Gadaffi’s children of wrath

Press, 4 February 1986, Page 21

Gadaffi’s children of wrath

They call themselves the Generation of Wrath. They are the Gadaffi youth — those who have grown up in the 17 years since the revolution.

It is a strange, naive, exalted and disturbing world in which, with the Green Book as their second Koran, they forecast the Arabs — indeed the rest of humanity — will in due course join them. They are under the spell of a prophetic revelation and are so persuaded of its inner truth that they would commit suicide for it, for Palestine, for the Arabs, for you and me. After speaking to them, I have little doubt that some, at least are ready to practise what they preach; that they would start doing so, in fact, the moment the United States takes any military action against Libya — and quite possibly before. Having asked to meet one of those “suicide” squads which since the crisis with the United States began, Colonel Gadaffi has been threatening to unleash on the world, I found myself confronted with about 25 teenagers, selected by a process that was not explained, but who arrived, in groups, from various schools in Tripoli. “Barracks” I should say, for in the curious nomenclature of the Jamahiriyah that is what schools are now called. Under "people’s

power” and “direct democracy” that higher state of human civilisation which it is the aim of the Jamahiriyah to achieve, the people must bring three things — authority, resources, and arms — under their complete control. It is in pursuit of the third that Libya is becoming one of the most militarised societies on Earth. In addition to a regular academic director — who in the revolutionary jargon “emerges” through consultation among staff and pupils — every “barracks” has a military director who is nominated by the army. “We are waiting for America to attack,” said a student from Cordoba Barracks, "then we shall strike in America itself.” This was automatic and inevitable. “We shall not be able to control ourselves.”

In “barracks” throughout the country, he said, pupils had already drawn up lists of candidates for “martyrdom.” According to offical statistics, li/ 2 million people are at school or university; all start basic military training at the age of 14 with the handling of light arms. By the time they graduate from secondary school or university they are fully specialised in one field or another of modem warfare. Women suffer no discrimination in this process; they are said to pilot Mig 255, and

Amid all the military posturing, and the cries of vengeance in the United States and of defiance in Libya, DAVID HIRST of the London “Guardian” interviewed the class of 1986 — the class of human bombs.

ground-to-ground missiles have all-female crews. “No,” interrupted a comrade. "We cannot just wait for Amercia to attack. It is already provoking us all the time, with its ships offshore and satellites overhead, we cannot remain on the defensive.” Whereupon one of the half-dozen girls — from the Martyrs of Damur Barracks — raised her hand. They were mostly a well behaved class who said “sir” and patiently awaited their turn to speak. In fact there was something disconcertingly nice and normal about some of these would-be human bombs whose great dream is to blow up what they call the Black House in Washington. It was the girl’s opinion that America should be given a chance, that it should be reasoned with. Yes, she agreed, that America was a “terrorist State,” an octopus and a blood sucker; its fleet should not merely be expelled from Libyan waters but from the whole Mediterranean; and its European bases should be closed down. But Libyans must never appear to be the aggresssor. After all, they were sacrificing themselves for a higher, a universal principle, not just for

their own country, Palestine, and the Arabs.

Nor was America necessarily the only villain. “We must penetrate all the bases of terrorism, even in the Soviet Union if they are there; it is for peace and freedom that we blow ourselves up. It is our duty, our spontaneous duty.” She wore earrings and bangles peeping out from her headscarf, and modestly long sleeves. Her grandfather had been "martyred” during the Italian colonial conquest. Indeed, most of the group had lost at least one forbear. “The Italians,” said one, “killed 250,000 people (out of some 700,000) so we know something about fighting.” The peace and freedom of which the girl spoke were to be attained through spreading the principles of the Third Universal Theory, first to the Arabs and then to the rest of the world. Rulers everywhere had to be got rid of; they were all the same — no difference between King Fahad of Saudi Arabia, Shazli ben Jadid of Algeria, Mrs Thatcher, or Mr Gorbachev. In the Jamahariyah every individual was “master of himself.” No-one had authority over everyone else. Gadaffi was

leader, guide, thinker, “guardian” of the revolution; but he was definitely not a ruler, for he did not cling to his seat through parties, clioques or tribes, or .through any of the bureaucratic aberrations of the modern State, or, most typically in the Third World, through the army. True, a conventional army still exists in Libya. But, they explained, it is on the way out. Indeed, it is actually dissolving itself, quite voluntarily, by furnishing its professional skills to train the alternative, and replacement — “people under arms.” When this process was complete the entire able-bodied population will be both soldiers and producers interchangably; since it is a basic tenet of power” that no-one

'should permanently “represent” anyone else, a standing force will be maintained by a system of continuous rotation under which everyone will serve for a short period every year. Devolution will also be carried to great, seemingly anarchic 'lengths, every major town and district having its own autonomous military and command structure controlled by its own congresses and committee. A higher military committee — replacing the defunct army’s general staff — will serve in a central liaison capacity between them all. Thus will coup d’etat and military adventurism be banished for ever.

The process is already well advanced. These young men were evidence of that; they were

already receiving advanced training, but, unlike their predecessors, without having to be conscripted into a regular army that is gong to wither away. Were any of them actually members of suicide squads already formed and ready to act? It appeared not. Could they band 'together spontaneously, as they walked out of the door, and decide, there and then, on an operation, its timing,, target, and method? That caused some confusion. In principle, of course, they had every right to do so, for they were "masters of themselves,” but the consensus seemed to be that, to avoid “chaos,” direction would have to come from the congresses and committees. The seminar continued until

the oldest of the group, who seemed to have “emerged" as their spokesman, called it to a close. "Execuse me, sir,” he said, “but some of us have homework to do.” As they left, one of the quieter types who had been sitting at the back of the room came forward with a note. "We could not,” he had written, “wring the neck of a chicken, but we can trample over the corpses of millions of terrorists to bring about the peace of the world.” “These are the mild ones,” confided the official of a radical Palestinian guerrilla organisation which has persuaded the Libyan authorities to arrange this encounter. "You should see the extremists.”