COLUMN: MUAMMAR GADDAFI'S DEATH IS A GIFT TO WESTERN LEADERS

Nobody in this world could have missed the news on Muammar Gaddafi’s death. The video and pictures on which we could see his face covered with blood, filled the news, the papers and the internet. While the Libyans celebrate the end of the Gaddafi era, the reactions on his dead by political leaders started.

While surfing the internet the following reactions filled my screen:

“For four decades, the Gaddafi regime ruled the Libyan people with an iron fist. Their human rights were denied. Innocent civilians were detained, beaten and killed. Libya's wealth was squandered and enormous potential of Libyan people was held back and terror was used as a political weapon. Today we can definitively say that the Gaddafi regime has come to an end.”

US president Barack Obama

Van Rompuy and Gaddafi

“The death of Gaddafi marks the end of an era of despotism, said Herman Van Rompuy, the bloc's president. That Gaddafi died in a raid in Sirte means an end also to the repression from which the Libyan people have suffered for too long.”

The European Union

“This day marks a historic transition for Libya. In the coming days, we will witness scenes of celebration as well as grief for those who lost so much. Now is the time for all Libyans to come together. Libyans can only realise the promise of the future for national unity and reconciliation. Combatants on all sides must lay down their arms in peace. This is the time for healing and rebuilding, for generosity of spirit, not for revenge.”

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon

“I am happy I will be visiting a country fully liberated from a dictator who has imposed his iron fist for more than 40 years. Now Libya can truly turn the page,”

European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek

 “People in Libya today have an even greater chance after this news of building themselves a strong and democratic future.”

British prime minister David Cameron

  

Berlusconi kissing hand of Gaddafi

“Now the war is over. Sic transit gloria mundi [Thus passes the glory of the world]”

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi

“The disappearance of Muammar Gaddafi is a major step forward in the battle fought for more than eight months by the Libyan people to liberate themselves from the dictatorial and violent regime imposed on them for more than 40 years.”

French president Nicolas Sarkozy

“With this, a bloody war comes to an end, which Gaddafi led against his own people. Libya must now quickly take further resolute steps towards democracy and make the achievements so far of the Arab Spring irreversible. “

German chancellor Angela Merkel

After reading the above reactions, I don’t know whether laughing or crying is the best way to deal with them. What a bunch of hypocrites they are. In the article Today’s friend tomorrow’s enemy, Christian showed how friendly we were with the man we now call a suppressor and a dictator.  The same man with who they had tea in a tent in the Libyan dessert. Didn’t they see at the time that the Libyan people were suppressed and dictated, or didn’t it matter at those days as contracts for oil were signed in favour of western leaders.

The Arabic Spring hasn’t been a revolution for Arabs alone. The Arabs are opening the eyes of many western people, who can’t escape the image of their “leaders” losing credibility day by day. I so hoped that Muammar Gaddafi would come to my country to be judged in front of the International Court of Den Haag (the Hague). Not even because he deserves punishment or what so ever but just to see what he would tell about his friendly contacts with the western leaders. Now he has taken those secret to his grave.

Maybe that’s the reason why the western leaders are so happy about his dead, not for the Libyan people but simply for themselves. The sad part about it all is that we western people accept the behaviour of our leaders. The leaders who carry double faces and we all know that but still we let it happen. Wouldn’t it be a great achievement if we start our own revolution. To not accept the lies told to us, to not let them decide for us how to live our lives and most of all to reform our current policies based on fraud, corruption and shady contracts between countries to a policy in where the truth is the red wire.

I know it’s easy to say let’s start a revolution but the Arabs, often in Western media called underdeveloped, did it. They said NO, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Can’t we learn from them that change can be made by citizens as long as we unite to tell our corrupted leaders that we had ENOUGH!

By Marije

source

Posted in: Column Marije,Security and Terrorism,World Affairs and Government