Qaddafi’s Unbowed Odyssey: Dictator Or Visionary?

(In The Light Of Third Universal Theory & Its Implementation)

“People of Libya! In response to your own will, fulfilling your most heartfelt wishes____ listening to your incitement to rebel, your armed forces have undertaken the overthrow of the corrupt regime, the stench of which has sickened and horrified us all”: Radio speech of 27-year-old, then Captain, Muammar Al Gaddafi, shortly after seizing power during a successful bloodless military coup that was forever to alter the course of history for Libya. Having ordered the withdrawal of foreign forces, the new government implemented reforms based on the principles of ‘New Socialism’. However, this liberation paradoxically induced feelings of enslavement among Libyans. To comprehend this phenomenon, it is essential to contextualize these developments within Libya’s pre-revolutionary background.

Table of Contents

Libya Before Gaddafi

In 1951, after Libya gained independence from the fascist Italian regime, Idris became the king of Libya. Due to wide-scale corruption, tyranny, restlessness, and growing dissatisfaction during his era, young officers from the Libyan Army decided to dethrone Idris ___Gaddafi, one of the 70 officers behind the coup became the head of the Revolutionary Command Committee (RCC) in 1969, and ordered the transformation of Libyan culture in accordance with the third universal theory he had proposed.

Third Universal Theory

Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s Third Universal Theory, at its core, is a socialist-Islamic ideology rejecting Western capitalism and communism, emphasizing self-sufficiency and Pan-Arabism as well as Pan-Africanism. The theory aims to reform three key areas :

(a) Solution To The Problem of Democracy: Direct Democracy,

(b) Solution to Economic Problem: Socialism,

(a) Solution To The Problem Of Democracy: Direct Democracy

Renouncing the Parliament, Party, and Plebiscites as “fraud against democracy”, Qaddafi stressed the need for finding an appropriate instrument of government. He believed in democracy more as the ‘authority of the people than an authority acting on their behalf’. Thus, he proposed “Direct Democracy” to replace the eroded “Representative Democracy”. He countervailed the “Popular Sovereignty” with “Popular Democracy,” allowing for the creation of “Popular Conferences And People’s Committees” for people to directly participate, unlike representative democracy, in the democratic process through local Secretariats at a small population level to take the subjects dealt with in popular conferences and people’s committees to the ‘General People’s Congress’.

With the implementation of ‘Direct Democracy’, he broke free from the practices of representative democracy in vogue, redefining democracy as: “The supervision of People by the People”, removing the long-standing dilemma of democracy and “The Instrument Of Government”. Being a staunch critic of Plebiscites, he asserted that people were herded to choose between only “Yes” or “No” through the elections __ with no choice to express their will: why yes, why not ‘no’; why not ‘ no ‘, if yes.

Parliament, as put forth in Third Universal Theory, is ‘undemocratic__ a legal barrier between democracy and the people, while political parties serve the purpose of an instrument of modern dictatorship, since a party/candidate sweeping 51% majority would become an instrument of government as well as a dictator to rule the rest of the 49% of the electorate that didn’t vote for that particular Party/candidate.

Being highly critical of dictatorship in the guise of democracy, Gaddafi, throughout his rule, kept stressing direct democracy, stating “I’m a leader of revolution, not the president” (Interview with Larry king, CNN, 2009) with which could be taken for his unwavering commitment to the idea of ‘Authority Of People than an authority working on their behalf’.

(b) Solution To Economic Problem: Socialism

The solution to the economic Problem, according to him, is socialism, and the subsequent abolition of wage-labour. Implementing the policy of ‘Partners Not Servants’, he declared it illegal to amass wealth beyond one’s satisfaction of need at the expense of others, for such an immoderate accumulation of wealth would compromise the freedom of others, as he mentioned in his theory:

“The freedom of a human being is lacking if his or her needs are controlled by others, for need may lead to the enslavement of a person by another___ Conflict is initiated by the control of one’s needs by another”. (Green Book Ch 12, P.49) Since the wealth in individual society as well as across the globe is deemed ‘finite at every stage’ __ so because”one only has the right to save from his own production and not by employing others, or to save at the expense of his or her own needs and not of others”. Gaddafi exemplified the theory’s economic problems through three models:

First example:

A worker produces ten apples for society. The society gives him one apple for his production, and it fully satisfies his needs.
A worker produces ten apples for society. The society gives him one apple for his production, which does not satisfy his needs.

Second example:

A worker produces ten apples for another person and gets wages less than the price of one apple.

Third example:

A worker produces ten apples for himself. Of all the three examples given above, Gaddafi endorsed the third example as ‘sound’ due to its potential to eliminate exploitation and promote wealth generation through individual effort, thereby providing intrinsic incentives that the first two lacked. (Green Book, Ch: 16, Land P.57)

Thus, Gaddafi’s socialism restricted one from having Land as a Private means of production as long as it involved employing others to raise profit, for “Land is the private property of none”. The only way out is to amass wealth from one’s own production. The same goes for housing, whether paying rent or not; it compromises the freedom of one whose needs are controlled by others. Third Universal Theory, as proposed and implemented by Gaddafi, operated to satisfy material as well as spiritual needs of the masses, in which primacy of place was accorded to the liberation of humans in terms of ‘Partnership’ rather than service, which is equivalent to slavery as seen in the case of domestic servants.

UNITED STATES OF AFRICA

Qaddafi, to counter the Western imperial influence, introduced the concept of the UNITED STATES OF AFRICA __ with a single currency and a single military force. He reiterated his stance in 2009 while he had been elected as chairman of the 53-nation African Union in Ethiopia., “I shall continue to insist that our sovereign countries work together to achieve the United States of Africa”. However, his dreams turned out to be short-lived. Coincidentally, he was killed the same month of the same year (October 2011), exactly 100 years after fascist Italy had begun invading Libya (October 1911).

(c) Social Basis of the Theory

This part of his theory was implemented through the “Libyan Cultural Revolution” in 1973.

The social basis of the Third Universal Theory focuses on the family as a ‘cradle’ or ‘umbrella’ for an individual. The family then grows into a tribe and eventually into a nation. However, family is preferable to the nation than tribes, for tribes are deemed a threat to the deconstruction of national unity. According to the Third Universal Theory, both men and women are human and equal, having the same needs and level of comprehension. Only certain Biological or natural differences exist to differentiate between male and female.

These natural differences, in turn, are the realities that define the role of men and women. These differences include monthly bleeding in women, and when it stops, it indicates pregnancy. ‘Afterwards, a woman would breastfeed the baby she bore’, something that men are not capable of doing, so for the survival of life on earth is more because of women as they go through all the sufferings for the continuity of the human race.

Apart from what has been said above, Gaddafi, in order to empower women, established alpha units of the female military, allowing them to work equally with men. Moreover, Black people as well as minorities in Libya were guaranteed their inalienable rights without any discrimination on the basis of color or religion. Traditional education is criticised as a burden on the students, as “Education now prevailing all over the world is directed against human freedom. State-controlled education, which governments boast of whenever they are able to force it on their youths, is a method of suppressing freedom.”

Outcomes Of The Third Universal Theory’s Practical Implementation

Building upon the sound principles of the Third Universal Theory, Gaddafi’s regime introduced a range of innovative social reforms. Some of the major reforms are as follows:

Education, healthcare, and electricity were free for all Libyans.
Gender equality was part of the constitution, and women’s rights were best in the region.
Illiteracy & homelessness were significantly reduced. Before he ascended to power, only 25% of Libyans were literate; today it is 83%.
Per capita income was estimated at US$12,000, the highest in the region.
Libya under Gaddafi had no debt to the IMF, World Bank, or anyone.
Newlyweds received 50,000 dollars to find a home.
Mothers received 5,000 on the birth of a child.
Citizens enjoyed a percentage of all oil sales.
The government was responsible for paying 50% of the price when a Libyan bought a car.
Unemployed Libyans received the average salary for their profession in benefits.
Students would be paid the average salary for a profession they were studying for.
Farmers were given land, a house, equipment, seeds, and livestock, all for free.
Libya under Gaddafi had the world’s largest irrigation project, making water available for more than 70% of the country’s desert population. (Later on, bombed and destroyed by NATO).

Conclusion

While some may criticize Gaddafi as a tyrant or dictator, the best course of action in this regard would be to realize that not everything that comes to us is true. Usually, tyranny is inflicted to suppress the masses while they are being economically, socially, or politically deprived-while Gaddafi’s struggle was to liberate the masses from the economic, political and social injustice through the establishment of Jamhiriya (brotherly state with direct democracy) and ‘New Socialism’ to put an end to wage labour allowing for the partnership in the services as well in goods.

Nowhere have we seen a dictator so visionary and fruitful for a nation as Qaddafi was. It’s not an attempt to defend Qaddafi; rather, it’s to evaluate his third universal theory and its outcomes without being partisan, still “to err is human”: let’s try figuring it out using an academic approach! Suppose a student obtains 75 out of 100 marks__ Do we appreciate them for the 75 achievements that the marks were awarded for, OR the other way round, do we berate them for the 25 mistakes they made?

Sources

Nazriyat-al-Aalmiyah-Thalitha (Third Universal Theory) by Col. Muammar-Al-Qaddafi,kitab-Ul-Ahdhar (The green book), People’s Establishment for Publication, Distribution, and Advertising