By the book

In Libya's schools they read and write Gaddafi, reports Borzou Daragahi, of the Los Angeles Times.

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's portraits hang from the walls of the middle school. All of the walls.

He's on horseback. He's in uniform. He's a young army commander. He's a fatherly leader of the nation. His words, spelled out in the collection of occasionally incoherent aphorisms called the Green Book, are woven into weekly lessons. His praises are sung by the students, who chant pro-government slogans, as well as the teachers overseeing the classrooms at Zahra Fatah middle school in central Tripoli.

"We teach them that the power is in the hands of the people," said Najia Arabi, a political guidance counsellor.

"Gaddafi gave us the freedom, and I feel the freedom."

The foreign forces now militarily confronting Gaddafi face not only Libyan anti-aircraft batteries, but also a pervasive ideological system that begins at the earliest age.

When 11-year-old Nasrine Wahid stood up in her English class to answer a reporter's question about what she likes, she responded: "I like Americans. I like my country, Libya. I love my school. I love my beaches. My favourite toy is Barbie."

A teacher nudged her. "All the people love Muammar Gaddafi too," she added, a little awkwardly. "We love Muammar Gaddafi. He gave us everything."

Other students perked up at the mention of the name of the Brother Leader, who took power before many of their parents were born.

"The people want Muammar the colonel!" they began to chant, louder and louder.

"The people want Muammar the colonel!"

The students said they began returning to class on March 8, more than two weeks after a political uprising against Gaddafi tore this nation in two, even as government officials insisted to reporters that schools were never closed.

"A very small number are staying at home and not coming to school," said principal Souad Sultan, a claim that was impossible to verify during a visit to the school organised by official minders.

Even the short trip provided insight into Libya's view of itself as a longtime victim of imperial powers now being menaced again by the same Western forces.

"Today I am talking about how England invaded the Arab countries," explained history teacher Fawzieh Sayeh.

"The Turkish entity, the Ottoman Empire, ruled the Arabic countries for 400 years, and after Turkey became weak, they gave the Arab nations to the European countries like France and Britain. By jihad we got our freedom back from them. We resisted the invasion."

The Green Book is taught for 45 minutes each week in the equivalent of civics classes. A specially designated and vetted teacher expounds upon Gaddafi's 1975 oeuvre.

"Women, like men, are human beings. This is an incontestable truth," Gaddafi pontificates in the book.

"Women are different from men in form because they are females, just as all females in the kingdom of plants and animals differ from the male of their species. ... According to gynecologists, women, unlike men, menstruate each month. ... Since men cannot be impregnated, they do not experience the ailments that women do."

In the book, Gaddafi derides parliaments, political parties, referendums and an independent press as antidemocratic.

In his Third Universal Theory, he argues for the establishment of popular committees and popular conferences to make decisions.

"Both the administration and the supervision become the people's, and the outdated definition of democracy ... becomes obsolete," the book says.

"It will be replaced by the true definition: Democracy is the supervision of the people by the people."

Gaddafi's Libya puts a special emphasis on "supervision". Even a visit by journalists to a middle school is closely monitored by minders, who urge students to insist that everything is miya-miya, meaning 100%, or excellent, in the country.


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