E-Paper
Tenting his spleen
Gaddafi’s new anti-imperial weapon is to talk his detractors into submission. He succeeded at the UN.
The ‘Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’ and ‘Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution’ has lived up to his title, or at least the length of it. At the ongoing United Nations General Assembly session in New York, the holder of the 22-word title, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi took advantage of being the President of the General Assembly for a year and delivered an hour-long speech as if there was no tomorrow.
He made good use of his visit to the US, his first since he took power exactly four decades ago. In his flamboyant style, he talked of several conspiracy theories like the swine flu might be a military or corporate weapon that got out of a lab.
To which we have a conspiracy theory of our own: why did the ‘Lion of Africa’ roar so much at the Assembly? Because he was angry at not getting a place to mark his territory (pitch his Bedouin tent, that is) even if it were for a few nights. First, the New Jersey town of Englewood denied him the rights to pitch his tent inside a property owned by the Libyans, the Central Park in New York was made off limits and last but not the least was Ratan Tata’s Taj Pierre. Even when billionaire builder Donald Trump offered his estate, the town authorities stepped in.
So when Gaddafi took centrestage, we guess that all he had on his mind was to how to pay the ‘imperialists’ back without launching a missile. So he delivered the final punch with a long speech that put most to sleep. And all because he could not find the right place to sleep.
