In a funny sort of way, I'm learning more about Libya now than when I visited the country more than 10 years ago. It is like I am only now getting the punchline of a joke I heard over a decade before. Amid the revolt currently still in play, I'm reinterpreting the memories of a holiday I thought I understood at the time but realise now I saw only a strange veneer of a more mysterious reality.
On several occasions, Libyans we met would say that what was so marvelous about their country was that unlike their neighbors - Egypt and Tunisia - they did not pimp themselves for the tourist dollar. They were as they were, no charade for appearances and no performance for the extra tip. You got what you saw, and what you saw was the truth. They would say they did not "show the other face". You got the actual face of Libya.
Well, in fact this is the joke. The joke that is on me, that is. For I bought this story hook, line and sinker. There was I delighting in all this sincerity and honesty, when in fact the biggest lie of all was being told all the time. Knowing everything I know now about the viscious oppression of this regime; its secret police, its torture and imprisonments it is now clear this was a society in denial. This was a community in fear. This was a country repressed.
Accustomed as I am to a culture of irreverent political debate and continuous municipal critique, I assumed that because no one was complaining, and every street was adorned by adoring images of The Colonel, that this was a nation at peace with it's leader and his regime. This is what I am now de-constructing, examining all my memories of that amazing fortnight and posing the question: was that real?
For instance, I just the other day received an email from my traveling companion at the time, recollecting the middle aged gentleman - Mohammed - who showed such limitless hospitality to us, insisted on paying for our accommodation and took us out to dinner every night. We assumed that he had a crush on my companion and was simply demonstrating the traditional Bedouin hospitality crossed with macho bravado. Now we wonder: was he working us, was he on duty, was he secret police?
In 1999, it was still very hard to get into Libya. We had to get an official invitation to the country to qualify for a visa. We could not fly direct, we ended up getting a taxi from Tunisia! At that time it was very unusual to travel independently, rather than in organized groups. We prided ourselves that with the post-Lockerbie thaw only just begging, we were probably some of the first backpackers to visit the country in 15 years or more. In view of what is now coming out about the regime, it is perhaps not utterly out of the question that our apparently dutiful host was taking more than just a friendly interest in our movements.
In fact, we had strange and unique welcomes in almost every town we visited. It was only on our trip south to the desert and the wild atmosphere of the Saharan dunes and oasiseseses that we felt like we were having a more typical tourist experience, free to do as we wished. Elsewhere we were almost hounded, or haunted, by the unabashed hospitality of one person or another; usually men, but sometimes their entire families were involved. Were we their guests or their charges?
It is hard to overstate how much colonel Gaddafi's image dominates the Libyan landscape, or at least did. You felt his presence everywhere, like the all seeing eye. He attended my uncle's engagement party in 1968 in Tripoli shortly before he seized power. He apparently swept in, like a royal prince, surrounded by entourage, and left just as quickly and just as mysteriously. I read his Little Green Book, some of which I even agreed with, like his thoughts on the hypocrisy of party politics, where the party claims to act in the interests of the nation, when in reality they only act in their own best interests. However, I also read the section about international revolution that ultimately led to the dreadful terrorism and the punitive bombing raids. He lost his daughter in those raids, only a fraction of the misery he inflicted on the people of Lockerbee and the passengers of Pan Am flight 103.
All of that was only recent history when we crossed the border into Libya in November 1999. We had zero idea of what to expect. There was no Lonely Planet guide to Libya. There were no anecdotes from friends. When we entered Tripoli, we found people shouting out of their car windows as they drove passed, "hello, how are you, welcome to our country." Everyone told us again and again, “your second home”, and it felt it.
The overwhelming welcome we received looked briefly in danger when walking around the Old Town in Tripoli - the scene of US and British bombing raids still very much in living memory. An old man in the street saw us and began castigating us: "heathen, infidel, murderers!" for a moment my life flashed before my eyes as unimagined myself hanging from the nearest lamppost. I relaxed quickly as I sawbthe faces of all the other people on the street, laughing. Laughing with us and at him, "crazy old man!"
The visit quickly became exactly the kind of magical mystery tour we had hoped for, with all the off-the-beaten-track purity you do not get with a well-trodden destination. The internal flights were still dogged by the fact that 15 years of sanctions meant the decaying fleet of planes had escaped maintenance or replacement for nearly a generation. As we boarded a plane from Benghazi to Tripoli, the gentleman next to me jokingly made explosion noises as we started to take off. We changed all our money on the black market for three times the value. We shared overnight bus rides across the desert with illegal immigrants from Chad...and the associated secret police.
As the regime enters what looks like its final hours, it seems ironic now that all the talk is of US jets instituting a no-fly zone to stop Gaddafi bombing his own people, when 25 years ago they were the ones bombing him and his people. I can only hope he sees sense soon and concedes defeat to prevent any more violent deaths. Perhaps then Libya can become in reality what it appeared to me eleven years ago - one of the best tourist destinations in the middle east. (Not least because of Leptis Magna - THE most impressive and best preserved Roman Ruins outside of Italy. )