Qadhafi Talks Up 'Direct Democracy'
Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi rarely has encounters with the western media, but news organizations recently were invited to attend a panel discussion on democracy and economic reform hosted by the reclusive, longtime dictator. Special correspondent Dan Morrison reports from Libya:
SEHBA, Libya–It's rare that people contradict Libyan supremo Muammar Qadhafi. Rarer still in front of witnesses.
But there was British sociologist Anthony Giddens very politely dissenting from the Brother Leader's contention that the western democracies are in fact dictatorships and that Qadhafi's theory of "direct democracy'' is a model for the world.
"If the leader will forgive me,'' said Giddens, an adviser to Tony Blair, "I think it is wrong to say that you can have a democratic society without a strong element of representation.''
"Mm,'' replied the leader.
A paradox: two hours of talk about democracy with a figure who epitomizes one-man rule. The unusual "conversation'' among Qadhafi, Giddens, American political scientist Benjamin Barber, and the British interviewer David Frost was an effort to show the world a Libya in transition from socialism to free markets and from dictatorship to something–perhaps one day less than dictatorship.
Libya was shunned for decades for supporting mayhem in the Middle East, Africa, and even Ireland. It abolished private property more than 20 years ago. Billboards celebrate its citizens as "partners, not wage workers'' and declare that "forming political parties is treason.''
Now reformers, led by one of Qadhafi's sons, Seif Al-Islam, hope to transform Libya into a "Scandinavia of the Middle East.''
The very notion, preposterous to foreign ears, would have been impossible if not for Libya's emergence from the cold over the past few years. In 2003, Libya took responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and gave up its secret nuclear weapons program. American sanctions were lifted in 2004, and U.S. oil companies came rushing back, but Qadhafi has complained that Libya never received proper credit for handing in its nukes and fighting radical Islam.
Al Qaeda may seem tame compared with the bureaucratic battles to come. The reformers plan to pare 180,000 jobs from the public rolls, invite foreign investment, and upgrade the decrepit education and healthcare systems. Public employees, er, partners, will be nudged, and then pushed, into the private sector. Resistance from Qadhafi's old guard has been fierce. Several reformers likened it to "guerrilla warfare.''
"Some people are benefiting from the status quo,'' said a top economic official. "They build up the gateway to corruption.''
With only 5.6 million people and gigantic reserves of low-sulfur oil, proponents say the country can modernize faster and with less pain than Eastern Europe did after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Laid-off workers will get three years' severance, business training, and access to commercial loans.
What do ordinary Libyans make of this?
It's difficult to say, as most are afraid to discuss the leader's policies with foreigners.
"People don't know or think about these things,'' an engineering student in Tripoli said. "They think about tomorrow, next week. 'Will I have enough to eat?' ''
Which brings us back to democracy. It's easy to chortle at Qadhafi's contention that in Libya "there is no dictatorship, there is no injustice.'' But Barber contends that "Libya is probably a lot more promising than these places where the United States has been spending millions on promoting democracy.''
The key lies in Libya's system of popular committees, ostensibly 30,000 councils of 100 people each that guide the course of the nation. While it's difficult to find anyone outside Libya–or inside, for that matter–who really believes these committees drive policy, they may provide a channel through which real concerns at the bottom could reach the very few at the top.
"I can't think of other dictatorial Third World countries where thousands of people are meeting in these kinds of committees,'' says Barber, who has met privately with Qadhafi.
Before an audience of invited foreign correspondents at a conference hall on the edge of the Sahara, the leader said he hoped that in the future, after he was gone, the Libyan people "would not need a Muammar Qadhafi.''
What about a present, asked Barber, in which they don't need a Muammar Qadhafi? The leader didn't answer. Outside, in the shadow of a medieval castle, a Libyan soldier swept the red carpet for mines.