Last week, Ali Aujali, the Libyan ambassador to Washington, clarified remarks made by leader Muammar Qaddafi, who apparently called for an armed holy war against Switzerland in yet another high-profile invective. Aujali told press last week that Qaddafi was, in fact, bidding for an economic boycott when he invoked jihad against the Alpine nation last month.
“It is a call for [an] economic and commercial boycott against Switzerland. This is true, but it doesn’t mean by any means that it is an armed struggle,” he said.
Qaddafi’s remarks came in response to a referendum vote banning the construction of mosque minarets in Switzerland last November. The vote is grounds for jihad, he insisted, and its visitation upon the Swiss would not be terrorism. Needless to say, Qaddafi’s potentially ambiguous use of the term has evoked just as much austerity from the international community as it has from Swiss chocolate.
This is certainly not the first of Qaddafi’s diplomatic gaffes to make headlines. Since his ascension to power following a 1969 coup, the Libyan leader has made a reputation for himself as international poet laureate of faux pas. The President’s eccentricities include keeping wildcats as pets, opting for Bedouin tents over Hyatts during diplomatic trips and playing Charlie to a gaggle of beautiful gun-toting female bodyguards. His most recent misstep is his performance at last September’s UN Summit in Pittsburgh. Meant to be a fifteen-minute “taster” oratory, Qaddafi’s speech before delegates expatiated into a dazzling hour-and-a-half-long burlesque during which he painted swine flu as a Strangelove-esque conspiracy theory, tore up a copy of the UN charter, accused the Security Council of being an a terrorist body akin to Al-Qaeda, and proposed a $7.7 trillion tariff on industrialised countries as compensation for colonialism. Planting one on the Lockerbie bomber after his expatriation back to Libya from a Scottish prison last August, Qaddafi did nothing to dodge diplomatic animus. In February of 2009, six days after taking his place at the head of the African Union, the self-styled “King of African Kings” managed to similarly incense with the revival of his plan for a “United States of Africa”.
Qaddafi is a PR nightmare because he goes against well-established orthodoxies in international affairs. A sector betokened by nondescript grey suits and inoffensive, oft circumlocutory language, diplomatic culture is by many descriptions a culture in itself. Of course, it is predicated entirely upon a set of subjective realities which we – as Britons for the duration of our degrees – take for granted, as they look conspicuously like ours. According to this understanding, Qaddafi seems to be seriously lacking in Superego. While it is true that Qaddafi is very proudly a product of a distinctive cultural context, the same could be argued for all one hundred and ninety one other heads of state at the United Nations. Diplomacy is a job, to be performed at summits, cocktail mixers and confabs workplaces alike. Having been privy to that working culture for almost forty years, it is almost offensive to excuse Qaddafi’s misconduct on cultural grounds. His provocative behavior is a conscious breach of HQ norms, more easily likened to showing up to your cubicle on casual Friday in a tube top, or hoarding company stationery.
For all his foibles, one cannot help but think that maybe Qaddafi’s on to something. It is true, and interesting, that many even more clever than Paris Hilton tend to view Africa as a “great country”, a hulking red monolith bobbing on the Atlantic ocean. Indeed, without getting into too much detail, a great deal of foreign policy tends to view it that way. Save strategically significant South Africa, of course, the US and Europe can be said to take a panacean policy approach to Africa’s variant areas and issues comprehending aid, measured investment, defense and “sound advice”. Since the world treats Africa as an obelisk, maybe it would get more attention on the international stage if it acted like one? It might put Qaddafi’s stand-up act out of commission; but the grave and multifarious issues weighing on the continent along the lines of disease, resource use and rights – admittedly not as magnetizing news items as jihad – may then get the urgent consideration they merit.
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