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Gareth Morgan - Libyan Yobbos |
The Libyan people are scrupulously honest, they don’t take tips and will move heaven and earth to ensure you get the right change. It’s the complete opposite in Egypt where it is a national pastime to rip customers off, to cheat and short-change and if you’re a government official to demand baksheesh for any service you’re required to provide. From our experience, the Egyptians made Kenya, measured as the most corrupt society in Africa, a nirvana of virtue. Still, we’re baffled how Libyans, being so proximate to the most double-dealing culture on earth, can be such paragons of propriety in this respect.
That’s half the good news on Libya. The other is that 95 octane petrol is 16 cents a litre. Now let’s deal with the rest.
Firstly the women – coming into Libya’s primitive east we didn’t see one until our third day in the country – they’re kept under wraps and at home and do not participate in public society (there are only men retail assistants for example – even in the bra shops!). Pull into a service station and the women slink off to their own room, reliant upon their husbands bringing them food and drink. They do not go to the counter and buy themselves. Unlike Arabia there is no law against women driving but less than 1% of drivers are women – and they’re all in Tripoli, the capital of the country and in its west and a bit more cosmopolitan.
Next the driving. It has to be the most aggressive we have seen anywhere in the world – more maniacal than in Tehran, India or Mexico and with an extremely aggressive edge. Even though there’s a law against tailgating it is the norm. It, along with passing 3 or 4 abreast isn’t the sole preserve of Libyan drivers, but the difference here is that they do these things at 130 kph or faster. Driving is a testosterone release, wheel spins donuts standard highway conduct.
Now cast your mind’s eye to the worst male student flat you have ever seen. This describes the total Libyan environment. There are no rubbish tips here – the whole country is one. You really have to see it to believe it but with no fines for littering they do it in bulk. In the more classy towns they drive to the town boundary and then biff their household garbage out of the car. In the downmarket suburbs they just throw it out of their front gate. The desert is covered with plastic bags and most towns simply stink of fetid waste. When we ask people about it and what they think of it, many don’t even notice what a cesspit they’re living in.
It’s not as if this is a poor society. Its reserves of oil are 30bn barrels worth on today’s market 2.5tr US dollars or 500,000 US dollars per capita. So if the country had half an ounce of rational leadership it could sell the rights to its reserves, invest the money internationally and everyone here would be a millionaire in no time. Instead most live in fetid squalor.
Stone throwing – so de rigueur here for young males that you’d think they were training for doing holiday time on the Gaza strip. We’ve ended up perfecting a motorbike technique for herding these young delinquents and even ended up chasing them up stairwells in half-demolished apartment blocks.
So what is the attraction of Gadaffi’s Libya? It’s not any national intelligence or culture that’s for real –it wouldn’t be a big step for its national psyche to degenerate into a Taliban-esque one where women were even more harshly treated. This is a particularly sick male-centric society the root of which is a pretty warped interpretation of Islam. One policy I would agree with – this society is far too immature for legalisation of alcohol – let them stick to Coke. The badge of honour among males is to have the bruise in the middle of the forehead from time spent head-banging on the prayer mat and they make a great show of taking prayers, there being a pathetic need to ensure others notice you’re devout.
I would recommend visiting only to see the Greek and Roman remains here at Leptis Magna, the Roman’s capital of Africa. It’s stupendous, though is drowning under Arab trash so one cannot be optimistic about their preservation. Apart from that this is a country and a society to skip.
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