Reply #51: Libyans look back fondly to monarchy before Gaddafi coup

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Source: Financial Times

June 26, 2011 6:56 pm

By Neil MacDonald in Tobruk



Above the facades around Tobruq’s harbour, the flag of the Kingdom of Libya flutters again. Portraits of Idris I, the king ousted nearly 42 years ago, sit in shop windows next to those of Omar al-Mukhtar, an earlier anti-colonial warrior.


“Every Libyan loves King Idris. Every Libyan loves Omar al-Mukhtar. And every Libyan hates Muammer Gaddafi,” says Adel Aroud, a watchman in the eastern port town.


Affection for the king is more a rejection of the detour the country took under Colonel Gaddafi, the leader still clinging to power in central and western Libya, than a sign that Libyans pine for a return to monarchical rule. “We remember the king as good. Having a king again now is not important,” says Moussa Saad, a tourist policeman who grew up on a British base 25km south of Tobruk, near King Idris’s favourite palace.

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In Tobruq’s main square, the colonial-era Catholic church, as well as the former king’s mosque, stir up nostalgia. “These fine buildings are all from the king’s time,” says a man sipping tea under a neo-Romanesque arch. “Gaddafi built nothing good, especially here in the east.”

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http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b0d8b2d6-a01a-11e0-a115-00144feabdc0.html