Muammar Gaddafi

**Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi** (ARA: معمر محمد ابو منيار القذافي) was a Libyan General, politician, and philosopher who served as the head of state of Libya in various forms from 1969 to 2011. Under Gaddafi's rule, Libya quickly industrialized, and the literacy rate and quality of life drastically increased. Gaddafi was known for his eccentricities and provocative foreign policy decisions. He was removed from power by an American-backed coup d'etat and executed by rebels in 2011, plunging Libya into a brutal and ongoing civil war.

## Muammar Gaddafi

### Affiliation

Arab Socialist Union (1971-1977)
Independent (1977-2011)

### Occupation

Libyan head of state, General, philosopher

## Biographical information

### Place of death

Sirte, Libya

Muammar Gaddafi was born in rural Sirte, then in the Italian colony of Libya, in 1942. Gaddafi's childhood saw brutal warfare and colonial exploitation by Western powers ravage his homeland, leading him to develop anti-imperialist views. While at school, a young Gaddafi encountered Pan-Arab and anti-imperialist philosophy for the first time. As a young man, Gaddafi witnessed several pivotal events unfold in the middle east, from the Arab-Israeli Wars to the Egyptian Revolution and Suez Crisis. Gaddafi idolized Gamal Abdel Nasser, the President of Egypt, who combined Pan-Arab and anti-imperialist views with anti-capitalist and revolutionary socialist agitation. Gaddafi was inspired by Nasser and organized protests against the unpopular Western-backed Libyan monarchy. Gaddafi continued to read political theory, with a particular interest in the French Revolution and thinkers like Sun Yat-Sen and Abraham Lincoln.

Gaddafi joined an officer school in 1963 and organized a revolutionary cell called the Libyan Free Officer's Movement, based on the group of a similar name led by Nasser in Egypt. As unrest grew in Libya, the King went on vacation abroad and Gaddafi seized the opportunity to launch a coup d'etat. Gaddafi proclaimed the Libyan Arab Republic and began a programme of socio-economic reorganization designed to modernize the country. Gaddafi nationalized foreign oil companies and renegotiated oil contracts, leading to an economic boom. His social reforms combined traditional Islamic law with socialist reforms including greatly increased minimum wage, a ban on alcohol and nightclubs, and a rapid expansion of the welfare state. He also reformed women's rights, banning marriages for women under 16 and making women's consent necessary. He also built dozens of hospitals and homes and created hundreds of thousands of jobs via the public sector. In the first years of his rule, common diseases like malaria were virtually eradicated. Gaddafi cultivated close ties with other Pan-Arabist and Ba'athist countries like Egypt and Syria and proposed a political union, though this did not come to fruition. However, Gaddafi created tension with the US when he backed anti-colonial and anti-Imperialist groups like the PLA in Palestine. This soon extended to support for groups like the Black Panthers, Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the African National Congress, and Irish Republican Army. Some groups he supported, like the Red Army Faction in Germany, committed violent acts of terrorism.