Talk:Third International Theory

Crude translation from Третья_всемирная_теория on ru:wp
Please excuse the horrible cut-and-paste Google translation I just added here, from Третья всемирная теория. This has been coming up in the news, with the recent crisis in Libya, and I was dismayed to find nothing in en:wp, so I tried to clean up a translation of the fairly detailed Russian article.

I have not read any of the primary sources, so don't know whether to trust that article; but it is written primarily by Nickst who is an established editor there. Better English sources and a serious review are called for. –SJ + 05:49, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

frankly? The article is trash. Reads like a direct translation of a Libyan government press release. I do not suppose you expect people to take at face value things like "As a functioning system, 'Jamahiriya' in the field and especially in production was hampered both by opposition by the former management (upper classes) and by lack of training in the necessary activities by the new management staff." The reality is that Gaddafi's "Jamahiriya" state is just a bureaucracy designed to perpetuate his autocratic rule. You can try and clad such an apparatus and its apparatchiks into philosophical or ideological terms, but Gaddafi isn't even trying very hard. --dab (𒁳) 15:23, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The article is very informative regarding what the Qaddafi regime professes to believe and intend, and that issue is an interesting question in its own right, no matter how the theory is realized and what objectives its creation really pursued. Also, I think you're unfair to Qaddafi, he is trying unusually hard in comparison with your run-of-the-mill African or Middle Eastern dictator. I think it's likely that he even believes himself.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 21:40, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Work
This article needs more work. Not only it explains the ideology of this madman, but also it lacks to show why they haven't worked for the good of the Libyan people and why there was the need of a "guide" for 42 years. Thanks--Camilo Sanchez (talk) 01:33, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I think this article serves its purpose quite well. It explains the ideology that lies behind the Libyan government. We don't fill the article on the workings of the Dutch government with criticism about it either do we? We just explain how the system works, or theoretically should work. Adding criticism of the Libyan state would reveal bias if anything.Counteraction (talk) 23:57, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This is ridiculous. Why shouldn't it explain the ideology? That's not a justification of its practical implementation, just a description.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 18:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As for "why they haven't worked for the good of the Libyan people" - well, they are a brutal dictatorship by all accounts, but many sources recognise that they have also used the incomes from oil to conduct fairly intensive "welfare state" policies in terms of health care, housing and such, especially for an African country (their relatively high living standards for the region can be verified by looking at various online statistics from the UN). I'm from Bulgaria, and many Bulgarian doctors travel to work there in the state's health care system for much higher pay than the one they'd get at home. If a new regime takes over, I hope it's democratic, but I also hope it doesn't destroy the welfare system by privatizations and by changing the distribution of the oil incomes in favour of international investors and/or local elites, as has happened elsewhere.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 14:16, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

" well, they are a brutal dictatorship by all accounts" Could you please be more specific? We hear "Gaddafi was a dictatorship because he was for 40 years ruling Libya." If we take a look at the list of American congressmen there are many who are on service for 53,50, 46, 40 30... years. What about the American rich families that has been around the political arena for decades like the Rockefeller, Bush... you know them quite well.

Gaddafi is a madman. What is the diagnostic? Who was the psychiatrist who attended him?

Seriously, these generalizations without evidences and specification tells more about those who are doing the propaganda than the man. But this is the way US foreign policies are done: by making people believe whatever US wants to justify their criminal actions. We are really talking about monstrosity here. --Justana (talk) 17:42, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

What you are saying is simply that this article needs to be based to 100% on independent third-party academic sources. Current size of this article: 29k. Number of acceptable academic sources cited: zero. Number of dodgy references to Russian newspapers: four. (we have Pravda, Vedomosti, Kommersant, and a "Journal of the Russia in Global Affairs", presumably this, published by Izvestia). Why is this article based on dubious translations of Russian newspaper articles? Did somebody just pipe ru:Третья всемирная теория to a machine translator? I propose that this article is ruthlessly reduced to whatever parts are satisfactorily referenced. --dab (𒁳) 09:52, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

turning to the edit history, it turns out I was spot on here. I do not think it was a good idea to import detail from a broken, under-referenced article on ru-wiki. Doing so via google translate probably didn't help, either. Perhaps we should just re-stubify this. --dab (𒁳) 09:55, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Excuse me, but who told you that those newspapers are "dodgy" or "dubious" sources, the use of which makes the article "broken" and "under-referenced"? Those are some of the most prominent Russian newspapers. Is anything Russian automatically condemned to eternal damnation in your universe? Nowhere does Wiki policy say that all sources need to be academic. Yes, I'd agree that when describing a "theory" or ideology, academic sources would be preferable, but as long as there is nothing better, you have to live with non-academic ones. In this case, most of the subject boils down to a resume of the Green Book, plus just a few details on "revisions" and the actual implementation on the ground, for which newspapers should suffice as sources; certainly you don't need a third-party source for retelling what the Green Book actually says, which is very easy to verify online. As for your "discovery" that the article was machine-translated - congratulations, that's what the user SJ explicitly said in the post that you responded to in the thread above. In the meantime, I have fixed the translation, comparing with the original, so the risks of machine translation are no longer an issue. The point of what SJ did and said was that since otherwise there is no information on the "Third International Theory" on en.wiki, a translation from the Russian one is better than nothing. And this does make sense. All in all, your suggestion to remove everything is completely pointless. Just because you are feeling aggressive towards Qaddafi doesn't mean you have to remove all mention of his hilarious exercises in the field of ideology, the humour or which you apparently fail to appreciate. Trying to censor and silence all mention of his idiotic "International Theory", lest it should attract some international adherence, would be just as ridiculous as the theory itself.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 14:42, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

no, but they are still newspapers. Come on, this article is based on a google translation of Russian newspaper sources? Can you still figure out which parts of the articles are actually based on an accurate summary of which Russian newspaper articles? If you read my comment with some care, you will note I said "dodgy references to Russian newspapers", not "references to dodgy newspapers", so your ideological rant completely misses the point.

Your supposition that I am trying to "censor and silence all mention of his idiotic 'International Theory', lest it should attract some international adherence" is itself rather funny. Don't try to second guess my intentions, ok? --dab (𒁳) 10:20, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * As I said, no policy says that newspapers are unacceptable as sources. I don't need to "figure out which parts of the articles are actually based on an accurate summary of which Russian newspaper articles" unless I dig up and read the newspapers - nor is it the case that I can do that with any other Wikipedia article, unless I dig up and read all of its sources! If I find any reason to doubt any specific claim, I can just tag it and remove it until/unless it's sourced; but for the text as a whole, as long as there are some references provided in it, the default assumption is that it is based on them and not that it is unsourced. Since I really don't see what is so unusually "dodgy" or "broken" about the referencing in comparison with other English-language articles, I assumed that your complaint is about the newspapers or the source article being Russian.
 * As for my second-guessing your intentions - well, if you don't want to be ascribed a certain intention, you'd better try a tad harder not to come across as haeving that intention. First you basically said that this article is trash because its subject itself, the ideology of the Qaddafi regime, is trash; i.e. you hate this article because you hate its subject (at the same time, you were also needlessly offending other editors - SJ - by referring to what they had done as "trash"). Only afterwards did you start to criticize the sourcing, as sharply as, IMO, unconvincingly. Overall, your needlessly sharp and irascible tone does not exactly encourage any sort of collaborative atmosphere.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 21:08, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Some remarks on your tags - The "straying from the topic" parts are relevant in that they pertain to the practical implementation of the "Third International Theory", just like a short mention of Marxist regimes is appropriate in an article about Marxism - indeed even more so, because Libya is the only country where the ideology has been applied. And if you want your clarification tag for "the problem of democracy (People Power)" to be addressed by somebody, I think that it would be desirable to supplement it with an explanation of what it is you find unclear, either in the hidden text or on the talk page.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 21:08, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

"Overall, your needlessly sharp and irascible tone does not exactly encourage any sort of collaborative atmosphere"

That's how everyone who is putting in question anything at Wikipedia is treated. At that time they were campaigning to demoralize Gaddafi. Wikipedia is part of the official history and the propaganda machine. We have better talk and write to help those who are independent and help them to spread the word. But it is good to leave something here so that others can have a glimpse of the reality. Wikipedia is part of Goebbels's postulate "If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth."--Justana (talk) 17:56, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Since articles of the media is acceptable why only use those of the mainstream media? The quarrel above was done at the beginning of Libya's invasion when the mainstream media, especially BBC and CNN that is connected to NATO, was doing the propaganda about Gaddafi. He was portrayed as monster, crazy, homicidal and other adjectives.

He was killed in the barbarian way without trial. What about this article by Linda Housman: "The Green Book Project: A feeble attempt to disrupt Gaddafi's ideology"

"The tone is clear and the intention of the project leaves nothing to the imagination: it aims to argue that Muammar Gaddafi's concept of the Jamahiriya government as explained in the Green Book failed miserably and therefore had to be replaced with western style democracy, as happened after the NATO-led war on Libya in 2011."

"Which substantive theory exactly needs to be debunked and in which way the nation of Libya exactly has been "effectively paralyzed for nearly forty years" however does not become clear, neither from the above mentioned articles nor from the photo series itself. Apparently both the author and the photographer trust in the fact that their audience is brainwashed enough to not even question the credibility of their statements: Gaddafi is evil and so is his work, period."

An article by former executive member of the Tripoli-based World Mathaba, Gerald A. Perreira, proves different. The article sums up many of the benefits the Libyans enjoyed during Gaddafi's leadership, including the following:

equipment, seeds and livestock to kick start their farms all for free
 * Electricity in Libya was free
 * There was no interest on loans, banks in Libya were state-owned and loans were given to all its citizens at zero percent interest by law
 * Having a home was considered a human right in Libya
 * All newlyweds in Libya received $60,000 dinar (U.S.$50,000) from the government to buy their first apartment
 * Education and medical treatments were free in Libya (remember: before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans were literate; nowadays this is 83%)
 * When Libyans wanted to take up farming, they would receive farm land, a farm house,
 * When Libyans could not find the education or medical facilities they needed, the government funded them to go abroad; above that they received U.S.$2,300/month for accommodation and car allowance
 * When Libyans bought a car, the government subsidized 50% of the price
 * The price of petrol in Libya was $0.14 per liter
 * Libya had no external debt
 * When a Libyan was unable to get employment after graduation, the government would pay the average salary of the profession, as if he or she was employed, until employment was found
 * A portion of every Libyan oil sale was credited directly to the bank accounts of all Libyan citizens
 * A mother who gave birth to a child received U.S.$5,000
 * Food was subsidized: 40 loaves of bread in Libya cost $0.15
 * 25% of Libyans have a university degree
 * Gaddafi carried out the world's largest irrigation project, known as the Great Manmade River project, to make water readily available throughout the desert country

How paralyzed does this exactly sound?"

--Justana (talk) 16:58, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

"Neologism"
I doubt that "jamahiriya" was a neologism in the strict sense. As far as I understand, the word is a regular feminine adjective. It simple means "something feminine that somehow pertains to 'masses'". Using it as a noun may be neologistic. In that sense, Gaddafi took an adjective and nominalized it, giving it a new meaning. If I am correct in this understanding, perhaps it would be better to say that Gaddafi came up with a term that punned on the Arabic word for "Republic". As if, in Latin, somebody came up with the term res popularis as something distinct from res publica.

... which I just note somebody already did So, the current nonce-use of "res popularis" takes a perfectly regular classical term and gives it a sarcastic twist. Exactly what Gaddafi had done (except that in his case 'sarcasm' is difficult to gauge. Nobody knows for sure if he was a cruel sarcastic trickster, or just a cruel confused dimwit). "res popularis" is thus an excellent translation of "jamahiriya", but apparently nobody has thought of this so far. --dab (𒁳) 13:05, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Strict sense or no, it also is not an English word, and should not be used regularly throughout the article as a regular English noun - particularly as, when you do happen to find the one blue link for it, it simply links back to this very article. At best, this needs extensive copyediting. Its probably too important an article to delete out of hand. PrimalBlueWolf (talk) 11:04, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

NPOV lede
, Ive copied your words here from my Talk page, where they are more appropriate:
 * Your words are "L.A.R. themselves claim to be a utopia" and L.A.R. is a particular government, which enbodies the Third International Theory. And your words are "Describing a particular government as utopian is not compatible with neutral point". Even if a government claims to be a utopia, there is no government, which could rightfully claim to be a utopia, what ever that means. Therefore, calling L.A.R. a "utopian model state" is neutral fact, since it is a self-proclamation.--Geysirhead (talk) 11:46, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * While it is a self-proclamation, that does not make it fact, nor neutral. Were I to add the United States to the list of Utopias, for instance, you would call that propaganda, not fact - and yet it is not hard to find an American who will tell you that the States are a literal utopia. Your recent edit is even more troublesome, as it violates NPOV in the opposite direction: by describing the government as "self-proclaimed", you are making an implicit value judgement of the validity of their claim, else you would simply describe them as a utopia, rather than a self-proclaimed utopia. Whether the theoretical concept was supposed to have been utopian or not, this is not noteworthy of the lede, and should be, if anywhere, in the body. PrimalBlueWolf (talk) 12:35, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Wrong title ?!
The correct name of Gaddafi's theory was: Third Universal Theory: Qadhafi's Social Theory as the Basis of the Third Universal Theory ,. International is wrong here. Anyone wants to move the article? - Thylacin (talk) 09:30, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Islamism?
The cited source says on the cited pages:

"Long a target of Islamist fundamentalist groups, Qaddafi also rushed to share intelligence with Washington on alleged allies of Osama bin Laden, like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group." Which doesn't sound very Islamist.

More importantly however, at no point does the source say that TIT was Islamist. It does say that Islam was important to the theory and Gaddafi's views on it, but is that really enough? Genabab (talk) 00:22, 24 December 2023 (UTC)