Muammar Al Qadhafi

‘Berlusconi gives the dictator of Libya a rock star welcome to Rome’.

Qadhafi with one of his elite virgin bodyguards. He is dressed in his Michael Jackson suit

Elite Virgin Guard between Berlusconi & Qadhafi; you know what they say 'Birds of a Feather...'

“Gaddafi’s arrived in Rome with a 300-strong retinue on three Airbuses. As ever, he brought with him a giant Bedouin tent, which was erected in a park in the centre of the city and where he was to stay and conduct business. There was no immediate sign of the camel he took on a visit to Paris in 2007 when he pitched his tent in the grounds of a five-star hotel.  With gelled and carefully dyed hair, the Colonel was made up to look like a cross between Michael Jackson and the deranged music mogul murderer Phil Spector” - Mark Almond.

Well, well.  It appears Muammar Al Qadhafi, the son of a Bedouin animal herder, was born in a tent, in the middle of a desert; and it could have been any one of the following: Arabian, Syrian, Nubian, or Sahara, although he says he was born in Surt. He is a devout muslim who graduated from the University of Libya and Libya’s  Military Academy.  In the past he has expelled Jews and Italians from Libya (Libya was an Italian colony before WWll).  As is usual with despots, Qadhafi banned all opposition to his regime.  Qadhafi is evidently very intelligent and managed to obtain a university degree even though he did not start school until he was 10 years old.

Qadhafi has female bodyguards who have to sign a document swearing on the Koran, that they will remain virgins while they serve ‘under’ him.  They must wear make up and jewellery at all times, and of course, high heels, when on duty.  However, it is rumoured that these bodyguards do not remain virgins for long once they begin work for this employer.  Qadhafi trains  his elite female bodyguards to be sadistic killers, and expects that they will put their beautiful bodies between him and any killer who attempts to assassinate him.  Qadhafi, since the late eighties, has been photographed wearing a dark  military style suit with gold epaulettes and fringes.  He took his inspiration for this getup from none other than Michael Jackson, ex Jackson Five.

Make no mistake, this man is absolutely ruthless with his own people who oppose him.  In the 1970s, Qadhafi personally ordered public executions. In 1977, he was present at hangings of students who had protested against his regime.  And then there are the murders of foreign citizens by his hand ie Lockerbie.  The mercurial Qadhafi is as evil and despotic as ever, wearing more makeup and hair dye than he ever has before.  Well, like Mubarak and Berlusconi, he is getting on in years, and these men believe themselves to be immortal.

Glamourous and Deadly!

Qadhafi's eternal, rambling speeches at UN meetings

The reason the Western powers want to rid the world of Qadhafi, is because they can’t bear to listen to any more of his speeches!

Three examples Qadhafi Quotes:

“There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe–without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.”

“Everyone here today came across the Atlantic or the Pacific, and I ask you, why? Is this Jerusalem, or Mecca? All of you have jetlag and are physically tired. Many of you are very tired because your biological mind should be asleep right now. Think about it, why should we continue to meet here in America?”

The Gold Man: rumoured to have tons of gold stashed away in his coffers.

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Qadhafi’s Humiliating End

UPDATE 2011:

Qadhafi captured and killed by rebels in his hometown of Sirte in October 2011.

He was initially shot in the legs upon capture, but he later sustained bullet wounds to the chest and head, from which he died. The UN is investigating the matter.

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Qadhafi's body on display in Misrata (Photo by Reuters)

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Qadhafi's final hideout

Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, Middle East.

Charles Freeman's book about civilisations of the Ancient Mediterranean

I have just been reading Egypt, Greece and Rome; Civilisations of the Ancient Mediterranean by Charles Freeman , published 1999.  What an amazing book of 638 pages.

Not as much of a chore to read as you might think. The author breaks the book into easy to follow chapters and titled paragraphs.  He uses date charts, date lists, events and maps to great effect and to which I referred constantly during the reading of the book.

The book has given me a better insight into the pre-history of these amazing civilisations, and to their relevance today. Mr Freeman takes the reader on an epic journey from Egypt in 4,500 BC to Eastern and Western Empires up to 1000 AD.  He brings together the most interesting and salient stories. In one sense, not much has changed.  Constant wars, plagues, atheism, religious diversity,polemics, politics, the fight for democracy, all played a part.

Carthage (now Tunisia) , for instance, was a prosperous and thriving Phoenician city in the 5th Century BC, and Greece was pioneering philosophy and   theatre.   Greek philosophers travelled the Mediterranean teaching students to “look” at both sides of an argument.  Trading goods between the various states was the chief activity that brought so many disparate groups together.  What I also loved about this book, are the references to legend and myth, and how they intertwined everyday life across the Mediterranean world. I especially enjoyed the sections on Classical Greece, a favourite era of mine, and the references to its literature.

In Chapter 14, Mr Freeman expands on the 5th Century origins of drama (one of the greatest of Athenian Inventions, by no means a universal human experience),  poetry, tragedy, theatre with such names as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and Aristophanes, that satirical playwright extraordinaire.

During these times, beliefs in various gods were tied in with natural events,  human frailty and excesses.  Travel was relatively easy throughout Greece and the Mediterranean, and even non-citizens could find skilled work. Differing versions of the genealogy of gods wasn’t a hindrance, and most visitors ‘slotted in’ with local lore.

It was interesting to read the section on Sophists. The original meaning of the word ‘Sophist’ was anyone with exceptional talent.  However, members of this group were attacked  by both Plato and Aristophanes (satirically) for daring to present arguments  for and against any motion. Sophists can be credited with pioneering the study of religion as a social and anthropological phenomenon according to Mr Freeman. They disagreed strongly with the belief that there was some divine principle at work in the Universe. (Modern atheists, take note!) The Sophist, Protagoras, spent most of his life as a travelling teacher. He wrote: “Concerning the gods, I am unable to discover whether they exist or not, or what they are like in form; for there are many hindrances to knowledge, the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life.”  He proclaimed: “Man is the measure of all things.”   Athens was implementing democratic governance at this time and Protagoras’ proclamation could be taken as the slogan of democratic Athens.  Other Sophists suggested that gods originated in man’s experience of nature. The various gods had been created as personifications of natural phenomena such as the sun, moon, rivers, water and fire. To the Sophists men of shrewd and subtle minds invented for man the fear of the gods, to “frighten the wicked even if they acted, spoke or thought in secret.”  By the end of the century free thinking on religious matters was less tolerated.  Pestilence, war, tyrants and destruction killed optimistic fervour.

I wonder, is this what is happening in our world now?

Mary & Jesus? No, actually Ancient Greek statue Tyche or Fortuna, the centre figure of a flourishing cult

Berlusconi Lives For Another Day in Politics

Rome is Burning - Berlusconi Rises Again!

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday scraped through a crucial confidence vote in parliament, overcoming one of the most serious crises in his 16-year political career.

( See my post Is Berluscoi…….

Poor Italy – Corrupt government – Corrupt Vatican.  A bit like FIFA – MONEY TALKS??!!)

Berlusconi won with a razor-thin majority, as 314 politicians voted in his favour with 311 against and two abstentions in the 630-seat Chamber of Deputies lower house.

His government earlier won a comfortable majority in the Senate.

Tens of thousands of anti-Berlusconi protesters meanwhile marched through Italy’s biggest cities. Some of the protesters in Rome set off smoke flares, hurled bottles and threw firecrackers, while police fired tear gas.

“Summing up what’s wrong with Berlusconi would be a very long list! But basically he hasn’t managed to cope with the economic crisis,” said Andrea, a school pupil taking part in the protest in Rome.

Silvia, a teacher, said: “I don’t see a future for young people.”

The vote followed heated debates in both chambers of parliament and a fight broke out between some supporters and opponents of the prime minister in the tense minutes before the announcement of the result in the lower house.

Berlusconi earlier voiced confidence in a victorious outcome as he arrived in parliament and said he “absolutely excluded” his resignation, demanded by former allies from his centre-right coalition who rebelled against him.

Berlusconi first launched himself onto a corruption-ridden political scene with an election win in 1994. He has since gone on two more elections in 2001 and 2008, brushing off a series of sex and graft scandals along the way.

The government’s current mandate is set to run out in 2013 but some analysts have argued that Italy will now still have to hold early parliamentary elections because the government’s narrow majority could paralyse parliament.

“This is a country that is tired and wants change,” the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, Pier Luigi Bersani, said ahead of the vote.

Antonio Di Pietro, a former anti-corruption judge and leader of the Italy of Values party, said Berlusconi’s “papier-mache empire” was finished.

“Go to the Bahamas! This is what awaits you: giving yourself up to the judiciary or fleeing,” Di Pietro shouted at Berlusconi.

But Fabrizio Cicchitto, the leader of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party in the lower house, said: “Berlusconi’s story is not over.”

The confidence vote followed a bitter split within the ruling coalition after the rebellion earlier this year of Berlusconi’s once-loyal ally Gianfranco Fini, the speaker of parliament, along with around 40 politicians.

Berlusconi had appealed to Fini’s supporters on Monday, calling on them to show “responsibility” and saying: “We must unite for the good of Italy.”

He asked his former partners not to “betray the mandate from our voters.”

The 74-year-old also argued that a vote of no-confidence would be damaging for Italy given the current turbulence on eurozone financial markets.

He warned against the “political folly” of ousting him at such a time.  “Berlusconi: The Day of Truth,” read a headline in La Repubblica, while Corriere Della Sera said the government was “on the razor’s edge.”

“Parliament will today probably finalise the collapse of the structure of centre-right coalitions for 16 years – the alliance between Silvio Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini,” Corriere della Sera said in an editorial.

La Repubblica criticised Berlusconi’s attempt to rally his former allies from the centre-right, saying: “It’s a little prayer to try and survive another bit with the illusion of still having a government, a majority.”

Is Berlusconi Good For The Bel Paese?

Berlusconi imitating the pope

‘This sort of sadness has always prevailed among intelligent Italians, but most of them, to evade suicide or madness, have taken to every known means of escape…a passion for women, for food…above all, for fine sounding words’. – Ignazio Silone from the Dark Heart of Italy.

Berlusconi has been Italy’s (bel paese; beautiful country) Prime Minister for seven out of the last ten years.

I have travelled to Italy many times over the past two decades; I love the people, the country, and would have loved to have lived there for a couple of years if I had been given the opportunity.  It goes without saying that their literature, poets and authors have always grabbed my undivided attention.  But the natives I spoke to say it is a difficult and harsh country to live in if you are not wealthy and don’t have powerful connections.  From what I have read, it has always been this way.

Berlusconi and his fellow politicians are about to pass new laws curtailing the Italian press from reporting sensitive issues like what the men in government, and in other institutions such as banking,  get up to in their private lives. Berlusconi tells ‘his people’ that the new rules are necessary to protect citizens’ privacy. “In Italy, we are all spied upon,” he said recently in the law’s defense.  The press are on strike.

The prime minister speaks from experience. Last year, wiretap transcripts were published revealing that he was hosting select parties where young women, including call girls, were the star attraction. Another intercept revealed how he had asked a manager of public television “about girls,” to help “raise the boss’s morale.” The incidents were reported to have led to his divorce from his second wife because she asked him to apologise to her for his behaviour,  and put him at odds with the Catholic Church.  He informed  the press that his wife had no right to insult him in public.

The following piece taken from an article by Alessandro Speciale — Special to GlobalPost Published: June 29, 2010 06:49 ET in European article:

On July 29, Berlusconi ousted Fini — the charismatic, current speaker of the Lower Chamber of the Italian parliament — from his People of Freedom party, accusing the party co-founder of being “totally incompatible” with its principles. He also contended that Fini was waging a shadow “political opposition” within his own party, trying to administer a “slow death” to it.

He had reason to be worried: 33 lawmakers from the lower house of parliament and 10 from the Senate abandoned the People of Freedom upon Fini’s departure, leaving Berlusconi five votes short of a majority in the lower house and with a wafer-thin majority of two votes in the upper house.Fini has pledged support for Berlusconi on an ad hoc basis, vowing to fight fiercely against proposals that are “unfair or damaging to the wider interest.”

Sounds similar to the political stalemate here in Australia…

 

See Post… Berlusconi Lives For Another Day

Catholicism’s Fall From Grace

God's Callgirl-a memoir

My childhood was spent in Roman Catholic institutions and my mother was a novice nun before her marriage (see ‘Whatever Happened To Ishtar?’), so  these two books were of personal interest to me.   But of course they are both well written and interesting books in their own right, well worth the reading.

Carla Van Raay’s book God’s Callgirl is a perspective of the depths, in my opinion,  of how far Catholicism has sunk since the beginnings of Christianity and the teachings of Jesus.  Carla tells us  about her life from her upbringing within a strict Catholic family,  sexual and physical abuse by her father,  to her entry into a convent as a teenager and her later life as a sex worker. Her life in the convent was spent in prayer and unpaid drudgery, such as cleaning, teaching and needlework (which the convent sold) and when she finally leaves the convent she discovers her parents, who were not well off, were charged by the nuns for Carla’s board and keep!  She re-enters the real world as an innocent in every sense of the word. The convent was run by spiteful and cruel nuns within a strict hierarchy.  The convent’s inhabitants were called ‘The Faithful Companions of Jesus’, ironic to say the least.  Carla triumphs despite the best efforts of her parents and Catholicism.

My mother’s life was also one of hardship and emotional abuse in her convent which was called the ‘Home Of Compassion’.  My mother and I,  like Carla,  never experienced or witnessed any real and heart-felt compassion in any Catholic institutions!  In light of what is being exposed within the Catholic Church in recent times, it brings to my mind that saying  ‘The higher you fly, the further you fall’.

A God Strolling in the Cool of the Evening - a novel

Mario De Carvalho’s book A God Strolling in the Cool of the Evening is well researched which is apparent when he takes the reader back to Rome around the time of Jesus.  The narrator is a Roman provincial official with whom we travel on  his rounds of duties in the township where he lives, in amongst slaves and the rest of the populace.  We learn how Roman officials spent their days and how they treated their women and their slaves.  He describes in detail his living quarters and official buildings and how governing decisions of the time were reached.  The book is  set in the era of Jesus’ preaching and that of his ragtag bands of followers.  Rome was then suspicious of their motives, before the time when Rome would eventually embrace this new religion as their state’s own.  Added to that, many felt threatened and alarmed by the way these ‘new sect’  devotees dressed and behaved.  It just wasn’t the Roman way.  Persecutions and killings of Jesus’  followers was rife but in spite of this, the bands grew in number and they willingly became martyrs for their new beliefs; they felt close to Jesus  spiritually, copied his  acts of compassion for the poor.  His God seemed a more humane one than the various Roman gods.  Rome and her officials were sinking into corruption and the poor suffered greatly at their hands.  For a Roman Official to speak out for a pleb or a slave, was not self-serving; demotion or  exile from one’s town , often both,   would be the outcome.