Muammar Gaddafi


Was Muammar Gaddafi really a bad leader?



Any leader will have positive and negative sides, ofcourse they are human. However, we agree that the best leader is the one who can influence positive change in his community. In Response to your question about Gaddafi, from my experience as a Libyan who lived Gaddafi time as student and teacher he was great leader. Since he reached to the power he started to build his country from scratch. Libya in1967 ,which just two years before Gaddafi was classified by the UN as one of the poorest countries who are threatened by ginocide and hangar. In that time Libya was occupied by five melitry bases, two American, two British and one was French in the south. Libyan oil and banks were running by US and UK companies. Most of the business were lead by Italians and Libyans worked as slaves. Since Gaddafi reached the power this equation changed. He close down all the foreign melitry bases and nationalised banks and oil sector. He also asked Italians to leave the country and asked those Libyans who used to work for them to own and run those business.The education and healthcare were very limited and girls were forbidden becuase of culture. Most Libyans used to live in tents and live on their cattle of sheep and camels as most Libyan population were Bedouin. To change living standards in Libyan community Gaddaffi asked Jamal Abdulnassir Egyptian president in that time to send companies to make farms and build house for Libyan families in all over the country. Also he asked him to provide Libya with teachers and Egyptian curriculum as Libya does not have any curriculum in that time. By 1977 all or most of Libyan families were moved to their new houses and farms, which was the first time in their life. In education Gaddafi started with mobile schools to reach children in the rural areas. Then he built thousands of schools and hospitals to cover even villages. When Gaddafi took over Libya used to have one university which built in 1956 in Benghazi. In 1977 there were more than 15 university. Then reached upto thirty where every city has its own university or more depends on the population. He also made roads that can reach all Libyan cities and villages to cover over 1,7500Km square which is bigger than Fance, UK and Germany. By 1985 Libya became the highest number of classrooms in primary and secondary schools in the region. Also in1995 Libya achieved the highest number of teachers compared to the number of students where every 15 students have at least one teacher. Gaddafi also made the education free and compulsory for both sexes up to secondary school. This lead to cultural changes where females became educated and they earn as same as men when they do the same jobs. Women in Libya used to be paid for maternity leave in full. Women became Dr, teacher, office captain and they even joined the army. Healthcare also free for all. He opened schools at evenings for the parents to learn how to read and write as most Libyans used to be unable to read or write.

Any way to talk about what Gaddafi did in Libya this needs books. However to summarise this Gaddafi came from the suffering of Libyans under different colonials for centuries and he did his best to compensate Libyans for that tragedy. The man was doing his best to liberate his country and the Arabic nation. This was not allowed by powerful nations, so they did everything they can to stop him which affected the development in Libya. Gaddafi built the biggest water project in the world “the hand made revier” which costs 25 billions without any help from the powerful nations who did their best to destroy Libya in 2011. Based on the UN statistics in 2009 Libya was one of the best countries in human development, education and healthcare.

After Gaddafi unfortunately most Libyan youths joined militias and many of them were killed in civil wars. Many of the schools which were built in Gaddafi ‘s time became prisons to Libyans . The human rights had the worst records ever. The girls can't feel safe to go to universities and their families can't leave them to presue their studies out of their cities. According to the UN statistics in 2019 Libya scored 115 in education, healthcare and human development compared to 55 in 2009.

All these can show what Gaddafi is in terms of leadership in the national level. All in all the man changed his country from a state needs help to country who helps and influences other nations such as Africa. When he died Gaddafi was the leader of African union and he was planning to united its currency, army, and economy. However this was not allowed as appeared in Clinton's emails recently. The problem with Gaddafi, he was trying to wake up the African sleeping giant which will be very dangerous for Amerca and NATO. They are pretty sure that if Africa stands it will wipe the face of the earth as it has all the resources. Therefore, all the powerful nations want to control it as main resources and market.

This is the main reason behind assassination of Gaddafi and that why he was bad leader.