UNDESTANDING QADDAFI'S GREEN BOOK

In his quest for glory, Muammer El Qaddafi published, in 1975, his "Green book". Influenced by the ideological struggle in the cold war era, he claimed that the book contains within its 110 pages the "Third ideology", after capitalism and communism. According to Qaddafi, to solve the problems of the world, oneself should study and understand the "Third ideology". Qaddafi ordered the book to be taught at school, and, in process, Libyan students were forced to spend two hours a week studying the book.


The book is all but a theory. In fact, it is a total lampoon. It is more like a bizarre context of a collection of aphorisms rather than arguments. A lampoon that the Libyans have to live with for more than 35 years. The following is quotes from the book:

“If a community of people wears white on a mournful occasion and another dresses in black, then one community would like white and dislike black and the other would like black and dislike white. Moreover, this attitude leaves a physical effect on the cells as well as on the genes in the body.”

“Mandatory education is a coercive education that suppresses freedom. To impose specific teaching materials is a dictatorial act.”

“While it is democratically not permissible for an individual to own any information or publishing medium, all individuals have a natural right to self-expression by any means, even if such means were insane and meant to prove a person’s insanity.”

“Women, like men, are human beings. This is an incontestable truth… 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. She breastfeeds for nearly two years.”

It is hard to argue that what Qaddafi called "the third theory", is even a book. But Foreign policy magazine published on its website an article trying to teach its readers the "Green Book".