Colonel Gaddafi died on this day in 2011. A few years later, I visited Libya and had a meeting with the director of the national theatre there. We got to talking about Gaddafi and he was surprised that I didn’t out and out condemn like most westerners (far as he was concerned, I was an Englishman, imagine, to him) did. He told me that if I ever write a poem about Gaddafi, he would publish it. This is the sonnet I wrote... (haven’t sent it to him)…
For Muammar al-Gaddafi.
#After Simon Armitage
And he took power in a bloodless coup
And brought his people democratic rule
And championed free speech, building new schools
And hung a student who critiqued his views.
And all his speeches were received lukewarm
And he kept promises he’d made to charm
And gave free equipment to start-up farms
And gunned down protestors marching unarmed.
And to each Libyan he pledged a home
And channelled a river through desert stone
And fought imperialism from his bones
And never found peace, and he died alone.
Here’s how we should rate him when we look back:
Sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that.