There's something horribly compelling about watching the world wrench itself into a new form. That's what Twitter and Google news were like yesterday as they raced each other to update the fall of Colonel Gaddafi. It was exciting, sometimes horrifying and occasionally bizarre. But of all the bizarre rumors coming out of Libya, nothing matched the one about Gaddafi hiring mercenaries from Chad to attack demonstrators in Benghazi with heavy weapons, machine guns and even anti-aircraft missiles.
It may even have been true. By mid-evening the UK's Telegraph newspaper was running the story as confirmed, even though the regime's stranglehold on information getting into and out of Libya is much stronger than, say, Mubarak's was in Egypt. And it would make a sick sort of sense for Gaddafi to hire killers from Chad if he had any doubts about the loyalty of the army. Libya has oil wealth and can afford to buy in some of the best mass-murderers on the open market. In the mind of the populace - teetering between an exultant uprising, and quaking fear - the spectre of mercenaries would appear as a darker and more threatening nemesis than the army. After all, it was the army switching its allegiance in Egypt that brought down Hosni Mubarak. Some of the earliest rumors out of the latest Facebook revolution concerned whole battalions deserting the Libyan dictator's cause. For $500 a day, however, a fighter from Chad will be there for you until the bitter end. Or until the money runs out.
You have to wonder when the bitter end will come, and what it will look like. Right now, no regime in the Middle East looks safe. It's a truism of dictatorships that they appear to be incredibly strong, right up until the moment they collapse. The domino effect – ah, there's a phrase we haven't heard for a while – seems to be so potent in that part of the world now, that it's even freaking out tyrants at a much greater remove. Chinese authorities were reported to be cracking down yesterday, rounding up dissidents in a preemptive strike against any possible spread of the contagion.
Just goes to show that the power of a dictatorship often lies in the minds of those it oppresses rather than the guns it trains on them to maintain that oppression.
One of the other unremarked ironies of this whole situation is that the fear and loathing isn't restricted to the palaces of corrupt potentates in the Middle East or even China. There's enough to go around in the West, as well, with some ideological warriors suddenly waking up to the fact that the precious, precious freedom they've been trying to ram down the throats of people in the region for a decade might suddenly be a live issue. But only because the people have decided to seize the day themselves. The great fear then presents itself: what might these people do with all that freedom?
We really have no idea, but the prognosis doesn't have to be relentlessly grim. While there are undoubtedly forces which would love to turn the various uprisings to their own ends - yes, Muslim Brotherhood, I'm looking at you – there's no reason why they should succeed. Indonesia went through a painful transformation from corrupt dictatorship to struggling, vaguely shambolic democracy, starting with the fall of Suharto. But despite the best efforts of their own jihadist movement, and of the shadow state that attempted to cling to power long after Suharto was gone, that country is doing remarkably well. It could teach the Arab world, and us, a lot about the possibilities for Islamic democracy. Perhaps, given the courage it must take to face down a dictator like Gaddafi, there might be some hope that his people can find the resources within themselves to survive this and eventually to prosper in their own way.
What the brave and long suffering victims of this vile dicator need now right now, however, is the support of every country in the world that would call itself free.
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