The news emanating from Libya is depressing. Over two years after the capture and death of dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, chaos reigns, as the country tries to lay the foundation of a new democracy. As former rebels?who showed incredible courage to overthrow Gaddafi?militias and different tribes try to stake claim to more authority and power, ordinary citizens are caught in the crossfire. To give just one example, in the eastern part of the country, the Cyrenaica regional authority and its armed protestors have taken control of three major ports, which, as per reports, exported 6,00,000 barrels of crude per day. As the government and rebels fight over control over oil exports?Libya?s main foreign exchange earner?revenues have shrunk and the government may not be able to pay salaries or build new schools, hospitals or roads if the rift, which has been on for the past six months, continues.
Amid this crisis comes a book from French investigative journalist Annick Cojean of Le Monde, giving voice to one of the most marginalised sections of Libyan society?its women. It is an incredible portrait of what happens to a country when one person calls the shots, the havoc it wreaks on society. In the case of Libya, she describes the effect Gaddafi?s 42-year reign had on women, who were routinely kidnapped, raped and humiliated.
When Cojean first arrived in Libya in October 2011, days after Gaddafi?s death, to investigate the role of women in the revolution, she was ?intrigued by the complete absence of women in the films, photographs, and reports that had recently appeared?. This was a country, which?when Gaddafi was the leader and self-styled ?Guide??had been used to seeing the guards of his female corps (the famous Amazons) become ?the standard bearer of his own revolution?. She found out that the women were ?the secret weapon of the rebellion?. A rebel leader told her that the women encouraged, fed, hid, transported, looked after and provided information to the fighters, as they had a ?personal account to settle with the Colonel?.
Cojean would soon find out what he had meant by ?personal account?. This was the time she met Soraya, who hailed from Sirte, Gaddafi?s last bastion from where he was captured and executed. Cojean writes that Soraya was barely 15 when Gaddafi noticed her during a visit to her school. She was abducted the next day and taken to Bab al-Azizia, Gaddafi?s palatial compound near Tripoli, where she, together with other young girls, became his sexual slave. She was imprisoned for several years and beaten, raped and ?exposed to every perversion of a sex-obsessed tyrant?. But is Libya hearing her story? Soraya, now 22 years old, lives on the margins of society, forgotten by her family and everyone else.
Justice, reconciliation and dignity of women?these are important to consider if Libya wants to move on to a better future, but, as Cojean describes in the book, the new Libya isn?t ready to talk of this. No one hesitates, says Cojean, to pour scorn on Gaddafi and to demand that light be shed on his 42 years of depravity. ?But no one wants to hear about the hundreds of young girls whom he enslaved and raped. Those girls should just disappear or emigrate, wrapped in a veil, their grief bundled up inside a bag. The simplest thing yet would be for them to die. And some of the men in their families are prepared to take care of that,? she writes.
When Cojean began her investigation to bring to light crimes against women in Libya under Gaddafi, she became the target of threats and intimidation. ?For the sake of Libya, and for your own sake, drop this investigation,? she was advised. A minister told her that though he was disgusted with the affronts perpetrated on so many young people, he felt the best thing to do would be to keep quiet. ?The Libyans feel collectively tainted and want to turn the page,? he said.
But Soraya?s story needed to be told, the conspiracy of silence broken. And Cojean has done that and more to keep Libya and the world on the page. Once she had heard Soraya, she followed it up with an investigation into Gaddafi?s abuses of power through interviews with other women who were abused?most of them didn?t want to be named because rape is a taboo subject and the victims are ostracised.
The greater tragedy, if there can be one, is that the crimes against women will not be talked about, that there won?t be justice. As Soraya says: ??I really wanted to testify in a court of justice. Why should I have to be ashamed? Why do I have to hide? Why should I have to pay for the harm he did me?? Cojean observes that in post-Gaddafi Libya, ?women are getting back in touch with their ambitions again, while being quite aware that, in spite of everything, people?s minds can?t be changed overnight?. There are no easy answers for a society that is trying to come out of the shadows of a terrible past.
Sudipta Datta is a freelancer