The Surrealist Odyssey Dawn: The Walking Corpses

Robert Gates, the secretary of defense of the United States, has revealed terrifying information: “We do have a lot of intelligence reporting about Gadhafi taking the bodies of the people he’s killed and putting them at the sites where we’ve attacked.” Is Gates not the same individual (former director of the Central Intelligence Agency), currently about to retire, who deplored (his) mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan? The American official now wants us to believe that the Tomahawks are spreading holy water.

The dawn of the Odyssey is becoming surrealist. Perhaps the insanity unleashed by Gadhafi has reached its climax: He now stages shows using walking corpses. But the allies are not safe from the illusions brought on by the Harmattan (the wind blowing from the desert, after which the French named their operation), which seems to have clouded their judgment as well.

Admiral Édouard Guillaud, the chief of the defense staff of the French army, has declared that the mission could last for weeks, even months. (Odysseys — I wonder why they called it an “Odyssey?” — cannot last for only a few days) At the moment, the rebels, with the support of the allies, are conquering city after city. What will happen tomorrow? The allies are currently up along the Libyan coast, in an operation that becomes more expensive every day. Will they eventually move down? Will they get lost in the dunes (Libya is 90 percent desert)? Will they land some place where you can go around in circles for hours, where hordes of illusions tempt you to wander off track, where singing sands seduce you, where the mirage can make the skeleton of an unlucky traveler seem like an immense baroque building?

In his bewildering speeches, which he likes to spice up after he starts rambling by paraphrasing Arabic poems (“I am not a president, I am love … Love for people, love for Libya”*), the Brother Leader threatens to fight to the last drop of blood. His face is increasingly similar to the one painted by Sayf Al-Islam Gadhafi (His son is also an interesting surrealist painter; the works in his “The Desert Is Not Silent” cycle were featured in exhibitions in several of the world’s capitals, from London to Moscow). The painting in question is called “The Challenge” and was created in 2000; it shows three hooded figures, clad in black robes, standing on a beach in the blood-colored light of sunset or sunrise. Two of the figures are holding crosses. They are placed in the left-hand corner and seen from behind. The figures seem to be looking up at a rising bust of Gadhafi that is floating above the clouds in the right-hand corner. In the exhibition catalogue, the author provides the following explanation: “Libya was as strong as a rock against which the arrogance of the neo-crusaders [which gives us an idea on what the three characters represent] was broken. In this tragedy of the new world order the leader becomes the ‘unique eagle’.” We now understand why Africa’s King of Kings watches us from above. He is the eagle. But the eagle is a fearsome bird that feeds on corpses. I do not think Sayf the artist had this in mind, and the painting seems foreboding now. Just like one of Nostradamus’ mesmerizing verses, resurrected on African blogs, which mentions a well-educated Libyan prince who will translate Arabic to the French.

*Editor’s Note: This quote, though accurately translated, could not be verified.