Gaddafi: Chasing the wind

I did not restrain myself from getting whatever I wanted;
I did not deny myself anything that would bring me pleasure.
So all my accomplishments gave me joy;
this was my reward for all my efforts.

Yet when I reflected on everything I had accomplished
and on all the efforts that I had expended to accomplish it,
I concluded: “All these achievements and possessions are ultimately profitless – like chasing the wind!

                                                              — Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 


The death of Muammar Gaddafi a few days ago reminded me of this theme in the Bible - that our life is just like chasing the wind. For 42 years after he seized power in a military coup that overthrew King Idris Senussi on September 1, 1969, Gaddafi enjoyed the pleasures that material wealth could bring but died an ignoble death.

After all those years of living in opulence while ruling Libya with absolute power, Gaddafi spent his last days on the run until he was captured hiding like a rat - his own description of the rebels who chased him after the fall of Tripoli - in a drainage. The man, who tortured his foes during his rule, was himself lynched before he was shot to death.

His life story was not the stuff that would inspire people who abhor violence. Although he did not lack admirers for standing up to the United States and its allies, he was despised by most people across the world for his own brand of terrorism and for sponsoring rebellion in Western countries and their allies.

Although Gaddafi and several other military officers launched the 1969 coup with a lofty cause to rid Libya of a despot, the son of peasant parents gradually installed himself as a tyrant who jailed and tortured those who opposed his regime. His iron-fist rule sent millions of Libyans to flee to other countries. It's a realization of the dictum that power begets power.

One of the bizarre stories I read about the eccentric Gaddafi was his attempt to seduce women reporters whom he had invited to Libya for an alleged interview. When the reporters went there, he invited them one of a time to his tent and tried to preposition each of them. After failing to seduce the first three women, he gave up.

At the height of the Libya rebellion that started in Bengahazi, Gaddafi struck a pathetic figure of a leader desperately hanging on to power. Newspaper accounts after his death portrayed Gaddafi spending his last days hovering between defiance and delusion, surviving on rice and pasta scourged by his guards from empty civilian houses.

Nobody could have missed the irony that the body of the man who entertained a delusion of grandeur throughout his life was kept in a meat freezer, along with that of his son who reportedly spent $2 million a month in lavish living, naked from the waist up. News reports said that before he was shot dead, a terrified Gaddafi begged for his life.

Gaddafi's ignoble death reminds me of the biblical admonition not to love the world, the mundane things that we are always tempted to amass, but to pile up heavenly treasures that do not rust, cannot be stolen by thieves or eaten by moths.

We must bear the fruits of the Spirit.




Related Biblical Quotes:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23\






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