In Which Franklin Lamb Shields a Nigerian from Rebel Racists and Dreams of Chadian Ladies

by FRANKLIN LAMB
Tripoli

My roommate left our hotel and hopefully Libya last night for his village near Arlit, Niger thanks to the assistance of one of Tripoli’s Christian Churches. I shall miss him a lot.

It was a recently formed human rights group from the Coptic Orthodox (Egyptian) Church in Tripoli, working to protect blacks from the still lawless Tripoli streets that enabled my roommate to depart this hotel. The Coptic Church, according to their Prelate here, has the largest Christian communion in Libya with normally 60,000 parishioners and has roots in Libya going back hundreds of years before the Arabs spread westward from Egypt.

Mohammad departed none too soon since “security personnel” arrived at the Corinthia Hotel close to 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon, with gunmen and two “Generals” in fine new uniforms complete with epaulets. Their surprise visit was to check the hotel rooms for Gaddafi supporters. They claimed they had received “reports.”

The Copts did a good job in getting Mohammad to safety. Most observers here agree that for the immediate future there will be a whirlwind of wild speculation, accusations and even some serious examination of Moammar Gaddafi’s leadership of Libya these past four decades. One fact however is incontrovertible to this observer and it is that under Gaddafi, Christians, whether Roman Catholic, Anglican Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox — the main Christian sects here — have been well treated and allowed virtually complete freedom to practice their beliefs and to celebrate their traditions with some restrictions placed on campaigns to proselytize Muslims of which they have not been any since the Mormons and the “Way of the Cross” evangelicals left some years back.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/29/in-which-franklin-lamb-shields-a-nigerian-from-rebel-racists-and-dreams-of-chadian-ladies/

It may be that the native Libyans are displaying racism against black Africans, but the irony is that when Libyans emmigrate to France, they receive the same type of racism that they inflict on black Africans. Karma, or just the universality of racism?