HE CAME as the self-styled “emancipator of women”, the world’s longest-serving leader who makes much of his all-female bodyguard squad and favourable views towards the opposite sex.
But to hundreds of baffled Italian women gathered for a rare audience with Muammar Gadafy, if this was the king of women’s rights then the movement still has a long way to go.
Col Gadafy’s request to meet 1,000 prominent Italian women during his trip to Italy this week has generated scepticism and amusement in equal measure.
But this wasn’t a crowd from a party villa. An exotic assemblage filed in. There were leading figures from politics, culture and industry,ministers posed for cameras, lawyers talked earnestly in their seats and Reality TV personalities blew kisses across the aisles.
Arriving on stage in flowing robes, Col Gadafy assumed his seat and placed copies of his little green book in front of him. Mara Cafagna, a former topless model turned minister of equal opportunities, kicked things off by describing the event as an “important day for relations between Italy and Libya”. Ms Cafagna, said how much she hoped Col Gadafy’s presence would present “a strong clear message against the abuse of women”.
But the colonel’s philosophy was about as elusive as an oasis in a Libyan desert. “There is no difference between men and women on a human level,” he exclaimed. “God made men and women, we must respect the differences between the sexes.” Then it all went a bit wrong. Using a peculiar example of a steam train driver, he called for “two systems” in the professional forum; “one suitable for men, the other for women”.
With growing murmurs in the auditorium and a few noisy exits, Col Gadafy tried to regain some credibility by denouncing the treatment of women in Arabic and Islamic societies.
“Why should these women have to apply to the head of state for the right to drive a car?” he asked. The audience applauded politely, but swiftly laughed incredulously as he went on to add that this was a matter “their husbands or brothers should decide”.
Boos and hisses filled the auditorium.
“It was out of this world,” siad Luisa Todini, “he really is on a different planet”.