Good Bye and Good Riddance to Gaddafi Noureddine Boutahar

دولة الباطل ساعة ودولة الحق إلى قيام الساعة * Ali Bnu Abi Talib

Congrats to the Libyan people for getting rid of the tinpot dictator who had held tight rein on them for more than four decades. Their success is an undeniable proof that any authoritarian regime is “more vulnerable than a spider’s web”[1] when people resolutely stand up for freedom.

Good riddance to the ruthless brutal dictator who had been sitting on his people’s shoulders for almost half a century depriving them of all freedoms and feeding them long shallow and ridiculous self-congratulatory speeches. Good to see the back of a recklessly stubborn and stupid dictator who has always refused to concede fault or listen to the voice of reason and act accordingly. Adieu paranoid, megalomaniac dictator who used his country’s money to fund terrorist groups all over the world instead of promoting infrastructure and building a productive economy at home, or offering his people quality education, and improving the Libyan population’s welfare.

Gaddafi is a prototype of ruthless and cruel dictators who see their people only as slaves, subjects, and a herd of sheep who should be led as they see fit with no right to protest or demonstrate against anything. Instead of coming down to talk to them and listen to their demands when people took to the streets on Feb 15th, he adamantly got on his high horse and began to insult them calling his own people “rats”, “cockroaches”, “stray dogs”, "traitors" and “terrorists” and murdered hundreds of them in an attempt to mistakenly scare them and silence the voice of freedom. He threatened to hunt them down “from house to house and from alley to alley”. It’s these terms that added fuel to the fire and provoked freedom loving sons and daughters of Omar Al Mukhtar to stand up and take arms to fight the dictator.

Gaddafi is an example of ignorant dictators who wouldn't listen or leave or step aside at the propitious time. They insist on holding on to their thrones waiting to get the torch of defeat from their predecessors. They put on blinkers and cling to power to the last shred of imaginary hope, selfishly and cruelly murdering, imprisoning, and torturing their own people. They have no place for democracy, freedom, justice, and dignity in their dictionaries in their countries which they have turned into family estate.

Gaddafi is a sample of adamant dictators who never learn lessons from other arrogant dictators who end up living a horrible life in exile or prison or hiding hole. Because of their morbid attachment to power, they end up being mass murders and then fugitives from justice or prisoners struggling with diseases in cold lonely cells.

The fall of the world's most ridiculous buffoon-dictator, who called himself “desert messenger”, “king of African kings” and a whole slew of other names, is a warning to other dictators - in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere - that tomorrow is just a day away. "An alert and learned man will take advice from any event," said Ali Bnu Abi Talib

* A state built on falsehood is [for] an hour,
A state built on truth is until the coming of the hour [of Judgement].

The chickens have come home to roost. (Noureddine Boutahar)

I am taking some time out of my busy schedule to write down my thoughts about what is taking place in the Arab World these days because it is really the Arab World's watershed moment.
There are frustrated people everywhere in the world, but the Arab World has the worst-ever kind of frustration. The people in these rich countries have been put in “a boiling pot with a tight lid” for so long. The pot, however, has blown up the kitchens of Tunisian and Egyptian leaders and it is shaking that of a few others. These poor people were put there by their rulers and the West and shadow governments have been blowing on the fire, and the result is what you see today in some of these countries.
The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions’ message is clear and they are asking for something exclusively human, I guess: freedom, democracy and a better life. That’s what people are standing up for there in Egypt right now. They want their economic rights, their dignity, and the right to rule themselves. They want real reform because they’ve had enough of fake reforms and make-up. They’ve had enough of make-believe elections and parody institutions. They’ve had enough of committees “where investigations go to die”. They’ve had enough of unkept promises and eternal waiting-rooms (country) where their dreams fade and die.
People there are fed up to the back teeth with the fallacy that they are not ready for democracy yet. They are fed up of being considered under age, unsophisticated, and not mature enough for democracy.
The wind of change is blowing through the oil-rich Arab world because people are sick and tired of seeing the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Poverty, unemployment, corruption, embezzlement, inequalities and huge disparities in wages and salaries are all themes rumbling across countries awash with wealth and enormous potential. Unfortunately, the embezzlers, the corrupt, the money launderers and other criminals have no fear of the law because they are the law. You really have a lump in your throat to see these perpetrators run scot-free and go unpunished, and unquestioned.
The lull before the storm is over, and the dictators are getting only their come-uppance for ignoring the needs of the poor and allowing corruption and official abuse to run rampant. They are reaping what they have sown. Even their patrons in the West are abandoning them and are asking them to leave. These rulers have missed out on many opportunities to make peace with their people. Now, here emerges a can-do generation which will not be satisfied with piecemeal, cosmetic reforms. Burnishing an image which has been tarnished by decades of autocracy and authoritarianism will not do the job this time. Rather, bold and far-reaching reforms are needed at all levels: political, economic, social, and judicial.
I have been talking about the tyrant rulers, but this does not mean the rulers at the top and their government officials only. There are those who aid and abet them in greedily exploiting the people and the natural resources of their countries. Sometimes you feel those rulers are helpless and are just carrying out agendas set by shadow governments, or the invisible government which in actual fact has the political and economic power. These are greedy, powerful individuals and companies both local and foreign working out plans behind the scenes to rob the people and to milk the country dry like leeches on a cow.
All freedom, peace, and democracy-loving people, let’s pray and hope that real democracy and peace come to the Arab World. Sooner the better, because chaos, anarchy, destruction, and all forms of violence are not in anyone’s interest and will not solve problems.
I also hope that life gets back to normal very soon in Egypt, that its cultural heritage will not suffer the same fate as that of Iraq, and that all my friends there (in Egypt) are safe and sound.