There are many questions running around my head about Gaddafi, his sons, the rebels, the western allies, the international community. These are the words that dominate public dialogue in regard to Libya. These are the main components of this complicated conflict. But do we know what they stand for? What are their agendas? No. And then, there are the victims of this conflict: the dead bodies that are abstractly manipulated by the media, in order to channel opinions and solutions and to legitimise practices. These dead bodies are the only real (material) evidence that this conflict exists – is real. For us, westerners, they are simple representations; for Libyans they are everyday experience. Libya is at war with itself, and 'has assigned' westerners the mission to resolve this conflict.
Western economy is in the midst of the worst crisis of the last 70-80 years. All previous crises were resolved through war, on the grand scale or lesser (but equally intense) scales. Because, in order to legitimise the economic imperatives, ideology indoctrinates public debate – it determines what is normal and what is not. The Great Depression was eventually expressed as World War II. Then consecutive crises during the post-war period were translated to smaller scale conflicts involving peripheral or regional populations (what strange words to describe human beings); conflicts that made up the narrative of the Cold War. Orwell's nightmare was rather accurate in this respect; he talked about the manipulation of the public sphere and the distance between the actual conflicts and everyday reality. They were all happening somewhere far away. Like Libya, for example.
Let me get this straight: I am not suggesting here that the Libyan conflict is constructed by a group of conspirators- that it is a fiction. Rather, I am trying to articulate that our opinions about it are manipulated into yet another conflict that very conveniently landed at the teeth of western imperialism. But the war is real and its consequences are real.
Just when western capitalism is threatened by its own crisis a war comes along. They'll dump the bombs they need to get rid of, and then send the bill to whoever wins the conflict. The absurdity of this situation needs to be looked at: the Libyan rebels, who are being massacred by Gaddafi, ask for help from those who gave Gaddafi his airplanes, guns, artillery. The dictator's power rests on a part of the population and the weapons sold to him by international sellers: whether on the table or under it, is irrelevant. Selling weapons to a dictator has become a legitimate practice, if they do the selling. The rebels had popular support, but lacked (until recently) the western military support. By appealing to the international community, the people of Libya have expressed their will to rid themselves from a dictator. Instead of throwing in more weapons and more death, NATO allies need to withdraw from their god-like position on the international sphere. The UN could perhaps confiscate Gaddafi's arsenal? The international legal system could bring Gaddafi in court? But that would imply a real practice on behalf of the UN, not the symbolic gesture it is accustomed to. And as it usually happens, we westerners now need to give more weapons to the other side, who are now the good guys, as opposed to Gaddafi, who now is evil, and until yesterday he was a friend.
Libya is the battlefield of an economic war. Like Iraq was before it. There are, recently, evidence coming out that western air raids have accidentally hit rebel forces, but they are so grateful for the help and urgency of what these air raids stand for, that their loss is unimportant. The dead on the other side don't matter. They are just numbers. This is how mainstream media present the story. The people, the ones that should lead the way, are in no position to do anything but die – they are the victims of a conflict that is not their own: it is between Gaddafi's sons for succession; it is between the Gaddafi family and the leadership of the rebels (that suddenly presents well nurtured and mannered politicians, an organised military unit led by a proper general, and other elements that demonstrate a well-organised political structure); it is, finally, a by-product of the conflicts within capitalism (the struggle between capitalists for more power and more influence and capitalism’s internal contradictions).
Whatever happens at the end, they will all survive and somehow influence the new status quo. And they will all lead the country (and the world) to the next crisis. And that's how history will be written by those who have access to power. That is, all apart from the dead (the past, present and future victims of the conflicts between the powerful). And the question emerges once again: what are we to do? Not, which side to support, but how will the ongoing massacre be stopped.
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