Gaddafi's final act

Gaddafi's final act-Alaharam

Endgame or a protracted Saddam Hussein-like losing battle against the hated West? Gamal Nkrumah canvasses prospective post-Gaddafi Libya scenes

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The NTC's Liberation Army fighters gesture as they stamp on the head of a statue of Muammar Gaddafi inside the main compound in Bab Al-Azizia in Tripoli

"Screeching tires, shattering glass
Twisting metal, fiberglass
The scene is set it all goes black,
The curtain raised the final act"

Is Libya braced for political upheaval in the wake of the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi? The more vituperatively his insults slagged off the West, the more certain was his name to be sullied by Western powers and his ill repute to be excerpted in the international media. And even now that his whereabouts is unknown, he retains a certain mystique. It is not so much the bravado of Saddam Hussein, it is the championing of the underdog. All he did was in the guise of anti-elitism, anti-imperialism. He masqueraded as a pillar of enlightened populism.

Gaddafi, like a cat has nine lives. But would his luck last? And, what did he leave behind? His legacy is a tedious refrain of Third Worldism, shorn of the basic structures of human rights and the structures of civil society. Luck is a small part of the explanation for his political survival for 42 years as the Brother Leader of an oil-rich otherwise barren North African state.

His aura was constructed around his gambles and weird opinions as extrapolated in his infamous Green Book with little regard to what others think or believe.

So what about Gaddafi's hangers on whose cronyism brought the regime of their paymaster to its knees? Will they be able to hoist high the mantle of democracy and human rights, and establish the foundations of a modern democracy? The conference in Qatar that commenced yesterday to garner support for the reconstruction of the Libyan nation state is a bang-up opportunity for the rejuvenation of Libya.

The grave responsibility of re-establishing the Libyan nation on a contemporary basis is paramount. The people of Libya must ultimately shoulder it. The predicament is a problematic dilemma. That will be for the National Transitional Council (NTC) to resolve. It is up to the task?

This is a time for truth. Gaddafi bashing has, until very recently, been a far from disreputable pastime. It is as wrong to dispute his political acumen as his badness. Now that he is in hiding it is not the appropriate moment to dwell on the subject. However, the question remains: was he a malicious myth maker? These are pertinent questions that will be uppermost in the minds of not only Libyans and all Arabs, but progressive people around the world.

The public backlash against the atrocities of the Gaddafi regime necessitates close examination. The government that would inevitably be democratically elected in the near future will be the brainchild of the NTC and NATO.

Gaddafi has clung unto power to the bitter end. The NTC's Liberation Army fighters were pictured firing gunshots into the air in celebration of storming Bab Al-Azizia. The defeat, or tactical retreat according to Gaddafi, from the Bab Al-Azizia Barracks was widely published and televised in a bizarre spectacle that held the world's attention as viewers watched the wanton destruction and looting spellbound. Gaddafi's own health and medical records were stolen according to Al-Jazeera.

Such was the scale of the rout. This should stand as a warning to future leaders of Libya and the Arab world at large. In some ways the ungainly end, or unabashed abandon if you will, is testimony to the legacy of having a strong-willed leader in charge of an oil-rich country. Do the post-revolutionary democracies in North Africa and the Middle East need macho leaders? The theory of the family-run government that oppresses its own people is as pertinent as ever.

However, there are those who protest that NATO should not have shouldered the burden of rescuing Libya from the omnipotent Gaddafi family. Few analysts or Arab nationalists still place their faith in Western powers, or imperialism as Gaddafi termed NATO. Do we need the West to tone down the swashbuckling instincts of the family-run dictatorships of the Arab world. For in the end, they work for the family.

Killing the NTC -- because it has done its job -- would further jeopardise the credibility of the Libyan Revolution. Has the NTC actually ended the legacy of Gaddafi once and for all? And what about Seif Al-Islam and his surviving siblings? They would inherit their father's grand ambitions and his worldview and perplexing perspective.

But that leaves the field open to political mayhem. We do not know what political parties would emerge from the ashes of the Gaddafi regime. The West has been quick to exploit these weaknesses. What party, or coalition of parties, would form the next government of Libya?

Bab Al-Azizia Barracks, the formidable symbol of Gaddafi's authority, was in shambles. Youngsters with AK-47s supervised the Gaddafi debacle. Is this the new face of post-Gaddafi Libya?

Erosion of trust in Gaddafi's revolutionary credentials in recent years has been little short of catastrophic in recent years. The NTC attempted and successfully so thanks to NATO, to rebut Gaddafi's attempt to depict the country as securely his.

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