Gaddafi and loving our enemies

One of the things which has amazed me over the last few weeks as civil war has broken out in Libya is the extraordinary hypocrisy of world leaders. Now that Muammar Gaddafi has been ousted everyone is quick to explain how evil he was, and what a great win for democracy has happened in Libya.

Yet these same leaders and countries have managed to put aside their repugnance over the last few years and sell millions of dollars worth of armaments. The EU has had no trouble in issuing export licences, which Italy, Great Britain, Malta had no trouble in taking advantage of, as did most other EU countries in smaller ways. And as the photos of the uprising showed, it was these weapons that were often used against the democratic movement.

Gaddafi still managed to be photographed just a year or so ago shaking the hand of the President of the United States. Various European countries still managed to deal with Libya in order to get a share of their oil. Even now there is a huge tussle to see who gets a share of Libyan oil as it slowly comes back on line.

The other thing that disturbed me was the celebrations over Gaddafi’s quite brutal death, even among world leaders. It seems that summary execution has become an accepted way of dealing with people, rather than keeping people alive to face international courts. Mind you, there have been other precedents for this.

Jesus said that rather than just loving our neighbours and hating our enemies, we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:43). I think one of the confusions in this passage is that Christians sometimes think Jesus said that there are to be no enemies. But Jesus didn’t suggest that enemies will disappear, or that people will stop hating and persecuting, but that Christians are to do a very difficult thing – pray for and love enemies.

I’m not a Libyan, and did not suffer under Gaddafi. I don’t bear their rage and suffering. Had I been in that place I have no idea what I would do. But I do know that as I look on from the outside I cannot rejoice when people are killed, for they are children of God. All death and killing is a failure of human beings to find peace and justice, and even love for our enemies.