The first I heard of Gaddafi, it seemed he'd done what Castro had done in Cuba in 1959, a young man with a few soldiers expelling the mafia that lorded it over the country. Gaddafi toppled the king, a puppet of the British and Americans. He closed the British and American military bases and then turned his attention to the oil companies and, before the Opec cartel was organised, successfully forced them to pay a much higher price for his country's oil. Libya, bullied by the Ottomans, trampled on by the Italians and used as a battlefield by the British and the Germans would no longer be anybody's footstool. It was a story of David and Goliath. Gaddafi was a darling of the Left in those days but all the while it seemed, the vanquisher of the bullies was himself learning the black arts of tyranny. Gaddafi had been in power eight or nine years when I went to Libya. It's difficult to say I was in Libya though. I was confined to an oil camp, which, at the time, I compared to an aircraft carrier in a desert sea or Swedish open prison even though I'd never been to one. Sweden in those days was considered lax and the oil camp was lax in respect to its being awash with illegal alcohol and other drugs.
Every night, I hung out with my Libyan friends smoking dope, drinking the colourless moonshine and listening to Arab or Afro-American music. The 'Who' album 'Live at Leeds' was a favourite. A television was often flickering away. Gaddafi appeared a lot and was ignored until someone tired and threw a shoe at the screen. This was the nearest I came to political comment. I soon had the impression Gaddafi wasn't liked but that it wasn't safe to talk about it. My friends were all from the east of the country, especially Benghazi. The seat of government in Tripoli was a long, long way away and the ruling elite was remote tribally as well.
Expatriates weren’t supposed to leave the oil camp except to take leave when you'd fly from the camp airstrip directly to Tripoli airport and then out of the country. However, occasionally I sneaked out of the camp and one night we drove into the desert to a scattered mess of discarded containers and packing cases, which the Bedouin employed as shelters. You knew they were there because of the glow of oil lamps. We stopped the car and there was an exchange of signals by headlights and somebody left our car and returned a few minutes later carrying a load of illegal intoxicants.
Today, Gaddafi accuses the rebels of being high on drugs. Certainly, most of my friends in the old days were often quite intoxicated but they weren't sleepy-heads. They often had science degrees from British or American universities and spoke English, not just with fluency, but often with poetic sensibility. I arrived back from leave once after a lot of flying, North Africa to Switzerland, to England, to Canada and back again to Libya all in jut a few days. I was not only tired and disorientated, but was further agitated because my luggage had disappeared along with my precious Dickens books to get me through the long days. My friend Hassan, Hassan meaning grace, collected me from the airstrip and, when he dropped me at my bungalow, he gave me a copy of 'Under Milk Wood' and said it would rest my mind, especially the prologue.
The loss of luggage at least gave me the excuse of going to Tripoli to look for it. It was a pretty place but the atmosphere seemed austere and subdued. Benghazi, when I managed to sneak out of camp to make visit there, was entirely different. It was hot as chilli peppers, not just temperature-wise, but culturally. At night, the little streets were crammed with cars honking greetings to friends and cousins. Everyone seemed to know each other. It seemed young, vibrant but tense.
The tension may have had something to do with political repression. Maybe it came from a society which, in the space of a few years, had changed from being very poor to quite wealthy and potentially very wealthy. The young people I knew often had, as I said, a cosmopolitan education and were used to money. Their parents on the other hand might have scratched a living from goats and sheep. Before the oil came, Libya exported almost nothing, some dates and scrap iron from burnt out, Second World War tanks dragged out of the desert.
My friend Hassan's family derived its wealth from scrap iron. The family or clan occupied an entire street. Well, it was more an alley than a street. Outwardly it was cramped and mean but indoors and behind the facade, the apartments were spacious and opulent. The quality and quantity of the food I enjoyed there was fabulous. It wasn't the custom to visit the source of the cookery to express thanks. It wasn't straightforward meeting women although we did visit a divorced woman and smoked hash with her. It seemed normal but I think she was an outcast.
We drove to the remains of a Roman city. There was no tourist hub-up, just us. The wind blew in from the desert. There was a screaming silence and as I looked at the colossal wreck around me, I thought of Shelley's poem Ozymandias, and the words, 'Look on my works, ye mighty and despair.' But it was all in vain in the end just, as it looks that way for Gaddafi as I write now.
Libya by Gareth Rees
Photo by Alex Sebley
taken from blogspot- Read 'Rees'
Gareth examines- slur, age and mundane megalomania
A grumpy old man? Well, that's just a slur, isn't it?
To accuse a Welshman of doing unspeakable things with sheep just because he's Welsh is a slur, a racial slur and you could be prosecuted. But why should any slur be acceptable? The intention usually is to take the person out of a person, to de-humanise therefore. You're reducing someone to nothing more than a unit in a category defined by outward appearance? It's cynicism really and not going the loving way which surely is addressing that which transcends the mould, finding the uniqueness in a person, the global soul.
To call someone 'grumpy' is patronising too in the same way as referring to a child's display of ill-temper as a tantrum. A tantrum might be a consequence of overbearing authority but authority relieves itself of any responsibility by reducing the outburst to an aberration you can sometimes expect from someone of a certain age.
Grumpiness is an expression, maybe a mild one, of anger and, if this is so, then it's ridiculous to bracket it with old men because everybody has an anger propensity, don't they? To be born is to be born into a continuous experience of not always getting what you want and this frustration is what leads to anger. Infants get angry. Teenagers get angry. Adults get angry. Old people get angry. Why should old men be singled out for not always being amenable and placid?
Who's got the worst reputation as a grumpy old man? Well, it's God, of course. How many people have struggled with God and maybe ditched Him because they can't get out of their mind an intimidating image of a bearded old man with a sour expression of perpetual disapproval on his stony visage?
Well, anybody with any sense, you'd think, would walk away from someone like this. Abusive relationships, however, are notoriously adhesive and God gets away with it again and again. Maybe some of us grow up with an ingrained timidity. Maybe some of us need the inflexible iron spine of God Almighty to make up for our own spinelessness.
Is there any particular reason for an old man to be grumpy? Well, you look at your once sleek muscles turning to flab and it's not something you want to think about too much because it leads all the way down to the grave. No, I don't want to think about that. I've done everything I could to be a person of significance and to think it all ends in ashes is unbearable. It makes me angry and murderously jealous of youth.
My stony old pride won't own up to jealousy though so I'll disguise it like Abraham who convinced himself he was serving the Lord when he plotted to kill his own son Isaac. And what about those old First World War generals sitting behind the front line in chandeliered chateaux, were they similarly motivated as they orchestrated the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of young men?
Well, I mentioned this viewpoint in the tavern to two old military historians who replay famous battles using lead soldiers. They found the idea of senior officers killing off young men to assuage their jealousy of youth as deeply shocking. It would indeed be so if it was done consciously. But we don't really know to what extent it is the subconscious mind which really calls the tune. My conscious mind might say that what I am doing is for King and country and even God. Actually, however, I might truly be motivated by some inner rage concerning the inevitability of my own decline and demise.
Robert Graves had a wife but I can't remember her name. Maybe this is because she was merely a woman. Anyway, she was asked why she didn't believe in God and she replied, 'Because God is a man, of course.'
How did God become a man I wonder? Well, I suppose if you're the biggest beast in the field and you're a man and you want this state to continue, you might try getting rid of your blood-soaked garb and replacing it with robes. Make out you're the special one, make out you're infallible like god. But it's just mundane megalomania really and the problem with being a bossy boots is that it's so lonesome. You're not going to have any mates. It's all just sycophants and cringers, and with company like that, no wonder you feel grumpy whether you're an old chap, an infant or a harridan.
taken from http://garethrees.blogspot.com
What's the most rubbish thing you've seen?
DAVID CAMRONS FACE
Are you pubes straight?
NO GINGER AFRO STYLE
Did the rubbishmen get too good?
YES WE STARTED TO PLAY IN TUNE
How far is the moon ?
NO IDEA SOMETIMES IT LOOKS QUITE CLOSE
Why are rubbish bins green ?
BECAUSE ITS LIKE GREEN AND THAT LIKE ECO ?
What's your favourite part of the bible ?
THE BIT ABOUT THE SAND IN THE FORESKIN AND THE ROCK (OUCH)
Do you own a man tiara ?
NOT AT THE MOMENT I MAYE HAVE HAD ONE AT SOME POINT
What's your favourite song right now ?
THE KILLING MOON
Do you own a car ?
NO
Your opinion on fix wheel bikes ?
A LOAD OF WANK
Best watering hole on London ?
NEALSONS HEAD, BIRDCAGE, THE BLUE POST SOHO ,THE FRENCH SOHO,THE GOLDEN HEART
THEY ARE ALL GOOD
How do you eat your toast ?
WITH BUTTER
Do you believe in aliens ?
NOT SURE
Is the world an oyster ?
YES I HOPE IT IS,ONE DAY I WILL TAKE A BOAT TO THE USA.
