dormir debout

Does this man look like any kind of official, diplomat, politician, or otherwise international figure? Much less a “brother leader” or “glorious guide” or however he styles himself these days?

Unfolding his circus tent as usual in the park of the Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome, Qaddafi (recently having become the world’s longest reigning dictator) upheld a declaration of friendship with Italy, in which Italy apologized for having colonized Libya (which then was but an Ottoman province), massacred thousands of Libyans, and force-implanted colonists on what it called its “Quarta Sponda,” the Fourth Shore.

As nice as a symbolic gesture such as that may seem, it is empty and almost offensive to the history of Libya and the memory of the Libyan resistance. By the act of Sylvio Berlusconi apologizing and Qaddafi accepting his apology, both assume responsibility for the act, the Italian as colonizer/oppressor, the Libyan as victim/resistor/patriot, and so forth. Both were hardly born, and had nothing to do the (de)colonization or subsequent creation of the Kingdom of Libya by the UN. By Qaddafi assuming the role of resistor/victim, he insults the memory of the Libyans who actually did fight and die, for he himself has oppressed the freedoms and made difficult the lives of modern Libyans nearly as well as the Italian occupiers did at the beginning of the century. It is needless to say that Berlusconi then assumes the role of Mussolini (or the brutal Rodolfo Graziani if he prefers), with whom he doubtless doesn’t want to be compared.

But I’m not saying that symbolic gestures, or apologies, should never be made. I’m just pointing out that they should be done right, because, after all, they are symbolic and not real. Is Berlusconi apologizing to the people of Libya, since Qaddafi had no part in the affairs of the colony? Is a crook making a symbolic gesture to a dictator even meaningful?

If you want to read up more, check out these links:
Italy: Libya pay-off for ‘colonial mistakes’
La visite de Mouammar Kaddafi en Italie a frôlé l’incident diplomatique
Mouammar Kaddafi à Rome pour une visite historique
Colonisation : la Libye et l’Italie font la paix