The People are Libya’s Only Rulers, Gaddafi Declares

TRIPOLI — Muammar Gaddafi has declared that the Libyan people are the country’s only legitimate rulers, addressing an assembly whose delegates had spent much of the morning debating who was authorised to announce the agenda. The speech described government as a temporary inconvenience that citizens would eventually learn to administer for themselves.

Under the proposed system, every neighbourhood would hold a weekly congress. Residents could vote on schools, roads, food prices and the preferred volume of revolutionary music after midnight. Decisions would then pass through a series of committees established solely to confirm that committees were no longer necessary.

“A chair is not a throne, a microphone is not a crown, and a citizen who speaks is already a government.”

Power from the street upward

Delegates applauded a plan to publish local budgets on public walls using paint guaranteed to survive both sandstorms and fiscal scrutiny. Each district would appoint rotating treasurers, with no official permitted to keep the same office, desk or pen for more than six months.

Sceptics noted that the central leadership retained responsibility for interpreting the people’s decisions. Organisers responded that interpretation was not rule, administration was not command and the men guarding the exits were present only to encourage complete democratic participation.

An argument still unfinished

The congress ended without a formal vote after participants agreed that voting on the sovereignty of the people would imply it remained in doubt. Outside, residents continued their own debate over transport fares, bread supplies and whether a revolution can truly belong to everyone if nobody remembers who has the key to the meeting hall.