When Qaddafi Met Fallaci

 "What seems most relevant for understanding Qaddafi’s reaction to the protests today, though, is the concept of “Jamahiriya,” which he invokes, with a vague, insistent mysticism, to say that representative government does not exist in Libya—indeed, government does not exist—because the people’s will is one and the same with his: “The authority of the people is achieved, the dream is realized. The struggle is over.”

At one point, Fallaci asks, “And where’s the opposition?

Qaddafi: What opposition? What does the opposition have to do with this? When everyone participates in the congress of the people, what need is there for an opposition? Opposition to what? Opposition is against a government. If the government disappears and people govern themselves, what does one oppose? What does not exist?
Fallaci: I oppose, all the same.

Qaddafi: Whom?

Fallaci: You. Because this doesn’t convince me. And so I oppose it. And since I’m in opposition, what will you do to me? Arrest me? Shoot me?

In 1979, the Colonel changed the subject. In 2011, Fallaci is getting her answer."
Posted by Margaret Talbot/ The New Yorker