About a year ago, last August in fact, I had a guest post on my blog (A very important guest post) written by Susan Sandover, who is a good friend, mentor and colleague of mine. She wrote an important post regarding inheritance rights in Libya and all the trials and tribulations that she had been going through to get her rightful dues.
Recently I was checking out my site statistics and discovered that her post is one of the most popular ones on my blog. To date it's been read an impressive 5,316 times. I emailed Susie and told her about the popularity of her post. She was delighted as it meant that hopefully people have read and may have taken some of the precautions that she had so urgently written about.
Susie is still struggling to get her inheritance. She still has yet to receive even one cent of her husband's pension of which she is owed. She struggles through each day to earn a living and make ends meet. Susie asked me if she could post an update. 'Of course!' was my reply. Here is her update:
The situation in Libya is
bleaker and bleaker by the day. Thanks
to Bashir’s foresight of knowing the cupidity of his family at least we managed
to finally sell our house and I was able to buy a small flat in London, I have
a home. At one point this seemed very
unlikely due to the family trying to enact Sharia inheritance law even before
Bashir had died. After much wrangling I
was also able to bring some of our possessions to London which had been
collected and worked for over the 33 years of our happily married life. At the time I felt that I had been hard done
by but today I look at Libya and think I was the lucky one I managed to
retrieve something. |
| The Muslim cemetery where Bashir is buried in England |
As I reflect back to the
tales Bashir used to tell me of pre Gaddafi days those who lived then knew they
were not all golden times as many of the old elite would like to tell us. However, for the masses the country was safe
and there was respect, tolerance and opportunities to better oneself. Today the curse of Libya’s oil wealth has
bred a nation of youth greedy for power, who have been brought up under
Gaddafi’s regime of corruption and nepotism this is what they understand and
know. I realize that the likelihood of
my ever being able to reclaim the outstanding debts owed to me by Bashir’s
family and the land are increasingly unlikely. Likewise the hope of being able to be paid a widow’s pension are as
equally unlikely.
I feel sad that my thoughts today of Libya should be ones of loss. Colleagues and dear friends, Young students who I taught lost their lives in the revolution and are again dying in the current uprisings, for what I ask myself? Oil Refineries are lying dormant or are burning. Libya’s foreign currency reserves are being squandered and have about another six months of cash and then the bank will be bare. Up to that fateful February there was a common enemy, Gaddafi and his cronies, but now it seems as if racial, tribal and religious differences have become every Libyans enemy.
Is this the sad end of the
‘Arab Spring’? I often think of the
image of the self-mutilation of the Tunisian vegetable seller as the catalyst
that sparked the uprisings. What was
simmering beneath was an unimaginable turmoil and burning hell and yet the
signs were there for all to read but we ignored them and now we are reaping
what was sown.
I should like to be
optimistic and in this respect I urge all mothers, wives and sisters to beg
your husbands, sons, and brothers to THINK, TALK, RECONCILE. I am a product of the Make Love Not War
generation we succeeded in stopping a war this has to be a better way than what
exists at the moment. If we don’t stand up for our dreams we will never see
them realized.
Susie Sandover
London - August/2014
