Dusting Off The Welcome Mat - 20.03.2004

20.03.2004 By Daniel Williams Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, March 20, 2004; Page C01 TRIPOLI -- When Libyans want to describe something as really good, they use the expression miyeh-miyeh, Arabic for 100 percent. An American introducing himself on the streets of Tripoli, Libya's capital, is likely to hear miyeh-miyeh a lot. Perhaps more than other citizens of the Arab world, Libyans seem happy to greet Americans -- and do so without the usual complaints voiced elsewhere about Washington's foreign policy, its association with dictatorial governments and dominance of the world stage. As I could gather from a dozen conversations over the period of a week, the friendliness seems to be based partly on the belief that renewed relations with the United States, in store now that Libya is giving up its nuclear and chemical weapons programs, will bring Americans and their investment and tourist dollars to Libya. But Americans have another appeal for those Libyans, many of whom are fed up with the 35-year rule of Moammar Gaddafi. Because of the role long played by the United States as Gaddafi's chief foreign adversary, these Libyans assume that American travelers are political soul-brothers sympathetic to their complaints. "America is good. Miyeh-miyeh. I am glad we will be friends," said Mohammed Barous, a barber. He rubbed his index fingers together, a gesture signifying brotherhood. "Gaddafi is not good. He made a lot of trouble for us and America was right to be against him." The pro-American talk is strange considering the history of the two countries' relations over the past three decades. In 1986, after Libya was linked to the bombing of a disco in Germany that killed two American soldiers, President Ronald Reagan ordered airstrikes on the country. Successive administrations enforced rigid economic sanctions on Libya, also first imposed by Reagan, that hindered development of its oil fields and inhibited trade. Libya had been named by U.S. governments as a state sponsor of terrorism and implicated in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. For two generations, Libyans were taught that America was an enemy, the evil heart of imperialism. Yet many Libyans appear to blame Gaddafi and not Washington, recalling a litany of Gaddafi policies they consider harmful or downright ridiculous. Among them are the vast nationalization of industry, the suppression of salaries as a form of virtual slavery, tolerance of mass migration from poor sub-Saharan countries and Gaddafi's self-declared right to rule forever. For once in the Arab world, the United States is not regarded as complicit. Omar Fakroon, an electrical engineer, was happy just to be able to practice his English. He pointed out that the government prohibits foreign-language signs in Libya, making it hard for outsiders to navigate. "He said we are Arab and only Arabic should be seen. It's stupid. Every place in the world has signs of other languages, and here we want every visitor to know only Arabic," he said. "Gaddafi said he was king of the Arab world, and now he says he's king of the Africans. He can't even take care of Libya." An electrical engineer who moonlights as a taxi driver praised decades of American policy for "putting sense into a crazy man." "You know Gaddafi is a lunatic," said the driver, Ghazi, who spoke on condition that only that his first name be used. "He has driven Libya into the ground. Thank you, thank you for saving us." Libyans' familiarity with the United States mostly comes secondhand. Occasionally someone mentions having a relative in Chicago or Detroit. Gaddafi has permitted Internet cafes and residential satellite dishes, so Libyans are versed in such American pop products as "Walker, Texas Ranger" and even "Sex and the City." If you ask Libyans to name an American, they frequently answer with action heroes like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, or pop stars such as Britney Spears and J-Lo. American pop culture is one thing, American political ideas quite another. Last week, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) visited the country and spoke to the annual gathering of Libya's People's Congress, a rubber-stamp body made up of several hundred Gaddafi loyalists. Biden said he was assured his speech -- about the need for democratization in Libya and the Arab world -- would be broadcast live on television. But though his face and words were carried on a big TV screen at the congress hall in Sirte, a city on the Mediterranean coast, they were not broadcast outside. Giuma Abulkher, a government spokesman, said a live broadcast was not in the plans and did not know where Biden got his information. The warming of relations with the United States appears to have emboldened Libyans to speak to strangers, within limits. For instance, at the Afriqiya Internet cafe in Sirte, the rows of computers are behind curtains. This permits users to work in private and in the case of Ahmad, an employee at a natural gas company, to converse with a reporter by typing onto the screen. "You are American?" he wrote, then whispered, "miyeh-miyeh." "I hate our president," he typed. "I hate being in Libya. I want to go to another country." I wrote: "But Libya is going to get better. It is opening." "But our president is still here. It will take 10 or 20 years to change. You don't know. He and his friends control everything. You can be put in jail for nothing." Reporters have relative freedom to hold such conversations in Libya, compared to conditions in Saddam Hussein's prewar Iraq. In Iraq, it was difficult to shed the escorts the government provided and required reporters to use. In Libya, the escorts seem only too happy to retire early to their hotel rooms, watch television and lose sight of their journalistic charges. Nonetheless, Libyan officials seem to expect that reporters will move only in proscribed ways. Recently, I arrived alone by taxi in Sirte for the congress and showed up at a guesthouse to look for a room. "What group are you with?" an official at the hotel asked. "No group," I answered. "But you must have a group." "No. I just came for the congress. An American, Joseph Biden, is going to speak there." "Biden? Is he with a group?" "Sort of. The United States Senate." "Fine. You can be with his group." After a night at the guesthouse, the Libyans pinned down where Biden was staying and moved me over there. They also supplied an escort for the remainder of the stay in Sirte. Roman ruins that dot the country's north coast are good places for Libyans to speak on the sly to foreigners. It seems perfectly natural for a Libyan to act as a guide, and the ruins are mostly deserted. There are few people to eavesdrop. At Sabratha, the ruins of a Roman port west of Tripoli, Shukri Soussa, who introduced himself as a medical student, sidled up and asked where I was from. He said a robust "miyeh-miyeh" when the answer came back American. He made broad gestures as if showing off the colonnaded amphitheater and the ruined temples, all the while actually telling a tale of his father's jailing. He said his father was a preacher at a mosque in Zawiyah and joined others in criticizing Gaddafi. He was thrown in jail for five years. The family did not know where he was. "When he got out, we hardly recognized him, he was so thin," Soussa said as he pointed to a Roman plaque. "He had scars on his arms and wrists from lashing and being tied up. "Really, everyone is just wanting Gaddafi to go away. But I'm afraid it will not happen because lots of people will try to escape Libya instead. That is why young people in particular are happy about relations with the Americans and Europe. Maybe now we can escape. We want the normal things. A house, a car, life. Just like the Americans have. We want to have a life like you." Source:washingtonpost.com