Pearson’s Perspective found this interesting quote from the Son o’ Libyan Strongman and Womanizer Mohammar Khadaffy… Qaddafi… or is it Qadaffi? Anyway, here’s what Seif el-Islam said:
“Democracy is the future. We have to be ahead of the world in our region, the Middle East, and not to be lagging behind, because the whole world is heading toward democracy.”
This from an NYT story on the thirty-two year old resident of Tripoli that is well worth reading.
PJ Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that PJ Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. Please note that comments are reviewed by the editorial staff and may not be posted immediately. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pjmedia.com.
Fantastic! Now, if we could only get the DNC, the UN and EU to echo his sentiments—
Well, I’ve always preferred Qaddafi, but Big Mo himself uses Algathafi on his website: http://www.algathafi.org/
Of course, he spells “French” “Frensc,” so take his orthography cum grano salis.
All the confusion stems from the problems of transliterating his name, whether one uses Standard or North African pronunciations, etc. If you want a scholarly one, al-Qadh√¢ÔøΩf√ÆÔøΩ is probably as good as it gets. (Keeping in mind that that “dh” can be variously pronounced as “th” in “that,” “d” or “z” depending on the dialect.)
Too much nerdiness? Well, be sure to check out the Colonel’s impressive array of chapeaux.
I’m laughing at my own post. that mess should be al-Qadhafi with circumflexes over the last “a” and the “i.” It looked fine in the Preview, I swear!!!
— al-Qadh√¢ÔøΩf√ÆÔøΩ —
Suddenly I’m thinking of Al Capp and Walt Kelly.
I was waiting for the explanation on how to pronounce “¬¢”, which I’ve always understood to be “tse” or “swoo” depending on the use of the familiar. As for `¬Ωf,’ I think everyone knows that the correct way to pronounce this is to begin speaking the `f” sound but only go halfway.
Roger, thanks for the link!
I always knew deep that the Qadhafi, Khadafi, al-Qadh√¢ÔøΩf√ÆÔøΩ, Ghaddafi’s …..those people, were good hearted souls even when they were planning terrorist attacks, mass murder and mayhem.
This reminds me of the Seinfeld bit (mentioned in the documentary he made about his craft).
“I got into a cab the other day in New york. And I’m telling, the cab drivers name on the License included the chemical symbol for Boron.”
I nearly busted a gut.
Here are all the ways to spell the Colonel’s name:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/ortho1.html
Roger,
If you write Mohammar Daffy everyone will still know to whom you refer. Maybe even more so than any “correct” spelling.
I’ve never understood the problem with transliterating Qadhafi’s name either. Just look at the first consonant: q, gh, and kh are all distinct sounds in Arabic. I guess two tranliterations of his name are logically possible (one from the Arabic written form and one from how it is pronounced in the Libyan dialect), but not the score or so one sees in the MSM.
But then all the above presupposes that the MSM would actually have folks who understand Arabic.
In the 19th century a number of thinkers and writers propounded grand world views, the most famous was Karl Marx whose eponynous sysytem wreaked such enormous havoc in the 20th century. Surely the palme d’or should be awarded to Alexis de Tocqueville, who as a young man spent months traveling in the back woods of the infant republic of the United States of America, and returned to his native France to anounce that he had seen the future and that it was Democracy and it worked.
Unlike his 20th century imitators, the young Frenchman was correct. And his insight has been borne out over the more than 160 years since his book was published.
11A55, I’ve asked the same question, but it appears that (a) the initial phoneme in what’s his name’s name is dialectically different depending where you are, (b) there’s more than one competing romanization for Arabic, and since the choice is somewhat arbitrary, you are, as they say in linguistics, screwed.
Seif el-Islam el-Qaddafi is for real. I see little reason to doubt his sincerity. The young man is a sign of hope. We need to encourage more Arabs to study in the United States. It is outrageously stupid in making it so difficult for foreigners to obtain permission to do so. The fear of terrorism must be balanced with the need to westernized these individuals.
Three Middle Eastern democracies (Afghanistan, Iran, Libya) in as many years could be quite a result for the war on terror. I wonder how the naysayers would explain that away.
I lived in Libya in the mid-50s and loved it.
True, I was too young (10) to understand the politics but I remember the people and I liked them. And I rememebr there was a fairly large Jewish community there at the time. I guess they were eventually forced to leave.
My father would load up the family, spare gas and water, in the car and take off across Libya, generally west and stop at every cross road and explore.
We met and visted troglodytes, sheep and camel herders, I sifted the sands around roman ruins looking for coins (got a jar full still!) and I loved every second of the experience.
I would love to be able to re-visit someday