Word: libya
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...what he calls a "People's Revolution." Designed to expand his military dictatorship into a nationwide grass-roots movement, it so far has spawned more than 400 "people's committees" in villages, towns, factories and schools-and more are being formed daily. TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn visited Libya and cabled this assessment of Gaddafi's most recent efforts to transform his oil-rich but backward nation...
...star and crescent of Islam have replaced the cross atop the spires. Everywhere, curling, zigzagging Arabic letters have supplanted the Latin alphabet. In front of the Souk al-Turk (Turkish bazaar), there is a statue of Septimius Severus, the Roman Emperor (A.D. 146-211) who was born in Libya. A visitor would not know who it was if he could not read Arabic, since the plaque in Latin letters has been removed. Today the few Italians remaining in Tripoli jokingly refer to Severus as "Signer...
Most Libyans are rather shabbily dressed. But Tripoli, unlike Cairo, has few beggars, and taxi drivers often disdainfully reject tips. Libya's vast oil revenues (currently $2 billion per year) have enabled Gaddafi to introduce a minimum wage for workers of about $180 a month and an allowance for university students of about $75 a month...
...most sweeping change is the gathering momentum of the People's Revolution. When Gaddafi launched it, he noted that Libya's legal code was mostly the product of "Italian and British imperialism." Since it would take years to draft a new code, he suspended all existing laws and authorized the people's committees to proceed on an ad hoc basis, governed only by "the full precepts of justice, the commandments of Islam and the interests of the people." The committees have gone on a witch-hunting, book-burning binge, aimed at restoring Libya to Islamic purity...
Ritual Phrase. Gaddafi's revolution has particular appeal to the nation's university students, who have worked hard to rid Libya's schools of alien influences. On Libya University's 8,500-student Tripoli campus, committees composed of professors, students and workers determine the curriculum and teaching methods. There I talked with Saddiqa Arriba, an attractive brunette wearing blue slacks and a knee-length tunic. As some students now do, she introduced many of her remarks with the ritual phrase Bismillah, ar-Rahman ar-Rahim (In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate...