Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Ho Chi Minh, Zedong, Castro, Amin, Pol Pot, Milosevic. Gadhafi. All bad men. Men who collectively took the lives of tens of millions of people throughout history. I don’t like them. I’m not here to defend them, but I think it’s safe to say that these power-hungry, totalitarian dictators are just a microcosm of what’s wrong with humankind. People have such a strong, primal, instinctive, destructive, vengeful, war-like nature that it is predictable that tyrannical men would rise to power to control the masses; and then fall from grace.
It is only natural that people would hate Moammar Gadhafi; he was a brutal dictator for 42 years, ruling over Libya with an iron fist. Historically, he treated people poorly, was nepotistic in his rule, and pitted factions against each other to keep control of the country, but it is also arguably true that he maintained a certain balance between the tribal factions and religious groups in the country. Now that he is gone, we can see the people’s true nature. Just watch one of the videos online. Gadhafi may have been a horrible man, but where is the joy in seeing a person beaten nearly to death, sodomized with a knife, tied to the hood of a car to be paraded in front of others, and then shot in the head? Is that justice? Is humankind still so animalistic that torture is the answer? Or was it all about bringing him down to their level – degrading him as much as possible? Because what I see on those videos is the degradation of all of those men. The rebels were basking in their victory; a grievously bloodied Gadhafi is dragged about in a public display of “manliness” by the rebels, surrounded by smiling facing all around. Grinning, smiling, beaming faces of Libyan rebels. How repulsive.
I don’t find the death of anyone to be particularly celebratory. I didn’t take pleasure in hearing the news of Osama bin Laden’s assassination. bin Laden was a religious fanatic who had a plan to cripple the western world. Did he carry that plan out himself? No. Thousands of other people did it for him; they listened to his message of intolerance and religious supremacy, and they carried out hideous crimes in the name of god. God, Allah - same thing, different name. When he was killed, Americans went out in the street to celebrate. They announced his death with jubilation, but what they failed to see was that he was just an old Middle Eastern guy who had already been stripped of any real power. With all those past tyrants, it took armies of men to carry out their will. They were not alone; people chose to follow them and do their bidding.
Gadhafi is dead. Great. Let’s see what happens in Libya. Let’s see if the Islamic fundamentalists who take over are any better for the people than Gadhafi was. Let’s celebrate THAT if it happens rather than relishing the public torture and subsequent death of one man. Mutilating a corpse is vile, disturbing and alarming. People ought to ask themselves what they are happy about – what is being celebrated by freezing his dead body and putting it on public display next to his dead sons. That’s not the evolutionary progress of mankind; that’s Dark Ages mentality. Did those soldiers who fired off celebratory shots with their machine guns stop to think about the innocent civilians they were shooting? No. Why? Because they were too hell-bent on parading a corpse around.
I’m not happy for the rebels who killed him; I’m embarrassed for them. What a bunch of assholes.
I felt the same way and am very glad to hear that someone else was alarmed.
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