Recently British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, joked
that British businessmen, not Libyans, would build cities to rival Dubai were it not for
dead bodies littering Libyan streets.
The joke was in very bad taste. Let us not forget the
leading role the British played in putting Libya in the problems it faces
today..
On 19 March 2011 the United Nations Security Council passed
a resolution authorizing a no fly-zone over Libya. Ostensibly as part of that
enforcement British forces, with participation of their American counterparts,
fired one hundred and ten Tomahawk missiles at Libya.
I am not a military expert but I have never understood Tomahawks to be capable of attacking airborne targets.
I am not a military expert but I have never understood Tomahawks to be capable of attacking airborne targets.
I will leave it to the experts to explain what ground attack
weapons have got to do with enforcing a no-fly zone. At no point had Libya ignored
the no-fly zone or fired at coalition aircraft at the time the ground attack began?
What I want to make very clear is that it was British who
began the process that ultimately left Libya without effective government,
leading to streets littered with dead bodies that Boris is joking about today..
Please, understand that pointing out the above is not in any
way amount to praising Gadhafi.
The African Union had made proposals for a negotiated
transition which would have prevented the collapse of Libya. The
President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, literally had to beg the powerful Western
forces to take those proposals to Gadhafi which, according to him, the later
accepted.
The proposals included a ceasefire which would have saved lives and prevented bodies littering streets.
The proposals included a ceasefire which would have saved lives and prevented bodies littering streets.
After his demise, Gadhafi's body was carted into the desert
where not even one member of his family could let a tear drop on his grave let
alone lay a flower. I do not know if those who did it are superstitious. If
they are, I am sure they performed rituals to make sure that even his ghost
could not find its way home.
Gadhafi's influence in Libya ended with his death. Most of
the fighting that littered streets with bodies, took place afterwards is among
the militias that were armed and sponsored by Western countries. This means
that even Gadhafi's ghost cannot be blamed for the bodies that Boris is joking
about.
Now that we understand the role Britain
played in putting Libya
in the chaotic predicament it faces today, I can not imagine anything more
callous than the British foreign secretary bandying about jokes about dead Libyans.
No matter what our leadership situation in the developing
world, imagined or real, we do not want it to be compounded by callous and
heartless rich people who have nothing better to do with their money and
weapons other than make us suffer so that they can find subjects to joke about.
Clearly Boris sees countries whose people do not prioritize
making weapons as nothing more than a playgrounds of death. His joke is an exemplification
of the racist indifference that his kind
regard us with. A subconscious racism that attaches little value, if any, to
human beings who live in poor parts of the world.
His kind probably feel more pity for a dog that gets run
over in the street, than for the Yemeni children decapitated, blinded,
disfigured and maimed by the weapons his country makes and profits from. He
personally takes part in the decision making that sees weapons sold and used in
places like Yemen and Libya where
they result in the body-littered streets that he now jokes about. It is sad,
but the truth.
The toady man’s joke suggests he is more than tone-deaf,
maybe brain-deaf. I must say I am strongly tempted to replace the F in deaf
with a D.
The dismissive way in which Theresa May finger-waves away the
episode as just a minor bad choice of words, shows that she either does not
have a clue or does not care. The prime minister of Britain does not think jokes about
people dying in a chaotic mess her country helped create are worth her serious
attention.
To twist the knife in Libya’s
back, Borizozo claims his critics have "no knowledge or understanding of Libya". I
wonder whether he has more knowledge than the Libyans, from both sides of the
current divide, who also complained? How could he say Libyans have no knowledge
or understanding of their own country and its suffering?
My personal judgment is that it is him who has no knowledge
or understanding, not just of Libya,
but of the disastrous role his country played in putting Libya where it is today.
Maybe Boris should borrow a page from Barack Obama's book. The later at least had the decency to admit
that his handling of Libya
was the worst mistake of his presidency.
It is unfortunate, but the fault of Boris, that I now have
to juxtapose that with the indecency of him joking about Libyan streets being
littered with dead bodies.
By they way if you think the rest of his speech was sensible
let think of its colonialist connotations. He talked about British business
people building and, by my understanding, owning prime real estate on the
Libyan coast.
Can Libyan people not build and own those hotels themselves?
After all they have money from their own oil. It seems in Boris’ mind only the
British can own and develop that land properly in Libya.
We have to wonder, did Britain
lead the way in attacking Libya
so that British business people could end up owning prime properties on the
Libyan?
