Helter Skelter: Qaddafi's African Adventure

Since the new socialist society is based on partnership and not on a wage system, natural socialist rules do not apply to domestic servants because they render services rather than production. Services have no tangible material product and cannot be divided into shares according to the natural socialist rule.

Two years later, Dafinka and Saadi visited Tanzania for a week-long safari, staying in -600-a-night lodges. She says: "He killed an impala. I remember him asking, "What other gaming do you have for royalty?" He saw himself as the son of a king.'

Cynthia McKinney will tell you that "Libyans govern themselves by The Green Book, a form of direct democracy based on the African Constitution concept that the people are the first and final source of all power," but that is pure rubbish. For the past forty-two years Libya has been ruled as a tribal kingdom and Mummar Qaddafi has held as much dictatorial power as has ever been held by any king. This is how Qaddafi does it:

The supreme leader would be King, ruling through tribal elders who would report to the Kgotla, also fetching advice for the central committee based in Tripoli. The King of All Kings, like the Great co*k, Mobutu Sese Seko, of the Congo, would open the national radio or television station in the morning as the national anthem blared in the background.

The co*k would then tour the hinterlands on the back of a covered land rover in full army regalia, waving at the subjects as he headed for the party headquarters which were invariably housed near or inside a luxurious hotel, followed by a coterie of sycophants who posed as heads of the civil service.

It was understood that the serfs would gather at the Kgotla to see the King of Kings in the flesh, and to reward him with their only chickens and goats which he would enjoy with them at the fireside after they were duly cooked to standard by the chief chef brought along with the presidential entourage from Tripoli, Gaborone or Lusaka.

The chef, of course, travelled as part of the National Guard that looks after the safety of the country and the Great co*k.

This business progresses from a presidential tour, to custom, to tradition until, after 42 years, it becomes a national ritual at which the King of Kings arrives at Kgotla to listen to the village gossip about the performance of the tribal or provincial leaders. The Great Leader, points out the ministers and civil servants who will put things right when he returns to Tripoli, having also handed out a gift or two to the lowliest of the poor in each strategic village.

Soon, a culture develops where the well-being of the nation is identical with that of the Great Leader and the King of Kings seeks deification on earth, demonstrating his powers by extending generous assistance to poor nations like The Sudan, at the same time providing the budget for the Organisation of African Unity, AU, OPEC and others.

The current uprising in Libya is in large part a revolution against these feudal remnants and the "king" that perpetuates them.

But Qaddafi doesn't see his kingdom as limited to Libya. In 2008, Gaddafi invited 200 kings and traditional rulers from sub-Saharan, mainly non-Arab Africa to witness his crowning of as Africa's "King of Kings."

The African Union

Qaddafi isn't the only African leader to rule his country like a king. It's a tradition which he has helped to perpetuate across the continent. Just look at the age of these African leaders:

Abdulai Wade (Senegal), age 83, HosniMubarak (Egypt), 82, Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), 86, HifikepunyePohamba (Namibia), 74, Rupiah Banda (Zambia), 73, Mwai Kibaki(Kenya), 71, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia), 75, Colonel Gaddafi(Libya), 68, Jacob Zuma (South Africa), 68, Bingu Wa Mtalika(Malawi), 76, Paul Biya (Cameroon), 77, Yoweri Museveni (Uganda),66. Average Age: 72 yrs.

By the mid 1990's the old OAU [Organization of African Unity] had been pretty much discredited as a "Dictators' Club" that didn't do much for the African people. Mummar Qaddafi revived his idea of the African Union as a way of promoting his vision of a United States of Africa. In September 1999, Qaddafi and the other OAU heads of state issued the Sirte Declaration (named after Qaddafi's hometown) calling for the establishment of an African Union. It was established at Lusaka in 2001, it was bank-rolled from the beginning by Qaddafi.

The African Union has a number of objectives, including developing the political and socio-economic integration of the continent, defending interests common to all Africans, achieving peace and security on the continent and promoting human rights and good governance. For Mummar Qaddafi it is a vehicle for implementing his vision of a United States of Africa in which he would be made King of Kings.

With Qaddafi in charge, we can imagine how the meetings go. Wait, we don't have to imagine. South Africa's Jacob Zuma tells us:

"He has his own ways of holding meetings." said Zuma jokingly at a two-day ANC provincial general council at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Westville Campus.
Describing how the African Union (AU) chairman conducted the conference in his country this week, Zuma said "quarter of the speeches during the meeting was done by him...He forgets that there is lunch time and he forgets that people have to sleep."

This is the perfect time for Col Gaddafi to take the reins of leadership. He can push his agenda. There are actually very few leaders who can challenge him.

In the past, South Africa's Thabo Mbeki could challenge Gaddafi at AU meetings but he is no longer in office and his replacement, Kgalema Motlanthe is an acting president who is due to hand over to his mentor Jacob Zuma at elections set for mid this year.

On the other hand, Africa's most populous state, Nigeria, has a president who is perennially sick and who was on holiday as the AU met in Addis. Umaru Musa Yar'Adua instead sent his vice-president Mr Goodluck Jonathan, a man who cannot challenge Gaddafi. In the past, retired general Olusegun Obasanjo was a man Gaddafi could not ignore but his presidency ended in 2007.

What happened in Addis is that many heads of state simply did not show up because they did not want to commit to Gaddafi's grand project of a single government for Africa.
...

Ask Zambia's Rupiah Banda, in office since October 2008 or Ghana's John Attar Mills in office since January and who did not even bother to show up in Addis or Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma who took power in 2007 if they are planning to take on Gaddafi at the next AU summit in July and what you will get is "no comment.''

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