Some Return to the Past, Others look to the Future
14 March 2018
By Eyad Abu Shakra
A few days ago I returned from Dubai, in the UAE, where I attended the World
Government Summit. This Summit, boasting contributions from a select group of
leading political, economic, scientific and intellectual figures, came a few
days before the seventh anniversary of the popular uprising that ended Muammar
Al-Gaddafi rule in Libya.
It was a true 'summit', given the political, economic and scientific ideas and
visions, whether expressed from the podium, or through side dialogues and
exchanges.
It came as a vivid reflection of the interest in the future, anticipating and
preparing for it, more so since it neither waits nor forgives the unprepared,
or those who yearn to a backward, restrictive and destructive past.
In the meantime, as I mention the seventh anniversary to the uprising that
toppled Al-Gaddafi, I intentionally refuse to describe what Libya lived under
between 1969 and 2011 as a 'regime'.
Actually, I remember well when the news of the 1969 'September First
Revolution' broke.
I recall how I received the news that the regime of King Idris Al-Senussi was
toppled through my little transistor radio on the balcony of our summer
mountain home. I heard that a group of young army officers brought down the
regime that our generation - the generation of 'June 1967 Defeat - believed
had passed its sell by date.
Our angry and rebellious generation, then, never forgave the 'debility' of the
regime of that old venerable king, which we were told contributed directly to
the 'June Defeat'. Those days we were totally convinced that the defeat would
not have happened had it not been for enemy fighter-bomber taking off from the
Wheelus USAF, near Tripoli to bomb Egypt!
From that balcony I was following the news reports from Libya one by one. I
heard early that the 'Coup Leader' was an officer called Saadeddine Bu-Shuweireb;
and some time passed before the names of the real planners and executors of
what became known as 'September First Revolution' were revealed.
The new rulers were a group of young officers led by Muammar Al-Gaddafi, who
copying earlier Arab military coups, formed a 'Revolutionary Command Council (RCC)',
before the 'revolution' began to devour its children. In addition to the young
officers, among the earliest members of the new governing elite were a mélange
of young intellectuals such as Palestinian-born Premier Mahmood Suleiman al-Maghribi
and veteran opposition politicians like Foreign Minister Saleh Mass'oud
Bouweissir.
Back to my generation, which was hopeful of 'cleansing' the outcome of the
'June Defeat', there was also a strong wish to be optimistic after an
ignominious defeat few of us were willing to admit how bad it really was. We
simply rejected any reappraisal or calls for accountability, because we were
convinced that our defeat came solely as a result of 'foreign conspiracy',
thus dismissing our fragile political structures, bad reading of realities,
and misunderstanding the world around us.
'Foreign conspiracy' was a potent drug not only because it was partly true,
but also because it provided us with an excuse against self-criticism and
shouldering responsibility. Al-Gaddafi and his colleagues were also sons of
that generation. For him and them, everything began and ended with 'foreign
conspiracy'; and thus his magic prescription contained two ingredients:
revolutionizing society through young mass movements, and achieving any kind
of 'union', at any price, in any shape or form, in order to prevent division
and fragmentation.
I reckon the intentions of Al-Gaddafi and his fellow officers were sincere. In
fact, he and Gaafar Nimeiry - who had led a few months earlier (May 15th) in
the Sudan another military coup under 'revolutionary banners - enjoyed the
blessings of 'Nasserist' Egypt. Many, like me, saw those days that the two
young officers' coups in the Sudan and Libya were the 'practical response'
against the 'June defeat', and a means of repairing damaged dreams and
ambitions, especially, as Egypt had begun its 'war of Attrition' against the
Israelis in the then occupied Sinai.
However, those dreams and ambitions soon proved to be unreal, and rapidly
foundered. The end of 'Nasserism' following the death of President Gamal Abdel-Nasser
in September 1970 brought about awareness of what was really going on both in
Egypt, and in the Arab world at large.
Changes were taking place and new realities were emerging everywhere in the
Arab world.
In Egypt, the 'Sadat Era' began underlining and intensifying 'Egyptian
identity'. The Palestinian 'resistance' movement had to change its tactical,
strategic and even geographic priorities after its 'September 1970 experience'
in Jordan. The 'revolutions' led by Nimeiry and Al-Gaddafi also underwent
massive tests, that led Nimeiry to turn against the Left, and Al-Gaddafi
against 'Arabism'.
Even Iraq and Syria, the two 'Baathist' competitors aspiring to inherit the
mantle of 'Arabism' relinquished by Egypt after signing the Camp David
Accords, changed.
The two states turned their back to the 'secularism' of the Baath and became
minority-led; and so with a few decades the two 'Fertile Crescent' twins
became occupied and sectarian failed states.
In the opposite direction, the oil boom spurred an unprecedented development
in the Gulf States.
The leaderships of these states learnt the lesson, and translated its
realistic pragmatism based on common interest into building institutions of
entities; and up till now, the employed mechanisms have managed to limit the
damages and dangers threatening the Gulf from the 'post 1979 Iran'.
In Dubai, a few days ago, amazing information and predictions were made.
I was particularly thrilled by Professor Michio Kaku's presentation about
groundbreaking future innovations. However, soon after leaving this journey
with the future, I looked back at the past, then the present, and felt the
pain.
In this world of ours there are those who plan for the next 20, 50, even 100
years, while we go backwards 100s of years.
Even in the Gulf, there is a tiny minority that is seeking to turn back the
forward march to the future.
©
EsinIslam.Com
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