, he's proclaimed a heretic, 'cause his views on Islam are crazy and he becomes a target of – of this growing Islamist – all these growing Islamist movements throughout the – the Middle East at this period. And as a result, he ends up cracking down hard on Islamists in Libya.

Aimen Dean Well, there is the infamous Abu Salim prison massacre. Abu Salim Prison is a prison that Gaddafi reserved only for the Libyans who went to fight the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, as, you know, he supported the Soviets. However, those Libyans who came back or those Libyans who supported the Afghan jihad or those Libyans who were members of the Muslim Brotherhood, they were sent to Abu Salim Prison in Benghazi, and that was a very notorious prison.

Thomas Small They had organised themselves, you know, in – in Afghanistan. They had decided, "When we come back to Libya, we're going to overthrow Gaddafi," whom they called the pharaoh. He—. They – they believed he needed to be overthrown. And they were right about that.

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah.

Thomas Small So, they founded what was called the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. And in 1995, the regime in Libya uncovered their network and cracked down on them hard, sending them to this Abu Salim Prison, which, in the end, was the site of – of an enormous prison uprising in June of 1996. It is this uprising that led to the – the infamous massacre.

Aimen Dean Indeed. Which, of course, the—. Gaddafi gave the order that everyone inside the prison to be shot.

Thomas Small One thousand two hundred and eighty-six people were killed and buried in a mask.

Aimen Dean Indeed. No dignity. Nothing, you know, afforded it to these people. Regardless of the fact that, like, you know, I mean—. I mean, I disagree with every single one of them, you know, in an ideological reason. But, you know, no matter what, like, you know, I mean, you don't just kill them and then you put them in mass grave.

And I think, you know, the – the – the reality is that Gaddafi had ruled Libya with a mix of intimidation and cruelty and, you know, just pure, pure vindictiveness for many, many, many years.

Thomas Small The people of Benghazi, in the – in the east of the country, experienced this particularly harshly after the Abu Salim crackdown. I mean, Islamist activity was particularly strong in the east. That's where the Senussis had been based. This kind of, you know, Sufi [pioutistic] movement that eventually, you know, gave rise to the king. So, the – the east of the country was always particularly Islamic. They had a – they had a – a form of Islam not so different from Wahhabism, actually. And so, it's where the Islamists were largely located. And after the Abu Salim crackdown, Gaddafi punished the whole area. So, he basically implemented collective punishment against eastern Libya. And – and Benghazi and the surrounding towns were – were—. They became much, much, much less developed than the rest of – of Libya. And therefore, perhaps it's unsurprising, that, in 2011, it is where—. It's there that the uprising against Gaddafi began, which would result in him meeting a very, very hairy end.

Aimen Dean You see, the pity here is that, in the last days of Gaddafi, you know, we're talking about 2009, '10 and '11. I mean, roughly the last two, two and a half years of his life or his reign over Libya were less vindictive and less repressive than the previous forty years. And, you know, why is that? We say – we say because of his son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. He started moderating his father's view. He started reaching out to the Islamists and reaching out to the people of Benghazi and Derna and Tobruk and other places and started to have a – a more constructive negotiations with them. Started to get them out of prisons, rehabilitating them. You know, inviting them to come back from exile.

The whole idea is that Saif al-Islam saying to his father, "Well, look, I mean, you are old now. One day, you will pass this to me. So, let me start putting it together, you know, a, you know, a more consensus rule."

And Saif al-Islam had a good head over his shoulder. You know? I knew one of his classmates, you know, when he was studying. And so, they were always saying that he was a cool-headed guy. Like, you know, I mean, you know, very different from his dad.

Thomas Small At the same time international sanctions, which were levelled against Libya in the eighties and especially the nineties, really did begin to bite. So much so that – that Gaddafi himself realised that he had to change his relations with – with the rest of the world somewhat at least. And so, he did agree to give up his weapons of mass destruction plans. He did, to some extent, come in from the cold. And, you know, in the noughties, there was this idea that, maybe, even with Gaddafi in power, maybe Libya can be reformed. Maybe Libya can become a – a functioning state.

Well, whether or not, we'll never know because in 2011, the Arab Spring came to Libya. And, in fact, that's one of my favourite quotes from Gaddafi. When – when the – when the Libyans began protesting, inspired by the protests in Tunisia and in – and in Cairo and elsewhere, Gaddafi was told about the protesters and he said, "You know what? I'm going to go protest, too. There is so much injustice in Libya."

Aimen Dean Isn't that defeating the purpose? I mean—. You know – you know what? Like, you know, I mean, he was—. His last speech, you know, when he went, you know, and spoke from the ruins of the palace, which, you know, the Americans bombed in 1986, he gave a speech, a very passionate speech, but very angry and vindictive and, you know, incoherent. And it's like a – a dad who felt betrayed by his, you know, ungrateful kids. He gave that speech in which he was, you know, saying to them, "You can protest, but not in the streets or the squares."

"Then, where? I mean, I'm sorry, but where then? Where do you want them to protest?"

But then, he said something interesting. He said, "You want me to resign?"

"Resign from what?"

"I don't have an official position. If I have an official position, I will throw the resignation letter in your faces."

And you think, "But you're the leader. I mean, you are in control. I mean, if you can't see it, then who?"

And you see this—. You know, again, as if, like, you know, basically, you know, he felt betrayed by kids who are ungrateful. It's – it's a sign of, like, you know, internal madness. And the people were waiting for Said al-Islam Gaddafi to speak. Unfortunately, when he spoke, he sided so much with his father and he decided that, you know what, blood is thicker. You know? "We're going to fight it." And ironically, they were winning.

Thomas Small Yeah. NATO intervened, because the – the – the regime's forces were on the verge of really cracking down hard on Benghazi. There—. You know, there – there was the idea that there would be mass slaughter. At least that's – that's what was believed.

Aimen Dean Well, that's the idea. But the problem is to be in all fairness—in all fairness—was there going to be a mass massacre? Because they took over Misrata. They took over other places. And there was no massacres. I mean, was he reserving the massacre for Benghazi? It is disputed. But nonetheless, the intervention happened.

Thomas Small It empowered the – the – the forces against Gaddafi.

Aimen Dean Exactly.

Thomas Small Gaddafi himself was forced to flee, first to Sirte where, you know, near where he had been born. And then, when Sirte – when they closed it on Sirte, he – he got in a convoy and headed back to his home. His home is a little village in the desert. That place that he was born, that he grew up and lived in a tent. And there, the Arab Spring militants found him, crouching, hiding in—what was it?—a sort of sewage pipe.

Aimen Dean It was a sewage pipe.

Thomas Small Unbelievable. I mean, really this is an epic story. To think that he was reduced and for all the world to see. They had their …

Aimen Dean Cameras.

Thomas Small … their iPhones out and they—. You can see him. They dragged him out of the sewage pipe. They harangue him, they beat him, and they murder him.

Aimen Dean At the end of the day, it was an unfortunate end. For me, I wish if he stood trial and answered every single charge against him, including the Abu Salim massacre and not to be killed in that way, you know. Nonetheless, he's a leader. Regardless. Like, you know – you know, you don't treat leaders like this. There is a protocol here, and the protocol is that you take him, you put him before a court and he has the right to defend himself and he has the right to say what he has to say. But then, justice will catch up with him.

Thomas Small I don't know, Aimen. I – I don't feel much sympathy for Colonel Gaddafi. And he – he ruled as a Bedouin. He died as a Bedouin. I don't really think—. I don't care. I don't need him to have been put on trial. I mean, I – I've – I mourn for what – what happened to Libya next, to the descent into terrible civil war, being torn apart by different foreign powers and by its own chaos. All of this is the legacy of Gaddafi, and God knows when that will be sorted out.

But we started this episode by me suggesting that Gaddafi could be a symbol of how the Arab world as a whole, in a way, after the defeats of 1967 and the death of Nasser, kind of went nuts and all sorts of crazy characters came to power: Saddam Hafez, al-Assad, and then his son.

Aimen Dean Saleh.

Thomas Small Saleh in Yemen. Beni Ali, perhaps less So, but still bit of a dick in Tunisia. Mubarak even in Cairo. This style of Arab big man, wearing sunglasses, spouting nonsense, ruling rather haphazardly, rather impetuously and completely dictatorially. Even like Yasser Arafat to a certain extent.

I mean, what do you think? I mean, you're an Arab, Aimen, although you're not from one of those countries. But, nonetheless, what – what the hell happened? Why was the Arab world forced to endure for so many decades such characters?

Aimen Dean I'm afraid I'm going to have to resort to one of the statements by the Prophet Muhammad in order to explain this.

Thomas Small Please do. I mean, Gaddafi wouldn't like it, but.

Aimen Dean Yeah. Well, I – I don't care what you he like or doesn't like. He's dead. Good. Six feet under anyway. But what the Prophet Muhammad said. He said, "[speaks in Arabic]." "As you are, your rulers will be. Your rulers will reflect you." So, if you're good people, if you're decent, you know, your rulers will be good and decent. But if you are deceitful, if you are, you know, not united, if you are distrustful towards each other, if you are not, you know, aspiring for, you know, for better life for, you know, dreaming for a better future, then why should your rulers be better than you?

Thomas Small Also, if you have become under the influence of totalitarian, absolutist modern ideologies, various isms—nationalism, internationalism, communism, even to some extent, you know, liberalism, capitalism—while, at the same time, wishing to remain faithful to what you understand to be or inherited tradition of Islam and all of that. it's – it's – it's hard. And – and Gaddafi – Gaddafi symbolises that.

You know, we—. You and I, Aimen, we've – we've had this ongoing debate about the extent to which modern ideas, which are largely, you know, Western in orient – in origin, can co-exist harmoniously with – with Islam. And I know – I know what you say and – and the listener knows what I think. But, certainly, in the case of Gaddafi, there's a symbol of – of my – my argument, which is that when modern ideas—.

Aimen Dean Yeah. But he was unhinged. He was unhinged.

Thomas Small Well, he was unhinged. But you – but you say, you know, you say that the – the Arabs at the time who were trying to balance in their minds these different, I think, irreconcilable ways of thinking and ways of living …

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small … you know, they – they got the – the ruler that they – the rulers that they deserved, you know, because—.

Aimen Dean Exactly.

Thomas Small But the Arabs soul was being torn apart by these mutually incompatible ideologies, perspectives, whatever you – whatever you want to call them. Religions, even.

Aimen Dean Exactly. And you see, he, wasn't the only leader who met, you know, a – a, you know, a bloody fate. Look at Saleh, you know, in Yemen. He was killed by his allies in the end, the Houthis.

Thomas Small Saddam.

Aimen Dean Saddam. And, you know—. And, you know, so, at the end of the day, you know—. And one day, Bashar al-Assad will receive, you know, will receive that. Like, you know, karma has its own way, you know. Bashar will end up like the—.

Thomas Small Inshallah.

Aimen Dean Inshallah. So, you know—. So – So, what I'm saying here is that we come back again to the fact that this is what happened, you know, when you jeer against a saint like King Idris and you cheer, you know, for an insane clown like Gaddafi. You get what you deserve. The Arab masses will get what it deserves, you know.

And this is why what I'm saying is that, you know, when someone was saying, "How do we achieve, you know, [speaks in Arabic]?" You know, the virtuous kingdom. I remember, in front of me, one of the most celebrated, you know, Salafi al – al-Hadith clerics, you know, in the Arab world, he was asked. "How do we achieve [speaks in Arabic]? How do we achieve the virtuous kingdom?"

And he said, "First, establish it in your heart, and it become a reality in your life, on the ground. But if, you know, if your heart is not virtuous, there will be no virtue in real life."

Thomas Small "The kingdom of heaven is within you." I certainly believe that.

Aimen Dean Yes.

Thomas Small That's – that's a – a note of unity between you, my Muslim friend, and me, your Christian friend.

I hope, dear listener, you have enjoyed our rather strange conversation about a very strange man, Colonel Gaddafi, after a few episodes that have told more or less a single story, climaxing in the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. What we're going to—. We've spent this episode and we're going to spend another couple of episodes meandering a bit. This episode on Colonel Gaddafi.

In the next episode, we are thankfully going to leave the Arab world for a while and travel to the Indian subcontinent. Yes. Stay tuned for Aimen and me discussing Kashmir Partition and all things Indo-Pakistani.

Please do follow the show on both Facebook and Twitter @MHConflicted. And speaking of Facebook, we have a wonderful community of listeners there, which you can find by searching for "Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group." There, you will be able to engage in conversations and debates with like-minded folks around the topics Aimen and I discuss here on the show.

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Please join us again in two weeks' time for another great episode of Conflicted.

Conflicted is a Message Heard production. This episode was produced and edited by Rowan Bishop. Sandra Ferrari is our executive producer. Production support and fact-checking by Molly Freeman. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley.

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