What are your reactions to the killing of Muammar Gaddafi?

When I was a boy, a maxim that was inculcated into my mind by my grandfather was “say nothing of the dead unless it is good”, in Latin of course. This code of conduct was fortified in me when, as a priest, I had to preach many homilies at funeral Masses.

The most urgent help required is still the kind that the Maltese government had wisely chosen to provide, namely the humanitarian- Fr Peter Serracino Inglott

It was possible in principle to derive positive lessons even from crimes that might have been perpetrated by the dead person, but I never felt clever enough to do that.

For me brought up in that way, it is a sign of the moral decline of our culture that the opposite is happening with regard to Gaddafi.

His crimes against humanity are being bandied about even when, his precise responsibility for them, as in the Lockerbie case, is very dubious especially from a Maltese point of view. It is even being stated that there is absolutely no good for which he can be remembered.

Different versions are still being given of the circumstances of his death, but I think it is to his honour that he kept his word that he would choose to have his life put to an end in his own country rather than seek refuge abroad.

Failure to treat him or his corpse with the dignity due to any human being, however guilty of disrespect for human rights he may have been, is not too happy an omen that a real change will occur in the near future.

I was surprised to hear a very highly positioned British diplomat when asked what he thought the heritage of Gaddafi would be, categorically answer that he would be soon completely forgotten as “Mussolini was in Italy after his execution”. The diplomat, despite the pretentiousness of his style, was clearly equally ignorant about Libya and Italy.

I doubt if statesmen with some sense of history will easily forget that it was Gaddafi who opened the way for the great price hike in oil in the early Seventies with its still enduring multiple aftermaths, not excluding in part the present woes of the West in Iraq and Iran.

Have you ever met him?

It was only once that I had the opportunity of a fairly long informal conversation with him and not merely meet for just an exchange of greetings. I was one half of a Maltese delegation of two who had been invited to advise on the setting up of Mediterranean Studies in Libya on the lines that they had been set up in Malta.

At that time the Colonels were in power in Greece and their relations with Turkey appeared to be on the brink of war. Gaddafi had been so cordial and open with me that I did not hesitate to ask him why he was so completely on the side of the Greeks against the Turks who were his fellow Muslims. Gaddafi smiled and made two points.

First, he reminded me that it was Turks who had been the historic enemies of the Maltese just as they had also subjected most of the Arab nation to the yoke of the Ottoman Empire.

Secondly, the Turks had descended into the Mediterranean from Central Asia. Although they had very superficially embraced Islam, they still basically retained their Shamanistic Religion. They continued to belong to the Eastern mystical culture as opposed to the prophetic Judeo-Christian and Sunni-Muslim tradition.

I imagine it must have had a doubly bitter taste for him that the leading faction of the rebels who overthrew him seemed to have adopted the “moderate Islamism” of the present Turkish government under Erdogan as their inspiring ideology.

What do you suppose are the best prospects for the future of Malta-Libyan relations?

The wisest remark that I heard from one of the new leaders was to the effect that the most immediate need of Libya was not for investment, as was generally expressed by the promoters of the Nato coalition without which it is clear that Gaddafi would not have fallen.

The most urgent help required is still the kind that the Maltese government had wisely chosen to provide, namely the humanitarian. It is not only that there are an enormous number of Libyans who will die or be condemned to a living death unless they receive prompt and effective medical succour, but the healing of psychological traumas is a pre-condition for the revival of the Libyan people.

It happens that just at this time we are witnessing the immense difficulties that Kosovo and Serbia are facing as a result of non-reconciliation after the physical war in the Balkans was brought to an end with foreign intervention.

I remember most vividly when I was representing the government at the European Convention, discussion was focus-ing on what sort of military co-operation should be developed between the member states of the European Union and what should be the relationship of European forces with Nato.

At the time, it was held that the spirit of our constitutional neutrality would be preserved if we offered to participate through providing medical and similar support, but especially if we could provide services of a psycho-therapeutic nature and act as agents of reconciliation between previously embattled counter-groupings.

I also think that experience in the construction of a Christian Democrat polity could be extremely useful to groups that want to establish neither a fundamentalist Muslim state, nor a Laicist state of the French or Attaturk extreme kind.

The majority leaders of the rebels, as I have already noted, favour a democratic state in which there is clear distinction between the relig-ious and the political, but where the political is not allergic to inspiration from religious sources.

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Miriam Vincenti.