Qaddafi Unplugged

„I realized that Libya’s isolation in recent decades had taken a severe toll. In 1964 there had been a direct, nonstop flight between New York and Tripoli, which was then considered a cosmopolitan Mediterranean capital. In 1970, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, at that time president of the Emirates, had come to Libya to get a loan and to have surgery. Since then, the Emirates had evolved into an economic powerhouse, whereas Libya had experienced steady decline.

Qaddafi’s style as head of state was, to say the least, singular. At one point he had banned barbershops in Libya because he had decided it was not a productive profession. For an interim period, Libyans had been compelled to cut their own hair or to meet their barbers in secret locations.

His treatment of world leaders also gained attention. I heard a story that when Kofi Annan paid a visit to Libya, Qaddafi, displeased at recently imposed U.N. sanctions, announced he would meet Kofi in a tent in the desert in the middle of the night. Qaddafi’s entourage drove Kofi to the meeting in a roundabout way, on a pitch-black road, for a couple of hours. The quiet of the night was disrupted periodically with noises from animals Kofi could not see. Another story was of Jacques Chirac’s first visit to Libya, in November 2004. He, too, was brought to a tent for his meeting with Qaddafi. Cleaners came to vacuum the tent while the discussion was taking place, and later a goat came wandering in. The point of such antics, if true, was not exactly clear. Presumably it was to signify displeasure with certain U.N. or French policies or to make clear that Qaddafi did not subscribe to external protocols for hosting such dignitaries.

In any case, the consequences of Libya’s years of isolation and global inexperience continued to be in evidence—whether in its lack of well-trained managers, its lack of modern infrastructure, or its unique domestic and foreign policies—as Western governments and companies swooped in to scoop up the country’s assets.”