Remembering the Great Al Fateh Revolution
Almost 12 years ago, the axis powers, France, US, Netherlands and US-led-NATO, along with Arab surrogates and African sellouts, launched a massive land, sea and air assault against the Libyan Jamahiriya. After nine months of revolutionary audacity and defiance, in the face of Western imperialism, the Jamahiriya collapsed under hundreds of thousands of cruise missiles and depleted uranium bombs, unleashed by the forces of darkness. The leader of the Libyan revolution, Muammar Gaddafi, undoubtedly one of the titans of revolutionary Pan-Africanism and its vision of a free, unified and socialist Africa was murdered as he led the final and defiant great battle of Sirte. Today, Libya is an occupied and neocolonial outpost of imperialism.
The Al Fateh Revolution, which emerged out of a coup on September 1st, 1969, led by a 27-year-old Colonel Gaddafi and the Free Unionist Officers developed into an exceptional revolution. Exceptional in that it was both nationalist and internationalist in orientation and outreach from its inception and was based on an ideology that articulated a spiritual conception of revolution. The name Al Fateh is taken from a surah in the Quran by the same name that speaks of victory over injustice and oppression and carries the Divine promise of a new dawn for all oppressed peoples. Like the recent coups in Africa, this coup had the overwhelming support of the Libyan people. While a military coup is different from a revolution, coups led by nationalist and anti-imperialist military officers, with the support of the masses of the people, can lead to revolutionary transformation as was the case in Egypt with Jamal Abdul Nasser, Burkina Faso with Thomas Sankara and Libya.
The Al Fateh Revolution abolished the decadent and obsolete monarchy and political parties that had relinquished Libyan sovereignty to foreign powers and established direct democracy by creating a network of popular organs (People's Congresses and Popular Committees) to administer the affairs of the country. Known as a Jamahiriya, which translates as a State of the Masses, it was an indigenous democratic alternative to the sham of ‘liberal democracy’ and the mythical 'dictatorship of the proletariat".
Let us commemorate the great achievements of this revolution on the anniversary of the September 1st coup d’etat. which liberated Libya from imperialism’s hegemony. We, members of the International Revolutionary Committees Movement, freedom fighting movements throughout Africa, South America, Asia-Pacific and the Caribbean, and all freedom-loving peoples, remember the enormous achievements of the revolution worldwide, as it assisted so many in their quest for freedom, even when it brought no advantage, and in fact disadvantage to Libya,
As we remember the great internationalist Leader, Brother Muammar al-Gaddafi and the Free Unionist Officers who risked their lives on September 1st, 1969, to usher in this revolution that contributed so much to the ongoing global resistance to imperialism, we salute the present day coup leaders across the Sahel and in Gabon.
Eternal glory to the heroes who, in 1969, turned the tables on the imperialist forces and resisted reactionary forces for more than 42 years. Glory to the revolution and revolutionaries who fought to their death, against the strongest military organization in the world for more than 8 months without air cover. Long live the revolutions of 2023 taking place throughout Africa and all over the world. As martyred Black Panther, Fred Hampton so rightly said, “You can kill the revolutionary, but you can never kill the revolution”.
Issued by the New World Mathaba and the International Forum on the 54th anniversary of the Al-Fateh Revolution.
worldmathaba2022@gmail.com
September 1st, 2023