Democracy Takes Work

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Given that 99% of Libya is desert, you would think that it would be easy to get right away from people there. But we found out that it wasn't that easy because, in our experience, the desert rarely seemed to be ... deserted.

When we went out exploring, we would often stop for a tea break in the middle of nowhere. In every direction the land would be totally flat and featureless as far as the horizon. No people, no animals, no vegetation, nothing. So we’d set up our stove and start boiling water for tea. The water would boil. And then an old man would appear.

It wasn’t always the same old man who turned up, of course. But, with the exception of one boy on a donkey, it was always an old man.

I remember one of these old men particularly well.

We were having elevenses in the desert south of Mizda, when an old man popped up from nowhere. With the help of a wooden staff, he was shuffling along carrying a sack containing his supplies. He looked so old, frail and generally decrepit that we thought he couldn’t have come very far.

As was expected in these situations, we invited him to join us and he sat down to share our tea and sandwiches.

He told us he was heading for Mizda to vote in the upcoming elections that Ghadaffi had recently announced. He had been walking for two days and had another day’s walk ahead of him. So much for being old and decrepit!

He looked a little disappointed when we broke the bad news: The elections had been postponed for a month. He wasn’t downcast for long though. “Malesh. Never mind. I’ll just walk back home now and then walk to Mizda next month,” he told us. He picked up his walking staff, threw his sack over his shoulder, and shuffled off back into the desert.

Now that's what I call a sense of civic responsibility.

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Welcome to Libya

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A week after arriving in Libya to run the International House school in Tripoli, I was summoned to the Ministry of Education to meet the Director of Private Schools.

The Director, who spoke very good English, was a charming man and he welcomed me warmly. In normal Arab fashion, we had tea and exchanged pleasantries for a while. Then became more serious and told me that he would be keeping a very close eye on my work and that he hoped I would run the school better than the previous director had.

"Oh," I said. "Have there been problems with the school?"

He reached up and took a 3-inch-thick binder from a shelf and opened it on his desk.

"These are recent reports and complaints about the school. Let me read you some examples." He flipped through the pages, stopping now and then to read out headings: "Alcohol being sold in the coffee bar... Many teachers using drugs... Women teachers operating a brothel on the top floor... Teachers making openly anti-Libyan and pro-Zionist remarks in class..."

I was stunned. "But you don't believe any of those things, do you?" I asked.

"Of course not." He paused. "But maybe one day I will have to believe them. And you are the director, so it will be you we hang."

"Hang?" I queried weakly.

He smiled and shrugged. "Hang. Shoot. Same same."

It was not the most auspicious start to what turned out to be four good years in one of the most interesting and friendly countries I've ever visited!
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