A few years ago the British and French governments intervened militarily and toppled the Gaddafi regime.
There was general elation with David Cameron mobbed in Benghazi. No one was aware of the maelstrom that was to come which culminated with the terrible massacre of British tourists in Tunisia.
I visited Tunisia some years ago, on my way to Libya for a political conference. The signs of Islamist motivated unrest were present then but the lid was kept on the pressure cooker of violence by Arab strong men such as Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Ben Ali in Tunisia.
In the 1990s I attended a conference of the ‘Libya-Solidarity Society’ and paid several visits to Geneva and Sinaia (Rumania). Many days were spent discussing ‘Anglo-American hegemony and colonialism’. The gatherings generally concluded with high sounding resolutions! Eventually the ‘Solidarity’ movement metamorphosed into the ‘Jamahiriya Society’ conference venues in Libya.
My first Libyan excursion failed miserably. It involved a series of links to Malta and hence by boat to Libya. My hosts, I discovered, were not the best at organisation and connections were missed. On the second occasion I went by air to Tunis then to Djerba in southern Tunisia and overland to Tripoli.
Arriving in Tunis, my contact from the Jamahiriya Society wasn’t there! I sorted myself a hotel and with an overnight wait set off wandering the city. It was a hot late evening and locals were out in the streets drinking tea. I was struck by how inquisitive and friendly they all were.
The following day I arrived at Djerba Airport. My hosts with their usual ‘efficiency’ were in total disarray and I waited for hours.
Eventually we were on our way. There was me, an American desperate to stay ‘under the radar’ as visits to Libya were banned by the US, two women from Greenham Common Peace Camp and an elderly Finn with bad feet.
On the way, we encountered the first ominous sign of what has since overtaken the region. After crossing the main border check into Libya we were stopped frequently by the army or police. I initially put this down to Libyan paranoia but later learned it was due to a long-running Islamist campaign in the hinterlands of the vast country.
Leaving Tunisia for Libya, the main change was that portraits of Tunisia’s Ben Ali were replaced by equally large portraits of Gaddafi along the road side. In both countries the lid was kept on turmoil by authoritarian strong men.
I spent eight days in Libya and the conference was a mixing pot of nationalities. They came from as far afield as Finland, Chile and Indonesia, with a few Australian communists – the latter managed to locate a bottle of brandy, no mean feat in Libya, a ‘dry country’.
Given the constraints of ‘minders’ we were relatively free to wander. I visited the souk in Tripoli, buying gifts to bring home, and enjoyed a trip to the colonel’s shattered house bombed by F-111s, which trained for their mission on the Jurby bombing range. I went to the National Library of Libya which had an amazing record of the Libyans’ struggle against Italy before it was finally colonised and the suffering the Libyan people endured. The most surreal visit was to the disused airport, used only for domestic flights, with rows of planes waiting with nowhere to go. The most impressive was to the ruins at Sabratha. I’ve read since that ISIS want to destroy them – that will be a travesty!
I was impressed by Libya. It had good housing and health care. It was authoritarian but ordered, and most of the people you met in the street seemed prosperous and cheerful. Now the country is a basket case as a result of western meddling.
In the wake of the Tunisian massacre David Cameron has promised a tough response. However, there are no ‘strong men’ to keep order in Tunisia and Libya and impose internal stability. External responses by Britain and others have already cost a great deal. The victims of the Tunisian attack came from all parts of the British Isles. None of us are immune from this now.
Now I see UK newspapers urging David Cameron to ‘send in the SAS’ to neutralise ISIS. The UK still wants to be a world policeman. Does it never learn?