NOT FOR the first time, a state visit to Italy by Libyan leader Col Muammar Gadafy has prompted bitter polemics, with both opposition and Catholic Church figures denouncing his attempts at Islamic proselytism in the Eternal City of Rome. However, as so often with Col Gadafy, the Libyan leader’s seeming excesses may well have masked one or two nuggets of hardcore realpolitik.
In theory, Col Gadafy had come to Rome to celebrate a two-year- old friendship treaty between his own state and its former colonial masters, Italy.
In practice, as illustrated by the guest list at a late-night banquet held in his honour in Rome on Monday night, the Libyan leader was also here to do business.
Among those who attended a dinner that reportedly finished at 3am were senior figures from Italy’s largest bank Unicredit and from the Confederation of Italian Industry, as well as representatives of state electricity supplier ENEL, energy giant ENI, construction company Impreglio and aerospace conglomerate Finmeccanica.
Before important business agreements could be sealed, however, Col Gadafy’s Islamic zeal threatened to ruin a party that had been carefully prepared for him by his host, Italian prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi.
As he had done on a previous visit to Rome, Col Gadafy invited more than 500 “hostesses” for a lesson on Islam at the Libyan Academy in Rome.
Speaking to an almost entirely female audience, the Libyan leader told the young Italians that “women are treated with more respect in Libya than in the West or in the USA”. Col Gadafy then invited his audience to convert to Islam, saying that if Jesus had lived until the advent of the prophet Mohammed, then he too and the Virgin Mary would both have converted to Islam.
Inevitably, reports of the colonel’s sessions of Islamic proselytism prompted fierce criticism.
L'Avennire, the daily run by the Italian bishops' conference, asked "in how many other countries" would such a "session of Islamic propaganda" have been allowed.
Opposition figure Rosy Bindi called the colonel’s lecture “a humiliating violation of women’s dignity”, while even staunch government supporter the Northern League expressed reservations.
“He can go and invite people to become Islamic in his own country,” commented Veneto governor and Northern League member Luca Zaia, a former government minister.
Reflecting the fact criticism of Col Gadafy went across the entire Italian spectrum were the observations of Generazione Italia and Farefuturo, two groups linked to the ex-fascist Alleanza Nazionale.
“Enough of Gadafy’s clowning around, he thinks Italy is his Disneyland.”
Col Gadafy, however, may well have touched on an issue of political relevance with another of his seemingly exaggerated statements when he called for an annual €5 billion for Libya in return for stopping the flow of boat people to Europe from Libya’s shoreline.
Every year, thousands of would- be illegal migrants attempt to cross to Italy and Spain from Libya.