Muammar Gaddafi's 4 centuries leadership of the Libyan Arab Republic!

Gaddafi in London_1966

A personality & leadership that has been and will be deliberated on for centuries to come. The personality framed above needs no introduction even to the un-advanced populations of the world, or so I think, especially after what I will chose to refer to as the American's eradication of a powerful African legend or not....
Before you interpret/ mis-interpret my taking in to the leader in perspective, let's shortly delve into his life.
As sources will have it, the late Gaddafi may have been born in the year 1942/3. Reason of the estimation owed to a fact that he was born in a rural area in the Western part of Libya, where most of the people were very illiterate and therefore no records were kept, including birth certificates!!!! His tribal group, Gadhadhfa was considered unimportant at the time.

Growing up, he witnessed conflicts between Italian and British troops who occupied Libya and this made him as a very young child to register the involvement of European colonialists in his home country.
Libya gained independence in 1951, under the intervention of the United Nations.

The Coup d'etat,
On 1 September 1969, while the sitting King Idris travelled to Turkey and Greece, Gaddafi took the chance to orchestrate a coup, calling it 'Operation Jerusalem'. There was no much resistance and it was therefore named the "White revolution" by many. The late Gaddafi believed that this was indeed a representation of the start of a widespread change in the socio-economic and political nature of Libyan society. He would proclaim that the revolution meant "freedom, socialism, and unity" for Libya, and over the coming years would implement measures to achieve this. The Libyan Arab republic was born........   

Flag_of_Libya_(1969–1972)

Gaddafi was a controversial and highly divisive world figure. Supporters lauded his anti-imperialist stance and work in unifying Africa and the Arab world, and he was decorated with various awards. Conversely, he was internationally condemned as a dictator and autocrat whose authoritarian administration violated the human rights of Libyan citizens and supported international terrorism. Nevertheless, he managed to rule Libya since 1969 to 2011, when he was killed by the NATO Intervened Militia, operating under the National Transitional Council. A 42 year reign!

At the time of the late Gaddafi's reign, 

> Positives as perceived by the Libyan people;

1)  Improved trade and control over the oil sector, leading to increasing returns from $3.8 billion in 1969, to  $13.7 billion in 1974 and an even higher return of $24.5 billion in 1979. The countries average per capita income was greater than in most industrialized countries such as Italy and the U.K.

2) The improved economy bettered the lives of the Libyan population as seen in the below professed recognition by a Libyan scholar;  

"If socialism is defined as a redistribution of wealth and resource, a socialist revolution clearly occurred in Libya after 1969 and most especially in the second half of the 1970s. The management of the economy was increasingly socialist in intent and effect with wealth in housing, capital and land significantly redistributed or in the process of redistribution. Private enterprise was virtually eliminated, largely replaced by a centrally controlled economy." 

— Libyan Studies scholar Ronald St Bruce

 > Some negative aspects of his leadership include ;

1) Expelled some Jews from the country and is claimed to have referred to the bible as a "fiction".

2) Claims by the Libyan population of deaths actualized from Gaddafi's leadership were an answer to the International community that he was indeed a dictator. This caused several uprisings in 2011.

3) Attempted creation of nuclear weapons, though unsuccessful.

**  Part of the interesting detail that shows even he was aware of his over stretched rule is that, one of his doctors claimed to have done a plastic surgery on his request so that Libyans would not think he was too old!!

*** Muammar Gaddafi_1969 to 2011.

'S.K'