Today, Libyans are revisiting the painful memory of the September Revolution and the turmoil of the February uprising. It is remembered against the background of a deep sentimental struggle over nostalgia. On one side are those who support the February 2011 uprising that toppled Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his uniquely bizarre “Jamahiriya” regime, and those who remain nostalgic for the September 1969 military coup, the “Al-Fateh Revolution.”
In the Libyan collective memory, especially among students, April precedes September. Gaddafi flooded the month of April with blood. Starting in 1976, he would commemorate his rise to power every seventh of April, with purges of his ideological and political opponents, who were sacrificed on gallows erected in public squares, creating a terrifying spectacle out of their execution.
Revolution is, in essence, a process that introduces comprehensive and radical change that liberates societies from oppression, corruption, and ignorance, removing an autocratic ruler who clings to power, grows intoxicated by his own opinions, rejects advice, and governs not through a constitution but his whims. Under Gaddafi, Libya’s vast wealth and resources became his personal property. The Central Bank disbursed millions at his command; with a simple phone call, he would fund coups in Africa or arm factions abroad. Meanwhile, the Libyan people saw their infrastructure break down, development and housing projects stalled, and the health and education systems they relied on underfunded.
Eventually, the people rose up, seeking to end decades of tyranny. They showed that they reject injustice and corruption, that they were not destined to live in subjugation and servitude, and that Gaddafi’s slogans of “freedom” and “democracy” were hollow.
Nonetheless, the bitter truth is that, without NATO’s intervention, Gaddafi would not have fallen. And yet, a tragic paradox followed his downfall. Terrorist groups exploited the vacuum, taking power in Tripoli and seizing control of state institutions. Militia rule, widespread corruption, and pervasive chaos were the results; from a shared homeland for all, Libya became a land of fear, terror, and death.
Gaddafi loved talking about democracy but never believed in it. He preached “people’s power” and imagined citizens “sitting in the chairs of power.” In reality, he hoarded all the power, running the country from his tent alongside his inner circle after having suspended both the constitution and law. The bizarre doctrines of his Green Book became the foundations of his governance: “the house belongs to its occupant, not its owner,” “workers share factories they do not own,” “land belongs to no one.” These decrees erased private property rights and left Libyans disoriented and dispossessed, and his power was dependent on loyalists who served as ideological gatekeepers.
When the people demanded freedom, Gaddafi famously yelled at them from behind the walls of his Bab al-Aziziya compound. “Who are you?” He fulminated at his opponents, threatening to hunt them down “alley by alley, house by house.” And he called them “rats” only to meet a gruesome death at the hands of an armed group no less brutal than the goons he would set loose to eliminate his foes.
Yet the February Revolution failed too. Not only did it fail to achieve its goals, it also failed to even establish the culture of respect for the peaceful transfer of power, a cornerstone of democracy. Over the past ten years, officials elected in the wake of February 2011 have clung to power under, establishing a dictatorship with new names, establishing illegitimate political structures born not of democracy but of realpolitik and power-sharing arrangements negotiated by armed factions.
It is true that Libya has not prospered since Gaddafi’s downfall. The February uprising descended into bloodshed, bombings, assassinations, rampant crime, kidnappings, and forced disappearances, reaching levels of violence and lawlessness that, in many respects, surpassed those of Gaddafi’s September era. Even after all of that, the “goals of the February Revolution” remain largely unrealized.
Thus, the question lingers: Have we truly put dictatorship behind us?
In the aftermath of February 2011, since Gaddafi was removed from power, Libya has been ruled by militias. The country has been fractured by displacement, exile, killings, kidnappings, torture, secret prisons, fleeting governments, and billions spent with no transparency, accountability, or vision.
And so one is left asking: Does Libya define revolution differently from the rest of the world?
“Gaddafi’s September” failed to deliver prosperity to the Libyan people, and the “February Revolution” that killed him was equally unsuccessful. Instead, Libya today finds itself governed by kleptocrats after the many broken promises of two failed revolutions.
