The Green Book



The Green Book (Arabic: الكتاب الأخضر‎ al-Kitāb al-Aḫḍar) is a 1975 short book setting out the political philosophy of longtime Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The book proposes a type of popular direct democracy overseen by the General People's Committee which allows direct political participation for all civilians.

Quotes

 * Democracy is the supervision of the government by the people — comes to an end. It will be replaced by the right definition Democracy is the supervision of the people by the people.


 * The [political] party is the contemporary dictatorship. It is the modern dictatorial instrument of governing. The party is the rule of a part over the whole. It is the latest dictatorial instrument. As the party is not individual it exercises a sham democracy through establishing parliaments and committees and through the propaganda of its members. The party is not a democratic instrument at all because it is composed of people who have common interests, a common outlook or a common culture; or who belong to the same locality or have the same belief. They form a party to achieve their ends, impose their outlook or extend the hold of their belief on the society as a whole. A party's aim is to achieve power under the pretext of carrying out its programme. And yet, democratically, none of these parties should govern the whole people because of the diversity of interests, ideas, temperaments, localities and beliefs, which constitute the people's identity.


 * The party is a dictatorial instrument of governing that enables those with one outlook and a common interest to rule the people as a whole. Compared with the people, the party is a minority.


 * The party is only a part of the people, but the sovereignty of the people is indivisible. The party governs on behalf of the people, but the principle is no representation in lieu of the people. The party system is the modern tribal and sectarian system. The society governed by one party is exactly like that which is governed by one tribe or one sect.


 * The party, as stated above, represents the outlook of a certain group of people, or the interests of one group of the society, or one belief or one locality. Such a party must be a minority compared to the whole people just as the tribe and the sect are. The minority has common interests or a sectarian belief. From such interests or belief, the common outlook is formed.


 * A parliament is originally founded to represent the people, but this in itself, is undemocratic as democracy means the authority of the people and not an authority acting on their behalf. The mere existence of a parliament means the absence of the people, but true democracy exists only through the participation of the people, not through the activity of their representatives.


 * Parliaments have been a legal barrier between the peoples and the exercise of authority, excluding masses from power while usurping sovereignty in their place.


 * Peoples are left with only false external appearance of democracy manifested in long queues to cast their votes in the ballot boxes.


 * The prevailing traditional democracy endows the member of a parliament with a sacredness and immunity denied to other individual members of the people. That means that parliaments have become a means of plundering and usurping the people's authority.


 * Assemblies formed by a method of appointment or hereditary succession do not fall under any form of democracy.


 * Poor people fail to compete in the election campaign and it is always the rich -- and only the rich -- who come out victorious. Philosophers, thinkers and writers advocated the theory of representative government at a time when the peoples, without realising it, were driven like sheep by kings, sultans and conquerors. The ultimate aspiration of the people of those times was to have someone to represent them before such rulers. Even that aspiration was nullified. Peoples went through long and bitter struggles to attain what they aspired to. After the successful establishment of the era of the republics and the beginning of the era of the masses, it is unreasonable that democracy should mean the electing of only a few representatives to act on behalf of great masses. This is an obsolete theory and an outdated experience. The whole authority must be the people's. The most tyrannical dictatorships the world has known have existed under the shadow of parliaments.


 * If, however, the parliament emerges from a party as a result of winning an election, it is a parliament of the party and not of the people. It represents the party and not the people, and the executive power assigned by the parliament is that of the winning party and not of the people. The same is true of the parliament in which each party holds a number of seats. For the members of the parliament represent their party and not the people, and the power established by such a coalition is the power of the combined parties and not of the people. Under such systems the people are victims fooled and exploited by political bodies.


 * The people stand silently in long queues to cast their votes in the ballot boxes the same way as they throw other papers into the dustbin. This is the traditional democracy prevalent in the whole world, whether the system is one-party, two-party, multi-party or non-party. Thus it becomes clear that representation is fraud.