With Muammar Gaddafi’s son likely to face trial in Libya, we look at the shameful roles that British academics and politicians played in giving him respectability.
'The Engineer’: the captured Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in disguise as a jihadi rebel Photo: Ismail Zitouni/Reuters
By Michael Burleigh
7:30AM GMT 26 Nov 2011
140 Comments
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s fingers may have been his undoing. At the height of the uprising that toppled the Gaddafi family kleptocracy, Saif used his forefinger to warn the “jihadist rats” that they faced retribution from his lunatic father.
Isolated since last week in a Zintan prison cell, Saif’s thumb and two fingers are heavily bandaged, after the onset of gangrene. This followed injuries sustained in what he called a “Crusader Nato” airstrike on his escape convoy for, with the aid of a dense beard and a turban, Saif had recently taken to impersonating a rebel jihadi. But others claim that Saif’s vengeful captors took the first opportunity to slice off the wagging fingers with a commando knife.
There will probably be one final incarnation of Engineer Saif – as he was portentously addressed by Tony Blair – when he faces the trial of his life in a country that still has the death penalty. For the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has pronounced himself satisfied that Saif, who threatened to engulf the rebels in “rivers of blood” while brandishing a machinegun, will get a fair trial in Libya.
Inevitably, this will be followed avidly by the world’s media, which has no doubt already begun its search for a phrase to match “the banality of evil” coined during the Eichmann trial. In Saif’s case, words like “hollow man” or “spoiled playboy thug” come to mind.
Although the nature of Saif’s character may be clear, many prominent figures in Britain eagerly accepted, and in large part created, a delusional simulacrum of him: Saif the modernising reformer, a latterday Edward VIII in what was not a hereditary monarchy.
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This is merely a modernised version of the delusions many elite Britons maintained towards “noble” Bedouins in the days of Empire, for weren’t they simply autocratic squires in flowing robes? Class always trumped race.
Ignoring Saif’s vulgar interest in pet lions and high-class call girls, his Western admirers lapped up his almost parodic capacity to walk their walk and talk their talk.
For having become bored of engineering – which he studied in Tripoli in the early 1990s – Saif decided to dabble in business (an MBA was awarded by an outfit in Vienna for an unintelligible thesis written in 2000) and the vacuous nostrums of “globalisation”.
He alighted upon the London School of Economics, mainly because one of its recent directors, Lord (Anthony) Giddens, had already pronounced upon the moral health of the Gaddafi regime after it had renounced support for terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
Bringing Gaddafi père in from the cold in 2004 was the career highlight of the senior MI6 personality Sir Mark Allen, a romantic Arabist who went on to advise BP while dabbling in academia – including the LSE’s own grandly named Ideas centre. Allen was reportedly at the heart of the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber, following which BP was awarded contracts. The future chairman of the LSE’s governors was BP’s chairman at the time.
The greedy machinations at a leading British university are perhaps the least surprising aspect of Saif’s saga. The LSE has been accused of easing the rules to accommodate people with sub-standard English for years, as long as, like Saif, they could pay its exorbitant foreign fees. It is basically a finishing school for rich Eurotrash.
The guru behind New Labour’s market socialist “Third Way”, Giddens gave a major part of the game away when he boasted that Muammar Gaddafi had talked with him for three hours, rather than the 30 minutes usually reserved for world leaders. Saif’s mentor at LSE, as he worked on a PhD thesis The Role of Civil Society in the Democratization of Global Governance, was Prof David Held, with whom Giddens had founded the highly lucrative Polity Press. The allegedly “collective” authorship of this thesis is the subject of a University of London investigation. Upon its conclusion, Lord Woolf’s separate inquiry into the LSE’s dealings with the Gaddafis may or may not be made public.
For in 2009 the LSE Council accepted a donation of £1.5 million from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Fund, chaired by Saif and with Held on the board of trustees. Warnings from the resident “holy fool” Prof Fred Halliday – who would go off to tend a bar in Barcelona in his retirement – were considered and ignored. LSE Enterprise also accepted £2.2 million to train Libyan civil servants, part of a bonanza that rained on several other British universities and the SAS, who trained elite Libyan troops.
A podgy little man who has since decamped to Durham University, Held played host when in May 2010 his “friend” Saif delivered the Ralph Miliband lecture. This celebrates the obscurantist tenured Marxist radical sociologist who fathered Labour leader Ed and brother David.
Looking directly at Saif, Held praised his respect for “human rights” and his belief in “dialogue, debate and peaceful negotiations”. Saif smiled modestly at this fustian guff, before delivering a talk which duly recycled Held’s own academic vacuities back to him.
That December, the LSE hosted the Brother Leader himself, beamed into Houghton Street by video link from Tripoli. Gaddafi called the Lockerbie bombing a “fabrication and creation” of Thatcher and Reagan, which did not deter his young academic hostess from presenting him with an LSE stamped baseball cap to mark this great occasion. Her words could have been scripted by seniors too cowardly to appear themselves.
Academics have always leached upon power. They were attracted to the Nazis and Soviets like moths to a flame, because such regimes dealt in implementing big, bold schemes – such as wiping out populations. No wonder they are tantalised by ideas like “global governance”.
But Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was also taken up by people who are much more worldly operators than such ambitious academic pimps as Giddens and Held. Even Princes Charles and Andrew were co-opted in a “meet and greet” role as Saif toured our little Ruritania.
Tony Blair continues to regard his “deal in the desert” with Gaddafi as a high point of his foreign policy. How convenient that the former PM’s lucrative portfolio of careers after he left office enabled him to continue meeting the Colonel. Was he wearing his Quartet peace-broking hat? Or the £2 million a year one he wears for JP Morgan? Was he checking that “mad dog” was still defanged, or did the talks revolve around Russian aluminium investments and the development of luxury tourist resorts?
And what did the likes of Peter Mandelson, Nathaniel Rothschild or Oleg Deripaska discuss with Saif, when they entertained him on a shoot or aboard Deripaska’s yacht off Corfu? For sure, Saif was just another extremely wealthy man – Libya’s Investment Authority was worth £65 billion and had Jacob Rothschild on its board – but there was also the frisson of ruthlessness attached to the family name. How revealing that some compared Saif with Michael Corleone in the Godfather trilogy: the modernising don reluctantly dragged back into murder and mayhem.
For the most depressing thing about Saif’s squalid story is what it reveals about everyday corruption in a country that loves to moralise its way through the world, dispensing praise and censure to all and sundry.
In reality, Britain’s elites have become everyone’s pliable whore, whether Russian oligarchs or Middle Eastern autocrats. If Saif gets a trial, then we should all hope that a harsh light is shone on his elite British friends, for you can bet that not much will be revealed by the inquiries of the likes of Lord Woolf.
And before anyone imagines that this tale is restricted to New Labour, let’s not forget that Tory grandee Charles Powell is the chairman of Magna Holdings, which built Gaddafi Towers in Tripoli. The name will have changed by now, but the pathologies in Britain it reveals haven’t.
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Showing 1-25 of 142 comments
Benjaminus Carmonius
5 minutes ago
Interesting article. But I don't get it... The author is having a dig at so many people although his main target is Saif. What is he saying exactly. "A monster of our own making". OK so Saif is a "monster", but what is the definition of monster ? so he dabbled in business, did a degree at LSE and wrote a thesis about globalisation that the author thought was quite poor... He also met Tony Blair and talked about business deals. I still don't get it... Tony is being criticised here because he did peaceful deals with Libya rather than bomb Libya into submission? But then that makes Saif a monster but Tony is not a monster, just a slightly bad guy who made a mistake. Its all very confusing: academic establishments are rotten because they allowed him to get a degree, but he's a monster because he actually got a degree. Saif was a teenager when Lockerbie happened. He certainly didn't do it, maybe he genuinely also believed that his father hadn't done it too, after all there was a lack of evidence there at the time...
OK, finally it makes sense. The author is saying that "a monster of our own making" but what he means is "a monster of my own making" because he wrote an article about him calling him a monster, therefore he has MADE him into a monster. Or maybe it's because he didn't betray his family and turn against his monster father. Are we trying to promote treason and disloyalty as a Western virtue by insisting that people like Said should turn against their side during a civil war? It takes courage to fight against NATO and to be loyal to their side - he could have easily surrendered and betrayed his companions, but he didn't, he put up a fight. Surely Saif is a prisoner of war and should be protected by the Geneva Convention rather than be subjected to this unknown person Burgley's type of hype ?
Dputamadre
33 minutes ago
1/2 Repeated Comment. ( with Fixed Links)
Why Media Celebrat Libya-Cruelty as Human Rights/ Freedom and Democracy? ... Cruelty Rights is the new Fashion?
Emblematic of the most GROTESQUE Collective Praxis! WATCH at the end!
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
Other ex. Of The Praxis of That Glorifided Benghazi poor ppl! Pls Wath what MEDIA HIDED FROM US!
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
~ Documentary ( french) But You can watch & compare with London riots and loots. In Libya they Just LOOT LIVES not Goodies!
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
- Other Documentary ( french) Watch How Paeceful were Benghazy PPL - Compare with Lndon riots & Loots! CRUELTY is their Peace-Praxis! PLS WATCH Bcs Media just Show Gaddafi Houses decorations.
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
UNDERSTAND WHY Muammar Gaddafi Had a Holy-Death! Muammar Gaddafi had Luck! Watch what Holy-Glorifided rebels did with Soldiers and civilians.
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
WHERE WAS MEDIA REPORTING THIS? I Tell You Writing SPAM & LIEs! PROMOTING CRUELTY as Human Praxis!
Benghazy ppl Expelled Black PPL in 11 of November. Planet earth get 1 more refugee camp! Where was Media and renowned Journalists? Pls!Stop this Criminls! This Criminal Triangle: MEDIA+ NTC + NATO! WE ARE HUMANNS.
As the nobel Prize of Literature, Jose Saramago wrote " Who don't Punish Cruelty colaboret with It" Pls Top this Media criminlas! We Humans are able to do Better. SAIF al ISLAM is a GOOD MAN!
See What NATO DID To PROTECT All This:
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
PS.: Saif al-Islam don't need any favor of anyone to be respected! Saif is a Good Man. So Shut Up the Lies & Spam campagn! Write about what really matter! a Humanity of Citizens, stop to sponsor that "Unhumnity of-Consumers
YvesLaPointe
Today 07:40 AM
"The greedy machinations at a leading British university are perhaps the least
surprising aspect of Saif’s saga. The LSE has been accused of easing the
rules to accommodate people with sub-standard English for years, as long as,
like Saif, they could pay its exorbitant foreign fees. It is basically a
finishing school for rich Eurotrash".
The problem is that this desperate search for funding has brought foreign students with a minimal grasp of English to all universities, not just the LSE, so it is wrong to single out one institution when the whole lot turn a blind eye to people who in the end rely on other people to write their theses (you can buy these services on numerous websites that offer theses, dissertations, report and essay writing). The university sector has been desperate for money since 1981 and can't survive without foreign students, if it imposed high standards of English courses would have to close, university income would fall, which with the potential loss of UK students declining to enrol because of the cost of fees, will deliver the Conservative Party's dream which is to shut down a third of England's universities. As for research centres funded from abroad, shut them down because of the political caracter of their backers and you will accelerate the decline even more.
______ Olie
Today 08:03 AM
Im terribly sorry, but all I could think of was the name "Pol Pot" while I glanced at your introduction that called for a degree of caution to be exercised regarding Universities swirling the plug hole. (and this all done via the power of Internet).
Why should the English people, who, walk the walk and talk the talk care about bourgeoisie toyboxes being locked tight? Recommended by 0 person
silvaticus
Today 07:27 AM
New Labour’s market socialist “Third Way” was not socialist at all, it was the economics of fascism
ineluctable2u
Today 07:24 AM
I don't think I have read anything quite so strong in a broadsheet. The thesis : our elites are ineffably corrupt and as a result created this monster because they were blinded by their own self-interest that he could buy- is apparently correct- as in, right on the money ( sorry) ...
Not sure about some of the personal swipes at people like Miliband who had absolutely no part in this kind of behaviour. I wonder if this Burleigh could have landed himself in hot water over this. If this respected academic were my father, he would have.
Furthermore, some of the people he draws into this are not necessarily corrupt at all but he has decided they are without providing any evidence whatsoever. The politicians are self-evident and we know of their apparent malfeasance and definite moral judgement failure, but others like Powell, for example, what exactly is he guilty of? He was commissioned to build a building , and...?
tilak
Today 06:37 AM
The LSE is run by nasty little men of no discernible merit who utter phrases about academic staff like 'just a face, one goes, another comes'! Giddens was the worst, slimy is too kind a description, but a masterful performer, spewing endless vacuities that impressed semi-literates like Blair and Brown. And the late Fred Halliday was no saint either, eagerly golfing with Arab ambassadors and thoroughly cheesed off for not being allowed to head a petro-dollar funded Arab 'research' unit! Anti-semitism was barely below the surface and vicious Islamist students and their hate sentiments tolerated because of donations by Jew-baiting Arab potentates for grand auditoriums, etc
oldfashioned
Today 05:22 AM
The cynic in me wonders whether he'll live long enough to be brought to trial. Accidents do happen
maximumrider
Today 04:02 AM
words fail me. i attended the London School of Economics in the 1980's. It turns my stomach to know that the school, along with some of it's professors, made whores of themselves for a dictator and his evil son.
why should the investigation be kept secret? why is it that when the elite commit crimes, a massive cover up always manifest itself? what is hidden, is always revealed at some point.
it's not just the university that whored after this family. so did prince charles. you would think he would know better, but charles will whore himself out to for a freebie. he's no different than his former sister n law in that regard-he loves obtaining for free what he can easily pay for.
cr
Today 03:00 AM
Mr Burleigh,
The purpose and the integrity of the Fourth Estate lives in your words.
This article deserves world attention, for its honesty, research and cold hard truth.
Pity it will disappear too soon; an inconvenient truth
W_Smith
Today 01:39 AM
Well said, Michael Burleigh.
"..Britain's elite have become everyone's pliable whores.."
That's it in a nutshell.
We have young men dying in Afghanistan while both right and left wing politicians kow-tow to every credit card carrying Arab muslim who flys into London to party
______YvesLaPointe
Today 07:43 AM
I wonder how many Chinese students who could barely say hello are walking around Shanghai with a PhD in maths from Cambridge? You single out the Arabs yet fewer Arabs are coming here for education than was true in the 1970s and 1980s; its a business, not education
____________ seethru
Today 09:44 AM
Your ignorance beggars belief. This article has nothing to do with Chinese students or Cambridge University, yet you deem fit to libel both the students and an internationally respected institution. Are you suggesting it is easy is for them to cheat and buy a PhD in Mathematics from the university with rudimentary command of English?
Universities in the UK should be flattered that a lot of wealthy Chinese are sending their children, at great expense, for their higher education. The parents see this as an investment, not for their children to live a life of Riley in UK.
____________ YvesLaPointe
Today 02:03 PM
Such naivete -I have direct experience of foreign students whose abilities in their own language are outstanding, but whose level of writing in English is equivalent to an eight year old. The point I was making is that the LSE is not unique in needing foreign students money, and not unique in admitting students whose English, frankly, isn't good enough for degrees. The purchase of written work is done through various websites which you can find, I know of at least three in the UK. You can even sign up and do paid work for them, if you feel like writing someone's essays or drafting their PhD. Its all about money
Olie
Today 01:38 AM
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt
islamictruth
Today 12:09 AM
At last, a journalist who has dares speak the truth: Britain's foreign policy has been driven since the 1930s by notions that islam and arabic are in some way "mystical" and lovely. Courageous. Please keep up your accurate and informative articles.
robnorthlondon
Today 12:05 AM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-1...
4 March 2011
'BBC News - LSE director Sir Howard Davies resigns over Libya links',
" LSE director Sir Howard Davies resigns over Libya links "
Sometimes even the BBC gets it right.
Andrew Nichols
Yesterday 11:26 PM
monster...Nazis .... yadda yadda!
Where was this commentary a year or two back when Libya was being feted so much and his academic honours handed out, when his dad was torturing rendered the rendered enemies of Britain and Uncle Sam in TWOT ? Oh that's right he was flavour of the month then and we didnt need to know of all the bad stuff....nothing to see here!...please move on....!
Now after we have put the other guys in power the Gadhaffis are deemed to be the bad guys again and we must all fall in line...
Any wonder why an incresing number of us find your coverage of Middle east stuff such hypocritical twaddle?
Free press? Yep - Free to print what the establishment need us to hear!
Iris Arum
Yesterday 11:08 PM
Instead of looking at the "shameful" role of British politicians in giving Saif Gaddafi "respectability", as if the world would care about the "moral standards" set by Tony Blair's emulators anyway, look instead into the mass murder, the dozens of thousands of innocent Libyan civilians, bombed and shattered on decision of these same virtuous politicians.
waverley
Yesterday 10:35 PM
It's refreshing to read something which discusses real issues & poses serious questions which should be of concern to all of us. What we can be sure of is that the Establishment will not join the debate nor will it give us the facts as they know it. Nor I suspect will they turn up at his trial as character witnesses.
davetweedle
Yesterday 10:25 PM
The Telegraph editor recommends this propaganda?
Did I access it via his News section?
April the First retimed for some reason
bruce_l
Yesterday 09:46 PM
Poor Saif. He is like Jesus. Nothing has change since that time. Innocent man will be executed again. The similar fate. The similar charges.
This world will never be better and we wil be not better too
______tomkyle
Today 07:13 AM
You need to change your medication or if this is really just your ignorance manifest- read about the true story of Libya and Saif al-Islam's involvement.
______ cufflink
Yesterday 10:45 PM
@bruce_I. I assume you are being ironic? If not you are a fool. A real idiot. And I'm not religious.
____________ bruce_l
Yesterday 11:15 PM
Medice, cura te ipsum
_______________
What do you think ?
Các anh chị nghĩ thế nào, có ý kiến phê bình gì qua bài viết " Saif Gaddafi: a monster of our own making" và 25 Ý kiến phê bình từ "142 Comments" của đọc giả ?
Các anh chị có suy nghĩ, nhận định gì qua câu "mở đầu" của bài viết : "With Muammar Gaddafi’s son likely to face trial in Libya, we look at the shameful roles that British academics and politicians played in giving him respectability." ? , tại sao tác giả Michael Burleigh cho đó là "the shameful roles" ?
Và qua bài viết " Saif Gaddafi: a monster of our own making" trên cũng như những Ý kiến phê bình, những người dân VN BỊ MẤT NƯỚC vào tay bè lũ phản quốc CƯỚP NƯỚC DIỆT CHỦNG BÁN NƯỚC Việt gian thổ phỉ đảng cộng sản VN học thêm bài học kinh nghiệm gì nữa cho Công Cuộc Tranh Đấu LẬT ĐỔ bè lũ cầm quyền thú vật ĐỘC tài bạo ác cộng sản VN , GIÀNH lại Quyền làm chủ đất nước VN cho dân tộc VN và xây dựng Một nước VN Tự Do Dân Chủ để vươn lên cùng thế giới ??? .
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