Archive for Libya

Crescent Against A Shy Cross

Posted by: Ion | March 30th, 2007 · 8:46 PM

As you read this, the Saudi government is building mosques in the United Kingdom. How many Christian churches is the United Kingdom building in Saudi Arabia? The answer is obvious enough to inspire a smirk. Yet what are the costs for a nation in denying a religious war exists and choosing instead to wage it exclusively on secular political grounds (if at all)? Well, the costs are mosques are built in London and no churches are built in Riyadh. This will have consequences whether we acknowledge them or not.

Consider the political power of inverting this argument for a moment too. The Saudi government prohibits the importation of the Holy Bible into its country, it would react with fury should someone propose the construction of a large Christian church in its capital, despite that it spreads its own religion everywhere in the world. But it would be furious above all not in the name of Allah, but because you would be suddenly and finally fighting it on its own terms. That is, instead of conceding it the spiritual battlefield wholesale and declaring you’re fighting its political institutions alone (a meaningless distinction in a theocratic monarchy), you’d be striking at the heart of its political dream for the world.

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Qaddafi bones up on his Green Book

Posted by: Ion | March 6th, 2007 · 1:50 PM

OrDoesItExplode has a photograph of Qaddafi debating Benjamin Barber and Anthony Giddens, which we discussed here. Explode’s comment: “the shots of Qaddafi reading up on his own book of drivel are quite hilarious…”

If you’ve ever read any portion of the Green Book -which is a largely unintelligible mish-mash of borrowed Marxist and Nasserite Arab Nationalist slop- you can forgive Qaddafi his lack of knowledge about it. Even to the Libyan populace, which is force fed it everyday, the Jamahiriya doctrine probably makes so little intrinsic sense, that it requires constant re-consultation.

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Libya After Qaddafi

Posted by: Ion | March 3rd, 2007 · 10:25 PM

Libyan autocrat Muammar al-Qaddafi, has suggested of late that he may be redundant to Libya’s future. While this isn’t quite as groundbreaking as has been portrayed -Qaddaffi’s Jumahiriya ideology theoretically requires no head of state- it does put into a new context the recent changes that have been taking place relative to Libya and the rest of the world and the ambitions of both the West and the Islamists (particularly Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) for control of the Maghreb.

Presently, the full title of Qaddafi’s Libya is: “Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.” The “Jamahiriya” is a term invented by Qaddafi to describe his concept for a new Islamic “democracy,” one without elections. In practice, this has meant a closed society under military dictatorship. However, while political control remains firmly in the grip of the dictator, Libya has begun to open up on broader fronts.

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