Being naive

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Most of us who worked in the Tripoli school were firmly on the Arab side in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and we were appalled by the way in which both the USA and the UK constantly backed the Israelis.

So it was not surprising that, when the Libyan government organized an anti-UK-government rally outside the British embassy, three of our British teachers participated. Holding signs denouncing British government actions, the three of them were interviewed on that evening’s news broadcast on Libyan TV. The next morning, the local newspaper (which was government-controlled) ran a quote from Ghadaffi himself praising the teachers’ participation in the rally. That evening at school, a lot of students walked up to the three teachers and praised them for their pro-Arab stance.

The following morning, I was working in my office when I got a call from the Ministry of Education and was ordered to report immediately to the Director of Private Schools.

When I sat down with the Director, he looked very serious and asked, “How long have you been in Libya?” I told him it had been almost three years. “And still you do not understand anything,” he said in an exasperated tone.

He went on, “I have had a complaint from the head of the security forces about three of your teachers who took part in a demonstration at the British embassy. He told me to warn you that you must never allow such a terrible thing to happen again. If it does happen, he will close down the school and deport you all.”

I was at a total loss. “But it was an official demonstration. And the government TV interviewed them. And Muammar Ghadaffi himself praised them. So where is the problem?”

“Oh, Jeffrey, you are so naïve! Everything you say is true but you are missing the most important point. It doesn’t matter what the teachers were protesting about. All that matters is that these were British people protesting against their country’s government. We cannot allow this to happen again, because we do not want any Libyans to start thinking that it is permissible for people to protest the actions of their own government. Now do you understand?”

I did.