This emanates from the fact that politicians find it impossible to admit their mistakes publicly and hence want to portray an infallible image despite all challenges. Their lack of common sense is illustrated vividly by their inability to learn from history. History books are full of countless examples of leaders who failed to learn from the past. Hitler failed to learn about the Russian winter from Napoleon and he met the same fate, as a result he lost World War II.
Closer to home, Ian Smith failed to learn from Hitler that no government can last for a thousand years, when he said there shall be no majority rule in Rhodesia a thousand years. It only took about 15 years to have majority rule when liberation fighters waged war against his forces.
The revolutionary winds blowing in the Arab world should have sent clear messages to the leaders of all these countries. The governments of these countries had all overstayed, with Tunisian president having been in power for almost 24 years, in Egypt Mubarak had been 30 years in power while Gaddafi had been in power for 42 years.
These leaders have insatiable appetite for power. If one remains in power for two decades, who the hell do they think they are? Do they think their countries are private properties? Do they think no one else has the right to govern except them? The lessons learnt from these revolutions is that dictators do not go over night, they fight for their space; it took a solid 18 days to depose Muburak.
Consistency and commitment is needed to achieve results, Mubarak initially offered to go by September and the people wanted him to leave immediately, and amazingly Mubarak said he wanted to remain in power to defend national interests; this is cynical to say the least. What national interest do dictators have to defend except enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else? Those who genuinely want to defend national sovereignty should show this by listening to the voices of the masses. Any leader who thinks they know what is better for their country, regardless of the concerns of the people is a counter-revolutionary.
When public demonstrations started in Libya what everyone expected to see was Gaddafi packing his bags and heading somewhere to enjoy the looted billions, but Gaddafi responded by pronouncing a death decree to the demonstrators. Gaddafi said that he was going to cleanse Libya from house to house; he instructed his people to attack and kill the “rats”. The bombing of civilians awakened resistance, as to the Moslem world, dying in a just cause is considered martyrdom and a great achievement. The revolutionaries soon started defending themselves.
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The results, we all know thousands of lives have been lost. The United Nations Security Council once again came under the spotlight; its readiness to handle the crisis is far from satisfactory. Once again the Russians and Chinese proved that they think the UN Security Council seats mean only defending national and selfish ambitions. To them the death of Libyans is nothing as long as it is a setback to western domination. The belated resolution to impose a no-fly zone over Libya should have come as great relief to the revolutionaries in Libya as Gaddafi had pronounced that no mercy would be shown to rebels in Benghazi.
For those who want to ask, whether it is wrong for any government to defend its self from rebels, the answer is simple: I don’t remember Gaddafi being elected by the people in that country. The people of Libya, as in most countries in Africa, do not hold legitimate elections to install and remove governments. Hence, the argument that Gaddaffi was defending a legitimate government is not valid to some extent.
Another argument is that the West is pursuing selfish interests in Libya. This is true to some extent, the West indeed never intervenes in poor countries like Somalia with no oil to loot. But in either case, Gaddafi was looting billions of dollars from oil revenues and the oil was not benefiting all Libyans. Maybe, the critical question should be why the West is not intervening in other undemocratic countries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
It is shocking to hear the level of criticism that is targeted against the US and its allies from African states and the Arab League. The argument that the US had invaded a sovereign country should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves. Does it mean any government has the right to kill its subjects without interference?
