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A news story hails Libya as ready to embrace economic change but without any political reform. Colonel Qaddafi, or as his friends and countrymen know him, Brother Leader, will remain the big boss, thank you very much. You can see the China influence, eh?
(Source: Michael Slackman for The New York Times)
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A news story hails Libya as ready to embrace economic change but without any political reform. Colonel Qaddafi, or as his friends and countrymen know him, Brother Leader, will remain the big boss, thank you very much. You can see the China influence, eh?
TRIPOLI, Libya, March 1 — For more than three decades, Libya has been an experiment in one man’s ideology. The result is a country with few functioning institutions, an unreliable legal system, inadequate schools and hospitals, and a population isolated and unprepared for modernity.And we are left to hope that this is a transitional step to a better society:
That is the assessment of some of the government’s own consultants.
Yet the leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, will be holding a huge celebration on Friday to observe the 30th anniversary of the system that has led Libya to its current crisis. So as efforts to change get under way, pushed by a small group of reformers, talk is restricted to economic change.
“Look, we have all reached the conclusion that political change is impossible,” said a former political prisoner who like other dissidents here was afraid to be identified for fear of punishment. “It is impossible to change the system. So the only thing we can do is support the initiatives taken by someone like Seif [the Brother Leader's son] and hope that it leads eventually to where we want things to go.”But Libyans point out that there have been meangingful changes, and the people still need to adjust anyway:
But Libyans do say there has been social change. Not long ago, Western music was banned, studying English was banned, private property was banned, being a lawyer was banned and capitalism was a crime. Today they want to be part of the world. But they are afraid to leave the cocoon of a welfare state where everyone was poor but expectations were low.At least they aren't waving the Jihad flag around.
“People are depressed and bewildered,” said Nassereddin Ali, 33, a playwright in Tripoli. “There is a fear of tomorrow and the future. People don’t know what to do: should they live for today, tomorrow or yesterday?”
(Source: Michael Slackman for The New York Times)
