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In Gaddafi, Web finds a tragi comic anti hero

In Gaddafi, Web finds a tragi-comic anti-hero

Updated: 8 June 2012 17:21 IST

Highlights

An old Arab adage has it that the worst misfortune is the one that makes you laugh, and nowhere is that truer than in Libya today, where Muammar Gaddafi's outlandish antics are causing howls on the Internet.Videos parody Gaddafi's barely intelligible sp

An old Arab adage has it that the worst misfortune is the one that makes you laugh, and nowhere is that truer than in Libya today, where Muammar Gaddafi's outlandish antics are causing howls on the Internet.

Videos parody Gaddafi's barely intelligible speeches, while cartoons and jokes -- some verging on the macabre -- proliferate on the web, caricaturing Libya's ruler of 41 years as "mentally ill" or a "dangerous lunatic".

"Libyan television threatens to rebroadcast Gaddafi's speech if the rebels do not surrender," goes one of the Arab quips, referring to his recent rambles.

At least 1,000 people have died in the uprising against Gaddafi, who has shown the rebels little mercy, referring to them variously as "rats", "microbes", youth plied with "hallucinogenic drugs" -- all while claiming his people "love" him.

A Facebook page has been set up in Arabic under the name: "Urgent: Al-Jazeera can't show Gaddafi's speech because the broadcast rights belong to MogaComedy," an Egyptian satire channel.

Mocking slogans abound on Facebook: "The people want to understand the speech!" and "The people want the president to undergo medical treatment!", reprising the refrain of other Arab revolts: "The people want to bring down the regime".

"We will start talks with the rebels once the drugs have worn off", scoffs another of the dozens of Facebook pages dedicated to Gaddafi.

"Don't knock my madness, it's all I have;" "I built Libya, so it's mine to destroy"... The list goes on.

Another page offers "a priceless prize to whoever finds alive a creature as stupid as Gaddafi."

However, it is videos that are all the rage, watched by hundreds of thousands of people.

One has even gone viral, with nearly 2.6 million hits. It is a club beat remix made by an Israeli, DJ and musician Noy Alooshe, and entitled "Zenga Zenga." See here:

The video features a rambling angry Gaddafi speech last week in which, among other things, he threatened to root out rebels "inch by inch, home by home, alley by alley."

Zenga means alleyway in the Libyan dialect of Arabic.

Allooshe told AFP that "one guy even said that when Gaddafi falls we will dance to this remix in the streets of Tripoli -- that would really be something."

One clip casts Gaddafi in the "Looney Tunes" cartoons as Ga-Daffy Duck, complete with fiery cackle.

Other satirists have taken to direct impersonation:

A pseudo-Gaddafi is in a cave, his head wrapped in a headscarf, long tunic and the inevitable sunglasses. He rants against imperialism and the Arabs in a flurry of gesticulations and shrugs, with only a chicken for an audience. The bird is visibly startled by the actor's screaming and table-bashing.

Among videos in French, actor and comedian Jamel Debouzze has fun playing "Admiral Emperor General Colonel Sadafi", a compound of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi, who collects titles including that of 'King of traditional African kings'.

"I did it all for you, my love. I threatened the UN, I terrorised the Commonwealth, I organised two or three very effective genocides... what more can I do?," Sadafi says to his mistress, who hassles him for failing to make it on to the newspapers' front pages.

Gaddafi the "ladies' man", often surrounded by women in military uniforms - his "Amazons" - also appears in a clip where his speech is set to techno music to which lingerie-clad women dance.

The Libyan regime's repression of the insurgents seems also to have inspired Algerian singer Cheb Rochdi, who is about to release a satirical track entitled "Gaddafi, the Arabs' Hitler."

But in the meantime, the situation on the ground remains far from funny.

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