A Remembrance Of Times Past–A Trip To Libya

March 12th, 2011  |   

Back in June 1989, I boarded a Pan Am jumbo jet and took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport. New York City out of sight, a flight attendant (called a stewardess in those days) walked the aisle and handed out scratch-coupons to everyone.

As I scratched my coupon, hopeful I might win a free drink or the big prize—a first class round trip ticket—I heard the man seated behind me say, “With my luck, I’ll probably win a trip to Libya.” His female companion laughed. Then it was my turn to laugh.

This Pan Am flight was a connecting flight for me. In Rome, I along with nine other Americans would catch a plane headed for—you guessed it—Libya.

Five months prior to our trip—in the twilight hours of the Reagan presidency—U.S. planes had engaged Libyan fighter planes in a nasty shoot-out in the Gulf of Sidra, on the northern coast of Libya. There was a growing indication that this might be a prelude to a U.S. military intervention.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation—an organization with a long history in civil rights struggles and peacemaking efforts—sponsored the trip. Our task was simply stated. We were making the trip to listen to Libyans—to know more about the people and to listen to their concerns. As grassroots peace activists, we hoped that our visit would help reduce the tensions between our countries by putting a human face on the enemy.

The situation in Libya now, and the possibility of U.S. military involvement, has caused me to reread my Notes From Under the Fig Tree written after I had returned home from that trip. What I wrote in six installments is almost twenty-two years old, but I thought it might be interesting to revisit those observations, with an eye on what’s going on right now in that part of the world that has once again captured our attention.

With that introduction, buckle your seat belts and prepare for takeoff. You’ve just won a free trip to Libya at my expense.

The Face Of The Enemy

Sam Keen, in his book “Faces of the Enemy,” says “the hostile imagination begins with a simple but crippling assumption: what is strange or unknown is dangerous and intends us evil. The unknown is untrustworthy. The Latin word hostis originally meant a stranger, one not connected to us by kin or ties to blood.”

After making a stop in Benghazi, our plane continues on to Tripoli. While waiting for our bags in Tripoli, I have my first encounter with a Libyan man. I remember that I am in a country my nation has told me I am not permitted to visit legally. It is a hostile place in the eyes of my nation—a terrorist state. Who is this man inviting me to talk with him?

He asks me if I mind answering a couple of question. He seems eager for answers. I am a bit apprehensive since he is not a member of the welcoming delegation. What does he want to know? How suspicious should I allow myself to be?

His two questions break down any barrier that might possibly exist between us. First, he wants to know what kind of football team Notre Dame will have this year. Then he wants to know if the Ku Klux Klan is still present and active in the United States.

It seems that he had once been in the United States getting military training in of all places, North Carolina, the place I just left. While there, he became a Notre Dame football fan. While there, he also heard about the Klan.

So I have arrived in Libya and I have met the enemy, and he loves Notre Dame football and hates the Ku Klux Klan.

Qaddafi—Good Arab Or Bad Arab?

Dirk Vandewalle, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth, was our resource person and guide on the trip. He is an expert on Libya, the author of “Modern Libya.” I might also add that during the present turmoil in Libya he has written an op-ed piece for The New York Times (Feb. 23—The Many Qaddafis) and has appeared on the NPR show “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross (Feb. 28). I suggest that my readers Google and read those two web sites.

Under Vandewalle’s tutelage I learned valuable knowledge about Libya’s history. I cannot reproduce all that I shared with my Notes readers back in 1989. However, it would be valuable, now that Libya is front-and-center in the news, for folks to learn about the 5^th century B.C Phoenician settlements, the occupation of the land under the Ottoman Empire, the Italian control of the land from 1911 until Libya became a nation after W.W. II, and the confused history of Libya with the West since the arrival of Qaddafi. Two brief observations might be worth sharing.

Libya, prior to becoming a nation, was a tribal society. The pictures of Qaddafi housed in a tent, praying in the desert, and dressed in tribal attire, are reminders that Libya is a nation of tribes—Bedouin tribes. Now that Qaddafi is on his way out as the leader of the nation, do not be surprised if the world sees a tribal civil war take place.

A second observation points to the dangers inherent in U.S. military intervention. Under Italian occupation, the people of Libya—then called Italian North Africa—suffered terribly. Italy tortured and killed thousands of people, particularly in the eastern tribal region. When Qaddafi says, “rivers of blood will flow” if Libya is attacked, he is expressing a remembrance of the days when scores of Libyans shed blood in resistance to Italian occupation. 

And finally, we must never forget that Libya is all about oil. Our nation’s thirst for oil, and projected plans for pipelines carrying oil across the region, has left us indelibly linked to Libya and Qaddafi from President Eisenhower to President Obama.

If you want a good example of how bifurcated our attitudes and policies have been toward Libya, check out Laton McCartney’s book,  “The Bechtel Story: The Most Secret Corporation and How it Engineered the World.”  Former Secretary of State under President Reagan, George Shultz, once remarked: “We have to put Qaddafi in his box and close the lid.” He had no love for Qaddafi but Bechtel, the company he presided over as CEO, has a long history of oil field construction in Libya, which continues even now.

Is Qaddafi a good Arab or a bad Arab? It all depends, as Claudia Wright says in Jonathan Bearman’s book, “Qaddafi’s Libya.”  She writes: Once upon a time there were two kinds of Arabs. Good Arabs and Bad Arabs. The Good Arabs were the ones who would do exactly what the United States wanted if Washington gave them rewards…Now the Bad Arabs are the ones who refused to do what Washington wants, no matter what rewards are offered.”

Big Brother Hovering Over Libya And Iraq

Traveling in Libya and meeting people, much like I was able to do in Iraq right before the 1991 Gulf War, was a mixed bag when it comes to what’s good and what’s bad. 

In both visits I felt a deep and dreadful spirit and an underlying fear when it came to talking freely about Qaddafi and Saddam. Seeing huge pictures of both these men in the streets and buildings throughout my travels was eerie. They were the dreaded Big Brothers depicted by George Orwell in his novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” They hovered over people to be sure that no one, particularly our escorts or anyone we met, would dare speak the truth about the repression and violence caused by these two men.

I was able, however, to discover an even more powerfully positive Libyan spirit in the people I met, particularly in the women and young people. Ironically, Qaddafi had encouraged women’s rights. Women were present in large numbers in the university and in professions usually dominated by men.

I think of a doctor I met, a Muslim, who was every bit as liberated as any American woman in her position as an educated professional woman, and dressed in Western dress. We talked about her practice and the abnormally high rate of leukemia among children.

Another woman educated in the United States and now back in Libya was a feminist by any definition of the word. She was impatient with the religious fundamentalism that keeps women bound up in traditional garb with their faces covered and their mouths shut.

There is little doubt in my mind that these two women are a part of the liberating movement now unleashed in Libya.

Talking with a variety of students, and professors as well, I discovered a universal desire for an opening up of diplomatic relations with the U.S. that would allow them to visit and once again attend U.S. schools.

There is little doubt in my mind that these students are part of the revolution now unfolding in Libya.

Albert Camus wrote these words and I quoted them in my 1989 Notes: “Over the expanse of five continents throughout the coming years an endless struggle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion…Henceforth the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble; that words are more powerful than munitions.”

The underlying spirit of Camus’ words is what has driven me to places like El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, and Libya. There is no substitute for conversation between people when it comes to defeating dictatorial power and injustice. I came home from Libya even more convinced of that belief.

Conflicting Interests—Making Refugees And Taking Care Of Refugees

In November of 1989 I received a call from a man named Ed—a consultant to the national Episcopal Church in New York City. He wanted to talk about getting the Diocese of North Carolina, where I was serving as the Director of Christian Social Ministries, more involved in refugee relocation. Sure, I said, come see me in Raleigh.

The subject of refugees—particularly people uprooted from their homes by war—had been a concern of mine for a longtime. As a parish minister, my congregations had been involved in relocating a Laotian family and five Haitian men.  Prior to Ed’s visit I had visited refugee camps in Gaza, Nablus and Jordan where I had seen Palestinians uprooted from their homes by war.

Sitting in my office preparing to talk about refugees, we warm up by sharing some of our own personal history. I discover that he is a retired Air Force pilot who had participated in the CIA war in Laos and the Cambodian bombings during the Vietnam War in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed.

I asked Ed if he felt any regrets about his war history. None whatsoever—no shame at all—he tells me. We could have won that war in Vietnam, he says, if only we had pursued it with more military might.

Ed then tells me that since his retirement from the military he has not only been a consultant on refugees to the Episcopal Church, he has also done consulting work with the Pentagon on two American operations.

The first operation, he tells me, was the April 15, 1986 bombing of Libya. He says it was a huge success because of the work done by a fellow Episcopalian—Colonel Oliver North.

He tells me that his recent activity has been centered on U.S. military activities in Nicaragua. When he tells me this, I think of Oliver North’s involvement in the Iran-Contra fiasco design to fuel our participation in the war in that country. 

I don’t tell Ed that I have been to El Salvador and Nicaragua and seen the refugees blown out of their homes and villages. I don’t tell him that I had been in Libya only a few months before he arrived in my office. I say nothing about the fact that I had visited Qaddafi’s bombed-out home—the one in which his daughter had been killed as a result of the U.S. attack on April 15, the one that Ed had helped plan.

Down to business, I tell Ed, before he leaves my office, that I will do whatever I can to increase diocesan involvement with refugees. Not only that, the Diocese is committed to working at efforts to insure that our nation does not make war on poor Latin American countries, or any other country around the world. That way, perhaps the church won’t have to do so much refugee work.

In my December 13, 1989 Notes From Under the Fig Tree, I wrote this about my visit with Ed: “I am both confused and disturbed by the fact that our Episcopal Church has hired someone who is, on the one hand, a consultant to our military creating refugees through military policy, while on the other hand, is consulting the church on the placement of refugees, created by that very military policy. It seems like a conflict of interest. Worse than that, it seems like a damn shame.”

The Fate Of Libya—Past-Present-Future  

Prior to my visit to Libya in 1989, the closest I had come to knowing or saying anything about that nation was when I marched to and sang the Marine Corp Hymn—“From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. We will fight our country’s battles on the land and on the sea.”

That, of course, was a reference to the military response of Marines when the USS Philadelphia was burned in the Battle of Tripoli during the First Barbary War in 1804. That extended war was over a dispute about money our nation was paying, Mafia style, for the protection of our commercial interests from pirate raids. One might well think this to be an early manifestation of American colonial involvement over oil and interests personified in companies like Bechtel.

The media prompts us to ask if Qaddafi is mentally ill. Kurt Vandewalle, in his interview with Terry Gross says this: “I’m not sure if he’s mentally ill, but the whole problem with Qaddafi was, in many ways, that he was a dictator that had never been challenged by everybody—by anybody for over forty years—somebody whose words could not be questioned. Every utterance that he said was seen as the ultimate truth.”

I see Qaddafi as a Jim Jones character. Both were driven by visions. Jones with a religiously based social justice vision and Qaddafi with a vision grounded in the power of local tribes to govern without government bureaucracy. (Interesting, don’t you think, when we hear right wing politicians push for less government?) Tragically, due to a variety of factors, both men became isolated figures, turned in upon themselves, and left behind Jonestown and a Libya in chaos.   

Qaddafi will eventually be toppled by a civil war that had its conception in this tribal, Bedouin “sandbox” long before Libya became a nation and oil was discovered. And long before the country became a pawn in international politics spawned by two world wars, the Cold War and now the “War on Terrorism.”

What the final outcome will be, no one knows. My guide on the 1989 trip, and now op-ed star and media expert, says it all depends on what kind of credibility the U.S. has in the region after the dust settles.  Professor Vandewalle says the outcome is uncertain after our nation’s support of Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia. And I might add, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other nations in the region, including Israel.

Reagan And Qaddafi

Traveling to Libya in 1989 when Reagan was president, I came home with this observation. I leave it with you to ponder as our nation considers a military involvement in Libya’s civil war.

“The shroud that enwraps the nations of the world is very paternalistic and militaristic. We, as well as Libya, are caught in it. It presents a very macho face and a posture, which sees military force as an answer to problems. In some ways, Qaddafi and Reagan mirror one another. These men, in love with their horses, symbolize so much that needs to be challenged.”

The Tree That Grows Around Grief

Meghan O’Rourke writes about her grief over her mother’s death. “I am changed by it, the way a tree is changed by having to grow around an obstacle.” Libya and other nations in the region, I hope and pray, will grow like that tree around the obstacles  they have had to endure over the years at the hands of colonial and dictatorial forces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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