The whims and menace of Muammar Gaddafi

With his exotic dress sense, all-girl squad of bodyguards and often whimsical aphorisms, Libya’s embattled Muammar Gaddafi has been an enigma of the North African desert for more than 40 years.

His take on Shakespeare, England’s greatest dramatist, for example. Not so, according to Gaddafi self-styled “leader of the Arab leaders, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of the Muslims”.

“Shakespeare, the great playwright of Arab origin,” he proclaims, explaining that of course the writer must have been an Arab, with a name like Sheikh Zubayr.

In the personal vocabulary of the Guide of the Libyan Revolution, the ancestors of the native Americans also originated in northern Africa: America takes its name from one Emir Ka.

The name was apparently later appropriated by Italian navigator and explorer Amerigo Vespucci.

As a young colonel, Muammar Gaddafi on September 1, 1969, led a coup overthrowing the Western-backed elderly King Idriss, and quickly established himself as a belligerent, unpredictable and flamboyant leader.

Reputedly born in a Bedouin tent in the desert near Sirte in 1942, Col Gaddafi alienated the West soon after seizing power, accusing it of launching a “new crusade” against the Arabs.

He idolised Egyptian President and fervent Arab nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser, and also variously declared himself a fan of Mao Zedong, Stalin and even Hitler.

Libya became an international pariah in the aftermath of the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing, but relations began to thaw in 2003 when oil-rich Tripoli agreed to pay compensation to the families of the 270 people killed.

In February 2009, Col Gaddafi became chairman of the African Union, after he tired of championing Arab unity and months after African tribal dignitaries bestowed on him the title of “king of kings”.

His physical appearance can be startling. Gaddafi often dresses in colourful flowing robes, surrounded by his entourage of Amazonian bodyguards. When in uniform, his jacket, shoulders and cap sparkle with gold braid and medallions.

Last Friday he appeared before chanting supporters in Tripoli’s Green Square, this time wearing a Russian-style chapka hat, its flaps dangling over his ears as he jabbed the air with a finger.

In a brief but chilling address presaging a bloody battle for the capital, he said the rebellion against him would be defeated.

“We will fight them and we will beat them,” Gaddafi told the crowd on Friday. “If needs be, we will open all the arsenals.”

Eastern Libya has slipped from his control since the popular uprising began in Benghazi on February 15, inspired by the revolts in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia.

He has blamed the uprising on Al-Qaeda, calling the protesters drug-fuelled and under the influence of Osama bin Laden’s nebulous extremist network.

In the past his less chilling remarks have attracted attention for their originality, if nothing else.

For example, Switzerland – with which Libya had a lengthy spat after one of Col Gaddafi’s sons was arrested there – is “close” to Libya but “less deve-loped.”

And the humble hamburger contributed to Washington’s Cold War victory over Moscow, because this “mixture of mice, frogs and cockroaches helped in the destruction of the Soviet Union”.

Col Gaddafi’s whipping boys, whom he excoriates because they exercise “unproductive trades”, include lawyers and rose-sellers.

The Britain-trained officer and author of the Green Book on his “third universal theory” has seen parallels between himself and both Jesus Christ and the Prophet Mohammed, who he said were “unaware of the universal renown that awaited them”.

The lover of female company never travels abroad without his famous Bedouin tent, and at home he also greets favoured visitors under canvas.

In Paris, on a 2007 visit, he pitched his heated, 200-square-metre tent in the garden of the Hotel Marigny, the official government guesthouse.

In August last year he caused controversy during a visit to Italy.

“Islam should become the religion of all of Europe,” he was quoted as telling 500 young women paid to attend a lecture he delivered in Rome.

His allies have also been targets of his wit. In Algiers in 2005, he labelled Palestinians “idiots”, provoking laughter not only from Arab leaders but even from Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.

At a 1988 Arab summit he wore a white glove so he would not have to shake the “bloodstained hands” of some leaders, and the following year he blew smoke from a huge cigar at the face of the late Saudi King Fahd.