Tripoli – After forty years, the reign of Moammar Mohammed al-Qadhafi seems to be at it’s end. Qadhafi is on the run, his sons are arrested and the rebel forces are mopping up all that remains of his forces.

As far as insane dictators go, he’s one of the most insane dictator of them all and well known and respected in insane dictator circles.

He opposed both capitalism and communism and invented ‘Arabian Socialism,’ a political philosophy for which he wrote the Green Book, one-upping Mao and his red book.

This book consists of three parts:

•     The Solution of the Problem of Democracy: ‘The Authority of the People’ (published in late 1975)
•     The Solution of the Economic Problem: ‘Socialism’ (published in early 1977)
•     The Social Basis of the Third International Theory (published in September 1981)

The Green Book rejects modern liberal democracy, “free press”, and capitalism. Democracy in Libya is based on direct democracy in the form of popular committees. (However this system is limited in practice by the fact that Gadaffi himself appoints a cabinet and departmental ministers, and the influence of unelected revolutionary committees throughout the government.) Freedom of speech is based on state ownership of book publishers, newspapers, television and radio stations, on the grounds that private ownership would be undemocratic. (At least one observer has called the resulting media “dull” and lacking in a “clash” of ideas.) Libya’s economic system is based on the premise that all employees must be “partners not wage-workers”, and forbids paying employees a wage in return for labor.

“Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it.“

He is also notably famous for his role in the Lockerbie bombing, almost killing Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. Now he is busy writing the fourth installment on the Green Book, called “Running and Hiding.”