Side-effect

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the young president of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Republic, was addressing the Pakistani nation in a massive public meeting in Lahore. It was 1974. Adults and children alike who were not present at the venue were glued to their television screens or hooked on to their radio sets across the length and breadth of the country. We watched on our television a fatigue clad dynamic man, a symbol of both Arab and third world’s resistance to global injustice, speak in Arabic with running translation provided in Urdu. He declared Pakistan a fortress of Islam.
Gaddafi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto enjoyed a close relationship. He supported Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Pakistani labour was exported to his country in big numbers adding substantially to our foreign remittance.
A few years after 1974, when Bhutto was hanged and PPP was being persecuted, the militants of Al-Zulfikar found refuge in Libya. I remember his Green Book being popular among youth and students belonging to left leaning political groups who saw him as a hero. He stood for everything that they liked, socialism, progressive Islam, anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism. He challenged western capitalism, aligned himself with the Soviet Union. We found it easier to relate to him because he came from a Muslim country.
To the progressive forces in Pakistan, Gaddafi was different from the rulers of most other Arab countries. Although the Bathists of Iraq and Syria and the rulers of Algeria also came to power on the premise of anti-colonialism, Arab nationalism and a local brand of socialism, they were viewed to have taken a different course by people here. Gaddafi remained popular to a large extent even after he decided to mend fences with Europe and the US after the end of the cold war and particularly after 9/11.
But there is something inherently wrong with totalitarianism, whether it looks supportive of a socialist economic order and liberal values in day to day life or seeks to create a kingdom of God in the name of faith. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is another anti-colonial hero of yesteryear who cannot put up with any opposition to his rule. Fidel Castro remains a hero for us in the third world but transfer of power to his real brother Raul warrants an explanation. ‘The Great Leader’ Kim Il Sung was succeeded by his son ‘The Dear Leader’ Kim Jong Il in North Korea. And now Gaddafi’s son is leading the bloody crackdown on unarmed civilians on the streets of Libya confirming the establishment of a personal fiefdom in the name of nationalism.
All criticism on dictatorial rules across these countries cannot be brushed aside by terming it as propaganda by western powers. There is no denying that conspiracies are hatched against their political adversaries both by intelligence agencies and slanted press of the western world. But my experience of working in the former East bloc and a longish visit to North Korea some years ago made me realise how genuine these sentiments are against authoritarianism and regimentation.
The Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, much celebrated now by the left in Pakistan, has got the country’s constitution amended to allow him the possibility to fight for another term after 2013. Is he the only individual who can restrain the US from using Latin America as its backyard or there is a strong party and public sentiment that he represents?
Humanity has come to a stage where the right to eat and the freedom to speak go hand in hand.

The writer is an Islamabad-based poet and public policy advisor who works with progressive social movements. Email: harris. khalique@gmail.com