Posts
According to many news reports, the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will be travelling to Libya tomorrow to formally apologise for the awful atrocities committed by the Italian occupation in Libya.
He will in a speech to the Libyan people from Al-Manar Palace in Benghazi try to put an end to this very painful period that our ancestors have suffered, what the Italians did in Libya was a crime on a massive scale, a crime that still hurts and haunts all of us when we read or see pictures of the ghastly crimes they committed, including setting up concentration camps where thousands of Libyans perished and that was long before the equally disgusting Nazi concentration camps, the Italians used new weapons that have never been tried before, such as airplanes, tanks and different types of bombs, the Libyans were used as guinea pigs at the receiving end.
Can we forgive Italy for what they did? in my opinion yes we can, it was committed by a different generation and we can not hold Italian people responsible for what happened decades ago but Italy is obliged to compensate the Libyan people, this will not make us forget but it will at least make us feel that they are sorry for what happened, I have read about a new road connection Egypt to Tunisia through Libya at the cost of £6 billion Euros to be built by Italy, I am not sure if this is a good way to pay for their country's crimes, another thing I read was Italy is to clear Libya of all landmines, this is good and to be encouraged because this will benefit many, how about compensating all people that were killed and maimed by Italian landmines, how about opening schools and hospitals run by Italians with the latest in technology for our people to benefit from, these are really much better than just a road which probably already exists anyway.
It is time for us to forgive but we should never forget what our people went through, we should never forget Omar El-Mokhtar, Ramadan Elswihli, Suliman Elbarouni and many many others who were equally heroic and most of all we should never forget what happened to the thousands of unnamed men, women and children that fought the fascist Italians and lost their lives doing so, forgive Yes, forget No.*Most pictures are from Libya Our Home
19 comments:
salam mr anglo a u said libyans won't forget what italians did but even them they never forgot hw libyans were i was there 3yrs ago & we met a millionare ther he was born in libya as his father was working here ,,can u belive that he insisted 2 invite us 2 lunch & he told us that we should be very proud that we belong 2 libyan fighters ,,so really evey one knows as u said we can't blame them abut what their grands did cuz our grands shew them a lesson..so it's as u said a new page of political realtion not a forgettn page....by the way he'll be so near 4m my house ...i'll go there're & i'll tell him....i'm joking..
my 17's grandfather's brothers and cousins were killed by Italians in one go.in the other hand they introduce many good thing for Libyans factories, schools,newspapers,improve our agriculture resource(Olive trees)what Libyan learn from Italians in 30 years is more than what they learn from Turkish in 400 years, yes they lost a lot of people in the war, but they were already fighting each other before that (tribes fighting)
i think the compensation is not fair is not about how much it is about how it can give a real change to Libyan people. to be honest with you build a road for 6 or 4 lanes for 2000km is not easy thing, but also i agree with u they could do things in health or education sector which will be more benefit for the people.
Oh bro i need post like ths after my last post cuz my head became double his size ... I totaly agree 'e u we should forgive bt nt forget ... D world called italia " idiot " cuz stay in libya 4 many yrs & dnt discover oil plus building tripoli as a modern city ...4 me iam ready 2 new start 'e new italia bt we stll nt forget our grands ... Salam
Well said AL, thank you. Just a remark about Ghoma El-Mahmoudi, who belongs to another era and was dead already when the Italians envaded Libya.
salam
great post as usual,& i add my voice 2 yours that these amount of money must be spended 2 establish a decent infrastructures inside Libya 4 da Libyan 1st.
BLESSED RAMADAN
salam A-LY the hero
i was thinking in the same way when its become known that the italain official will visit libya, and visit qasar el minar, how can we react as libyan who our dads and granddads given away their lives to the loving land, but then i said its a victory for our dead once for an enemy to stand up and say sorry in the same place when the late omar el mukhtar was given the death pepenalty,i know what the italian did was beyond believe .that was the most darkness era in our lives, we fought hard and we won, as u said we might forgive, but we never forger, every one has to pay the price at one point, i think we got a great deal out of it, thanx for homely post
salam ya Weda
thanks for sharing this nice story, on the other hand there are many Libyan born Italians that looked and still look down on us, good and bad everywhere.
you should go and tell him :o)
I am sorry brave heart for the loss of your relatives but that is something that affected more or less all Libyans, we even had relatives exiled to Italy never to be seen or heard of again.
its true that the Ottoman occupation put Arab countries back in the dark ages after they were of the most advanced in the world but awful crimes of the Italians out weighed by far any good the Italians did in Libya to people that they occupied and opressed and didnt want them there.
thanks for visiting :o)
ahlan Abdallah
what a big massive headache you have on your blog, Allah help you.
lol @ my head became double his size ...
only you come up with gems like that :o)
Italy was considered the most backward country in Europe at that time.
salam dear Gheriani
thank you brother for pointing out my mistake, of course you are absolutely right.
thank you Libyan woman, I appreciate what you said and blessed Ramadan to you and your family too.
ahlan dear DTD
lets hope inshaAllah that the memory of all the dead is respected and that our people for once get to benefit from something that can improve their lives.
good to see you back.
Yes we will never forget
I'll for ever remember that Libyan woman layed dead,chained, naked and humilated on an Italian street, passerbys looking at her as if she is a dead dog littering their high brow city.
That was in an old Italian newspaper.
For her and many killed,rapped, deported and disowned innocent Libyan we will never forget.
hi anglo!
i'm really sorry for all that! unfortunately few people know about this atrocity in libyan!
i never understood how presidents think that a "i'm sorry" can come back on time and erase all the monstrousness their countries have done.
in brasil, the vatican killed thousands of indigrnous in the name of god.
thanks for sharing it!
leandra
What an amazing amazing and powerful post dear AL.
Indeed we should be very mindful of the past and never forget it, but we can forgive on a personal level and move on.
Now that you reminded me of this, I dunno what to do with my italian landlord here!!
Anyway Ramadan Kareem to you, as it might be tomorrow or Monday and best wishes for a super beneficial month. I can't wait for tarawee7 in the central mosque, may it be benificial for us all.
oh anglo ... god bless u for that ... and we wont forget it for ever ..
about forgiveness .. for sure we wont blame anyone about what did them fathers do ??
but who did that sure I wont forgive them ... and all of them died now so they r between god's hands...
have a blessed Ramadan ...
Best regards
Salam.. .
Thank you so much for your brilliant post.
I totally agree with you, we may forgive but we will NEVER forget what the Italians did to our country and our people. They killed hundreds of thousands and caused so much misery.
Most young people today in Libya don't really know or realise the extent of suffering they caused to our people. The extreme racism, murderous brutality they showed was almost unprecedented.
I remember a few years ago, the current Italian prime minister stated: "Western civilization was better (than Islamic civilization)for a number of reasons, including respect for human and religious rights".
The "better" Western human civilization that he mentioned that wiped out aprox. half of our population, the western human rights that led to millions of deaths across the Arab and most of the so called "third" world during imperialism.
I am fully aware that almost all of the Italians are peace loving and wish us no harm, but this is also true for current Germany and what they did to the Jews in WWII, they still bare responsibility as should Italy.
It's not just about money, its about common basic human decency, that they should know what they did to us.
I ask you to do one thing, go on any Italian newspaper, and read the Italian readers comments (use google translate) to the current talk about Italy's compensation offer, reading through the comments, I had a sense most Italians feel what Berlusconi is doing is wrong on agreeing on the compensation, and I also had a feeling that they are totally ignorant of what there parents and grandparents did to us. Is it ignorance or arrogance?
I even remember that the Italians banned the film directed by the late Mustafa Akkad (Omar Mukhtar: The Lion of the Desert). Why I ask? Is the truth too much to bare?
I remember not too long ago Mussolini's granddaughter who is an MEP said this about Libya and Libyans:
"Libyans would still be on 'camels' if it hadn't been for her grandfather." (http://www.middle-east-online.com/English/?id=15904 )
Forgetting the fact that her Grandfather's Italians murdered thousands of Libyans, forgetting that her grandfather forced Libyans to the desert and into concentration camps, where death, sickness, rape were inflicted by the Italian occupying forces. Libyans were forcefully denied any form of education or any dignity, they were forced into deprivation, poverty and death, and then this MEP with her shameful family heritage of which she is so proud says these blatant lies.
The issue I have is that Italians hear her, and do not hear the truth of what really happened, they will believe her, and think that their occupation was a blessing on us, not the terrible curse it was.
I don't care about our current political state in Libya, that does not change the facts about the brutal history of Italian occupation. We should all stand as one when it comes to this issue.
Italians need to lift their ignorance and realise what we suffered, and realise it's not about money. In fact Italy up to today is our biggest trading partner and earns billions from us through trade and investment. So we are no beggars, in fact the Italians take more from us than we do from them. If we were vengeful like many Western societies we would have banned any form of trade with Italy.
The 5 billion that Italy intends to pay to Libya over 25 years is pittance to what it did to us, and what we suffered, in fact most of the 5 Billion will end up in the pockets of Italian companies any way.
It's not about the money, as no money will pay for what happened. It's about recognition, dignity and "never again".
I am not against Italy, in fact most young people in Libya today ironically love Italy, they even support the Italian soccer team over most other European ones! I would love that we turn a new page, and our nations become true friends and partners, we have so much history, we are close neighbours. But, this will not fully happen if the Italians, both government and people continue to ignore and block out the crimes of their forefathers.
True forgiveness will only come once they lose their ignorance and arrogance and truly recognize what they did, not just to do it to win trading concessions.
We do not ask that they take the blame, but we do ask that they recognize the truth and do what other occupiers have done and apologize and repent.
Please A.L and others watch this video (maybe you can post it):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RdXLYCOSpQ
On a closing not, as stated before, Berlusconi once noted that Western civilisation which he thinks is superior to the Islamic one, we will never seek your form of superiority and will always be proud of our Islamic religion and our Libya.
Thank you again and sorry for the long comment and Happy Ramadan AL to you and everyone.
Long may truth and peace prevail.
As usual it is always pleasure to read your post.
Ramadan Kareem
youtube.com/watch?v=0aaa3_cLnUo&feature=related
naohama
a very big welcome to my blog and thanks for the commen.
it is a painful image
Thank you Leandra, I am glad that I showed you part of our history.
dear Bujassem, thanks for the support and have a wonderful and peaceful Ramadan.
ahlan ya Loza, thank you and Ramadan Mubarak to you and your family.
anonymous, thank you for a fantastic comment, I hope you dont mind but I actually published it in my latest post
Ramadan Mubarak
music lover, when did you sneek in?? :oS
Ramadan Kareem to you and the family and thank you
to anon that posted that long comment..
i saw the youtube clip and found it most interesting!
a friend of mine is italian and he used to tell me about the old songs they used to sing in Abyssinia, and I even have a few of them on mp3... i checked the lyrics and they are not very PC but not as bad as what that sheikh was saying on youtube...
i wonder if you have the italian transcript of any of those songs about Libya or can give me further information. I'd like to quiz my italian friend a bit more and understand what really happened.
on a more positive note, Ramadan Kareem to all :D
dear AL, is it foggy where you are? here it's freaky and dark!
salam Buj
today its dark, foggy and so misrable, it is raining so hard that we can not watch satellite TV!
a friend of mine sent me links before for Italian/Libyan websites, some good some bad and racist, I will try and find them and send them to you or anon can do that too.
this link is supposed to be one of the worst Italian websites:
http://www.zeriba.net/
There are pieces of history must be high lighted..
Italian occupying forces were the first to use air planes in battles..and that was in Libya..
It was the first to invent the notorious Concentration Camps ,way before Germans start putting Jews in them..
It was an occupation ,simple and plane.. It brought sadness to our grand fathers..My father have memories of his father telling him about those who died in these concentration camps.
Yes ,we can forgive..I believe we did already...but forgetting??? this is another matter...
أحسنت
Agree, "We should forgive we will never forget". But we should always remind the world and the new Italian generations as well as our people of this.
This is only what they have captured on camera!! We can imagine and wondering about the unseen once.
Post a Comment