Muammar Al-Gathafi - The Green Book

All societies today look upon women as little more than commodities. The East regards her as a commodity to be bought and sold, while the West does not recognize her femininity.

Driving woman to do man’s work is a flagrant aggression against the femininity with which she is naturally provided and which defines a natural purpose essential to life. Man’s work obscures woman’s beautiful features which are created for female roles. They are like blossoms which are created to attract pollen and to produce seeds. If we did away with the blossoms, the role of plants in life would come to an end. The natural embellishment in butterflies and birds and animal females exists to that natural vital purpose. If a woman carries out men’s work, she risks being transformed into a man, abandoning her role and her beauty. A woman has full right to live without being forced to change into a man and to give up her femininity.

Physical structure, which is naturally different in men and women, leads to differences in the functions of the organs, which in turn leads to differences in the psyche, mood, emotions, as well as in physical appearance. A woman is tender; a woman is pretty; a woman weeps easily and is easily frightened. In general, women are gentle and men are aggressive by virtue of their inbred nature.

To ignore natural differences between men and women and to mix their roles is an absolutely uncivilized attitude, hostile to the laws of nature, destructive to human life, and a genuine cause for the wretchedness of human social life.

Modern industrial societies, which have made women adapt to the same physical work as men at the expense of their femininity and their natural role in terms of beauty, maternity and serenity, are materialistic and uncivilized. To imitate them is as stupid as it is dangerous to civilization and humanity.

The question, then, is not whether women should or should not work, for this is a ridiculous materialistic presentation of the case. Work should be provided by the society to all able members who need work—men and women on the condition that individuals work in their own fields and not be coerced into carrying out unsuitable work.

For children to find themselves under adult working conditions is unjust and dictatorial. It is equally unjust and dictatorial for women to find themselves under the working conditions of men.

Freedom means that every human being gets proper education which qualifies him or her for the work which suits him or her. Dictatorship means that human beings are taught that which is not suitable for them, and are forced to do unsuitable work. Work which is appropriate to men is not necessarily appropriate to women, and knowledge that is proper for children does not necessarily suit adults.

There is no difference in human rights between man and woman, the child and the adult, but there is no absolute identity between them as regards their duties.

What is a minority? What are its rights and responsibilities? How can the problem of minorities be solved according to the solution to various human problems presented by The Third Universal Theory?

There are only two types of minorities. One of them belongs to a nation which provides it with a social framework, while the other has no nation and forms its own social framework. The latter is the one that forms one of the historic groups which eventually constitute a nation by virtue of a sense of belonging and a common destiny.

It is now clear that such a minority has its own social rights. Any encroachment on these rights by any majority is an act of injustice. Social characteristics are inherent and cannot be given or taken away. The political and economic problems of minorities can only be solved within a society controlled by the masses in whose hands power, wealth and arms should be placed. To view the minority as a political and economic substrata is dictatorial and unjust.

The latest age of slavery has been the enslavement of Blacks by White people. The memory of this age will persist in the thinking of Black people until they have vindicated themselves.

This tragic and historic event, the resulting bitter feeling, and the yearning or the vindication of a whole race, constitute a psychological motivation of Black people to vengeance and triumph that cannot be disregarded. In addition, the inevitable cycle of social history, which includes the Yellow people’s domination of the world when it marched from Asia, and the White people’s carrying out a wide-ranging colonialist movement covering all the continents of the world, is now giving way to the re-emergence of Black people.

Black people are now in a very backward social situation, but such backwardness works to bring about their numerical superiority because their low standard of living has shielded them from methods of birth control and family planning. Also, their old social traditions place no limit on marriages, leading to their accelerated growth. The population of other races has decreased because of birth control, restrictions on marriage, and constant occupation in work, unlike the Blacks, who tend to be less obsessive about work in a climate which is continuously hot.

Education, or learning, is not necessarily that routinized curriculum and those classified subjects in textbooks which youths are forced to learn during specified hours while sitting in rows of desks. This type of education now prevailing all over the world is directed against human freedom. State-controlled education, which governments boast of whenever they are able to force it on their youths, is a method of suppressing freedom. It is a compulsory obliteration of a human being’s talent, as well as a coercive directing of a human being’s choices. It is an act of dictatorship destructive of freedom because it deprives people of their free choice, creativity and brilliance. To force a human being to learn according to a set curriculum is a dictatorial act. To impose certain subjects upon people is also a dictatorial act.

State-controlled and standardized education is, in fact, a forced stultification of the masses. All governments which set courses of education in terms of formal curricula and force people to learn those courses coerce their citizens. All methods of education prevailing in the world should be destroyed through a universal cultural revolution that frees the human mind from curricula of fanaticism which dictate a process of deliberate distortion of man’s tastes, conceptual ability and mentality.

This does not mean that schools are to be closed and that people should turn their backs on education, as it may seem to superficial readers. On the contrary, it means. that society should provide all types of education, giving people the chance to choose freely any subjects they wish to learn. This requires a sufficient number of schools for all types of education. Insufficient numbers of schools restrict human freedom of choice, forcing them to learn only the subjects available, while depriving them of the natural right to choose because of the unavailability of other subjects. Societies which ban or monopolize knowledge are reactionary societies which are biased towards ignorance and are hostile to freedom. Societies which prohibit the teaching of religion are reactionary societies, biased towards ignorance and hostile to freedom. Societies which monopolize religious education are reactionary societies, biased towards ignorance and hostile to freedom. Equally so are the societies which distort the religions, civilizations and behaviour of others in the process of teaching those subjects. Societies which consider materialistic knowledge taboo are likewise reactionary societies, biased towards ignorance and hostile to freedom. Knowledge is a natural right of every human being of which no one has the right to deprive him or her under any pretext, except in a case where a person does something which deprives him or her of that right.