There’s truth in the cliché that actions speak louder than words. Benjamin
Barber, once a board member of the Saif Gaddafi Foundation, has
defended his former patron in today’s Guardian. He declares:
‘I still believe that among the conflicting voices that vie for Saif’s tortured soul there is the voice of a genuine democrat and a Libyan patriot.’
Barber condemns Saif’s ‘abominable actions in the current crisis’, but remains convinced that his dalliance with democracy was genuine. Oblivious of the attendant irony, Barber cites Saif’s book, Manifesto, where the man who would later vow to fight to the death through rivers of Libyan blood wrote:
‘I believe it is the duty of the people to rebel against tyranny.’
Blood, it seems, runs thicker than anything. But perhaps that is to be too generous to those whom Saif once beguiled.
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