GADDAFI: DEAD BUT STILL CELEBRATED

Last month, Libyans poured out into the streets all across the country to celebrate and commemorate their 1969 revolution - led by Muammar Gaddafi. Today, 20 October, marks the anniversary of his summary execution by NATO-backed rebels. The recent mass show of support, 13 years on, for the old colonel may surprise those more accustomed to his portrayal in the Western media, which paint him as a brutal dictator hated by the people.

The anti-Gaddafi uprising was, in reality, a 'colour revolution' - in the original sense of the phrase, when it referred to Western-backed (as opposed to genuinely popular) uprisings. There is plenty of evidence for this. For example, the founder of the arch pro-US National Endowment for Democracy has admitted funding groups actively opposed to Gaddafi in 2011, such as ‘Libya Forum for Human and Political Development’ and ‘Libyan Transparency Association.’

The demonisation of Gaddafi in the Western media illustrates Malcolm X’s warning, even truer now decades on:

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”