Is Gaddafi really worth our sacrifice?

There is a time where cockiness, pride and sense of camaraderie works, but the Zimbabwean government’s stance and response on Libya is a “diplomatic” faux pas that will be felt for many years to come.

Whether President Robert Mugabe’s foreign policy is informed by Babylonian thinking or pre-civilisation mentality, is the delusional expulsion or victimisation of Taher Elmagrahi and Muammar Gaddafi-cling on worth it for our country?

While the progressive world yesterday moved to officially welcome Tripoli’s National Transitional Council (NTC) into the global diplomatic fold, we have a government and Foreign Affairs ministry led by Simbarashe Mumbengegwi that still believes it can resurrect Gaddafi’s regime.

What a potty and twisted way of looking at the world, but that has been the hallmark of our government over the past 31 years. Just as many of our African compatriots — from inconsequential Chad to Nigeria — have embraced the desert nation’s new leadership and we have had a chance to redeem ourselves in the eyes of the world diplomatically,

Zimbabwe has squandered an opportunity to create the much-needed goodwill for expedient “political reasons”. But whether Mumbengegwi likes it or not, the eccentric dictator being Gaddafi is gone and the new reality is that the NTC-driven “change movement” has gained irreversible traction, and as things stand, it is a matter of time before even Sirte falls.

Apart from the vaunted Libya-Zimbabwean trade ties and commercial deals, which outgoing first counsellor Mahommed Elbarat has dismissed as probably Gaddafi’s personal transactions or investments, what real reasons are there for us to want to “keep Gaddafi” except false “revolutionary bravado” and sentimental reasons?

While Zanu PF apparatchiks and state functionaries will be quick to hide behind an African Union (AU) resolution “not to recognise the NTC”, there is no amount of last-ditch propaganda that can save the runaway North African ruler from his hopelessness and inevitable ouster.

In the meantime, a closer analysis of some of the AU members at the forefront of wanting to project the NTC as a rag-tag banditry group would also show that — save for nostalgic reasons arising from Gaddafi’s benefaction of the feeble group — there is no love nor actual support for the stricken dictator.

So, the sooner countries like Zimbabwe and its continental peers drop the act, the better our. And as the charade continues in Harare and elsewhere, maybe it’s time to ask ourselves: is Gaddafi really worth the sacrifice for our future?