The Green Book, Part 3

Part 3:  The Social Basis of the Third Universal Theory

This part of the Green Book is wide-ranging, covering topics like nationalism, family and tribal life, male-female relations, minorities, art, and sports.  One of the most important sections is the first, which discusses national identy and religion, and one of the most interesting sections is the one on gender.  I'll cover those two and just give you a taste of the rest.

Click here for Part 2.  Click here for Part 1.


Families, Tribes, and Nations

Qaddafi posits that "the survival of a community depends on the unifying social factor, namely the existence of a national identity, and this is the driving force behind the struggle of communities to achieve their own national unity and to ensure their survival."  Right up there with the desire for national identity is the "religious factor."  Qaddafi observes that religion may either divide or unite a nation, and claims that harmony should previal when each nation belongs to one religion.  Nevertheless, nations tend to have citizens of several religions, and "this diversity has become the real cause of conflict and instability in the lives of the people in all times past and present."  Therefore, Qaddafi says, "A sound rule is that every nation should have a religion."

Qaddafi says that individuals regard their families as more important than the state.  He claims that therefore, good societies are "ones in which the family flourishes," while serious problems arise when individuals are severed from their families.  His view of tribes -- defined as large extended families -- is much the same.  A tribe provides the people with important advantages, benefits, values and ideals, and it should play a role in society by giving its members a code of ethics and a social "umbrella" when times are tough.  Nations are like really big tribes, but they serve a political function as well as a social function, and the nation ultimately takes a back seat to the family and the tribe.  "To disregard the social bond of human communities, and to establish a political system counter to social reality [as it exists in families and tribes] is to create a temporary structure which will collapse because of the movement of the social factor."  

Women

The Green Book's ten-page section on women opens with this:  "Women, like men, are human beings.  This is an incontestable truth.  Therefore as humans, it is a fact that women are equal to men and to discriminate between them is a glaring inexcusable injustice.  Like men, women eat and drink, love and hate.  They can equally think, learn and comprehend, and they equally need shelter, clothing and means of transportation, and just like men, they feel the bite of hunger and thirst, and they also live and die."

But women and men aren't the same.  Qaddafi delves into the "natural difference" between them:  "According to gynaecologists women, unlike men, menstruate each month.  This menstrual cycle is a natural ailment that women must experience every month....  When a woman becomes pregnant, due to her pregnancy, she becomes less active for about a year because her pregnancy inhibits her natural vitality until she delivers the baby."  Then there's nursing the child, during which period the mother and child are "necessarily inseparable."  Men, on the other hand, are "naturally exempt" from all this.

Further on, Qaddafi suggests some other differences.  "There is also a difference in disposition, nature, temperament and shape of body.   A woman is beautiful, compassionate and emotional.  She is easily frightened and is generally a gentle being, while a man is aggressive by virtue of his inbred nature."

A woman's natural role is to be a mother, and "any mother who forsakes her duties towards her children goes against her natural role in life.  A woman should not be subjected to tyranny and oppression, and should be given rights and provided with adequate conditions which would allow her to perform her natural role in normal conditions."  She should not, for example, be expected to exert physical effort while pregnant.  "To consider women capable of carrying equal burdens as men while pregnant is unjust and cruel."  Similarly, women should not be expected to fast while breastfeeding.

That said, "there is no difference whatsoever between men and women as human beings.  Both are not to be forced into marrying against their will and both are not to be divorced without the due process of law or without mutual agreement outside the courtroom, or even to be married without prior agreement on divorce.  Moreover, the woman is the rightful owner of the house, because a home is necessary to women...."

In italics, Qaddafi writes:  "All societies today look upon women as little more than commodities.  In the East she is looked upon as a personal possession to be bought and sold, and in the West her femininity is not recognized."  In Qaddafi's view, "a world revolution is needed to do away with all the materialistic conditions that prevent women from performing their natural role in life and so drives them to carry out men's duties in order to achieve equal rights."  But at the same time, work and opportunities "should be made available by society to all capable and needy individuals, women and men, provided that each individual works in an appropriate domain and is not coerced by oppressive circumstances to go into inappropriate domains."

Other Social Issues

Qaddafi says that minorities with a social framework but without a nation of their own have their own social rights, "and it would be unjust of any party or majority to infringe upon these rights."  "To look upon a minority as a political and economic minority is dictatorial and unjust."

In a section called "Black People," Qaddafi discusses the "tragic historical phenomenon of slavery" and says that the black race is "in a dire and backward social condition" as a result.

The next section, called "Learning," inveighs against the evils of a rigid, defined curriculum, and calls for a "worldwide cultural revolution" that will "destroy all the prevalent educational systems in the world to liberate the human mentality from syllabuses that nurture fanaticism and the deliberate reshaping of man's concepts, his tastes and mentality."  Society must provide all sorts of eduction and give students the freedom to choose the discipline of their choice.  No discipline should be shut off from scholarly examination.  "Societies that monopolize religious knokwledge are also reactionary, ardent adherents of ignorance and hostile to freedom."  "Knowledge is a natural right for every human being and no one has the right to deprive others of knowledge....  Ignorance will come to an end when everything is presented as it really is; it will end when knowledge about everything is made available to every human being in a suitable way.

Rather bizarrely, Qaddafi's section on "Music and Art" focuses on his view that one day -- though not any time soon -- all of mankind will adopt a common language.

The section on "Sports, Horsemanship, and the Stage" seems to advocate the abolishment of public sports.  It states that "sport, like power, should be for the masses, and just as wealth and weapons should be for the people, sport as a social activity should also be for the people."  One day, people will stop watching sports and start playing them.  Similarly, people "who make their own life do not need to see how life takes its course through watching the actors on stage or other theaters."

And that's the end.  82 pages, straight from the Colonel himself.  Hope you enjoyed it.  And if I got anything wrong, by all means let me know and I'll correct it.