A dead tyrant and a messy new era

Like many despots Colonel Gaddafi has ended up in a mausoleum of sorts.

Hundreds of people have lined up in Misrata to cast an eye on the body of the man who ruled their country with a mixture of whim and menace worthy of Caligula. But Gaddafi’s mausoleum is a freezing meat locker.

His battered corpse has been embalmed only in his own blood and torn clothes and it is surrounded by questions. Who exactly killed him? Was it the boastful young rebel brandishing the colonel’s golden pistol yesterday?

Was it crossfire as the National Transition Council has claimed? Was it an impromptu firing squad? We may never know.

The Libyan people may not care. In the Islamic world burials are usually something you can rely on even in the most chaotic circumstances. Faith dictates that they have to take place swiftly. But this one has been delayed.

Is it so that the gathering crowds can the glimpse they have been yearning for? Is it to facilitate the investigation the UN Human Rights Council has called for? Somehow I doubt it. A delayed burial and a questionable death may not be the primary concerns of Libyans today but these details matter as they try to reinvent their country from scratch and reconcile the losers with the winners.

If the new start is this messy it does not necessarily bode well for the immediate future. The grainy cell phone footage of Gaddafi – alive and then dead – will become as iconic as Saddam Hussein at the gallows, Nicolas and Helene Ceaucescu executed, Mussolini hanging by the neck from a lamp-post next to his mistress in Milan.

Nothing creates finality like the image of the dead tyrant. But even from his shallow grave Gaddafi will cast a long shadow over his people.

Follow @MattFrei on Twitter.