Dubai: As world leaders intensify calls for the Libyan leader to relinquish power and thousands of Libyans celebrate in the streets, here is a snapshot of some of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s most memorable quotes during recent interviews and public speeches and even from his famous Green Book:
Comments after protests and government crackdown erupted in February:
"I am not such a dictator that I would shut down Facebook. I’ll merely imprison anyone who logs in to it."
"A woman has the right to run for election whether she’s male or female!"
"There is a conspiracy to control Libyan oil and to control Libyan land, to colonise Libya once again. This is impossible, impossible. We will fight until the last man and last woman to defend Libya from east to west, north to south."
"How can the Security Council issue resolutions based on reports from news agencies?"
"I dare you to find that peaceful protesters were killed. In America, France, and everywhere, if people attacked military stores and tried to steal weapons, they will shoot them.”
"My assets are human values, the nation, glory, history. These are assets that are eternal."
"The deaths on both sides are between 150 to 200, half of them police and soldiers.”
"We challenge them (international agencies) to come with fact-finding committees. It's open for them. All the doors are open. In every place, we will enable them to know the truth."
"Al Qaida’s cells attacked security forces and took over their weapons… How did that all begin? Small, sleeper Al Qaida cells."
"I am ready to debate anyone one of them [from Al Qaida], one of their leaders, whomsoever appoints himself, who comes to me to debate with me. But they do not debate ... they do not have demands at all.”
"Muammar Gaddafi is not a president to resign, he does not even have a parliament to dissolve."
"The Libyan system is a system of the people and no one can go against the authority of the people…The people are free to choose the authority they see fit."
To Libyan people: "The Arabs are envious of you and hope destruction for you and they don't like you at all."
"Egypt is going towards the unknown. Not one Egyptian is able to reach an understanding with another Egyptian ... The army is nothing ... Egypt is nothing. It is not a popular revolt.”
General comments:
“There must be a world revolution which puts an end to all materialistic conditions hindering woman from performing her natural role in life and driving her to carry out man's duties in order to be equal in rights."
“We are telling the American people to have patience, courage, resolve and determination.”
“There is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole planet.”
Quotes from Gaddafi’s Green Book:
“Women, like men, are human beings. This is an incontestable truth… Women are different from men in form because they are females, just as all females in the kingdom of plants and animals differ from the male of their species… Since men cannot be impregnated they do not experience the ailments that women do. She breastfeeds for nearly two years.”
“There are inevitable cycles of social history: the yellow race’s domination of the world, when it came from Asia, and the white race’s attempts at colonizing extensive areas of all continents of the world. Now, it is the turn of the black race to prevail in the world.”
“While it is democratically not permissible for an individual to own any information or publishing medium, all individuals have a natural right to self-expression by any means, even if such means were insane and meant to prove a person’s insanity.”
“Mandatory education is a coercive education that suppresses freedom. To impose specific teaching materials is a dictatorial act.”
“If a community of people wears white on a mournful occasion and another dresses in black, then one community would like white and dislike black and the other would like black and dislike white. Moreover, this attitude leaves a physical effect on the cells as well as on the genes in the body.”
“Sporting clubs which constitute the traditional sports institutions in the world today are rapacious social instruments. The grandstands of public athletic fields are actually constructed to obstruct access to the fields.”
“Labour in return for wages is virtually the same as enslaving a human being. In a socialist society no person may own a private means of transportation for the purpose of renting to others, because this represents controlling the needs of others.”
“No representation of the people — representation is a falsehood. The mere existence of parliaments underlies the absence of the people, for democracy can only exist with the presence of the people and not in the presence of representatives of the people.”
