Home lessons from the shores of Tripoli

Burdened for decades with despots, the Mediterranean rim is being swept free in an inspiring display of citizen power. Unheralded and unexpected, in a matter of weeks the oppressed of Tunisia, Egypt and now of Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Algeria, are upending this strategic and volatile region.

It is reminiscent of the similarly unpredicted collapse in 1989 of the Soviet bloc that ended the Cold War and brought democracy to eastern Europe and eventually South Africa. Historian Mike Rapport goes as far as to compare the latest uprisings with the storm of revolutions of 1848, “the most pivotal year in the history of Europe”, when for the first time ordinary people demanded a say in the governance of their nations.

There are few more starkly contrasting sets of images than those of the generally good-natured protestors in Cairo — the little people of Egypt who woke up one day and decided “enough” — and those from Libyan state television of a cadaverous and clearly deranged Colonel Moammar Gadaffi promising the house-to-house extermination of his opponents.

Whether Gadaffi succeeds for the moment in hanging on to power is a moot point, although obviously not for those slaughtered. Libya is now a divided nation at civil war and Gadaffi’s aura of invincibility has been pierced irretrievably. Both within and outside his government, the wolves are circling.

Islam and democratic instincts have made for a potent if somewhat unusual combination, all the more astonishing for the decades of political suppression that have gone before. And on a continent where dictatorship was once the norm, the tyrants are all nervously checking the balances in their Swiss bank accounts and sleeping lightly.

This extends as far south as Zimbabwe. While the supporters and the opponents of President Robert Mugabe appear to agree that he cannot possibly be toppled in a popular revolt, this was also the received wisdom about Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, including by the once again flat-footed and red-faced US Central Intelligence Agency.

In SA the sudden demise of a brace of tyrants will give pause to those who believe that the Africa National Congress’ liberation credentials will suffice to keep it in power until, as President Jacob Zuma put it, Jesus returns. The patience of the poor has been proved to be not inexhaustible.

At a practical level the ANC will miss the generous millions that Gadaffi channelled into its party coffers. The self-styled King of Africa — and more mundanely the recipient of the Order of Good Hope, SA’s highest award to a foreigner — was adept at buying influence with his petro-dollars.

This explains why the African Union was this week at the very end of the international queue to condemn Gadaffi’s massacre of unarmed civilians. After all, not only was Gadaffi elected as recently as 2009 as AU chair but he was the driving force and moneybags behind the now shattered dream of a United States of Africa.

One shouldn’t be too hard on the AU. Its hypocrisy is no different from that of the European Union, which was perfectly happy to overlook Libyan internal oppression as long as the oil continued to flow from Tripoli. Or the United States, which eagerly embraced the unlovable Gadaffi because he was a bulwark against al-Qaeda.

What should worry the ANC is that one of the strongest strands to the all the peoples’ revolutions up north has been public anger over of the corruption and venality of the governing clique. When the youth realises that not only are expectations of meaningful employment a chimera, but that the greed of the cadre elite, is a major reason for their exclusion, revolution is just a matter of time.