I've read that he was somewhat of a dick towards sub-saharan southern African countries, but that could have just been a misunderstanding/slander.
I've also read that he supposedly financed one or more armies of fundamentalists that would often rape civilians, or that he allegedly had a dungeon where he would sexually assault women, but I'm 99 percent sure that both of those claims are neoliberal horseshit.
What I DO know, is that he was a brilliant man and a motherfucking titan of a person. A true badass.
He greatly took after Mao, and was "friendly"-ish with the USSR and I think China.
He helped fight the Eurocrakkker colonizers in Africa.
While I mostly agree that "great man theory" is horseshit, I don't think anyone can deny that he was a true titan of a person.
Liberated Libya from a U.S. backed dictator, instituted a form of socialism (even though Libya was more secular than neighboring countries, I don't like that Libya supposedly had an Islamist bent to it. I don't mean in culture/society, I mean like the law) but besides that, Libya under his ba'athist leadership seemed like it had a lot in common with the Soviet Union.
Local democracy and democratic control of the means of production, with the guiding hand of the state preventing capitalist overreach, and very high living standards for a continent ravaged by imperialism for centuries, and he helped fund numerous national liberation and socialist groups and revolutionaries.
This motherfucker built a whole ass aquifer that crakkkers said was impossible to build, until it was destroyed by NATO, unfortunately.
I like to think of Gaddafi as being like Libya's/Africa's Fidel Castro. A larger than life gentle giant.
My one major complaint, is that I think that he gave up Libya's nuclear weapons way too easily.
I understand that the west had their boot on Libya's throat, and having millions and millions of people and many countries and movements depending on him would likely cause any person to have serious psychological/mental stress on them, coupled with lessening of sanctions, I understand why he did it.
I know I'm rambling, but I feel a slight attachment to Gaddafi because he reminds me so much of my grandfather.
And it's fucking horrible and anger-inducing that he was overthrown, tortured and murdered by Libyan gusano terrorist NATO-financed nutjobs.
May he rest in power. Africa and the world isn't the same, without him.
