He has embarrassed his hosts by likening America to terrorism and suggesting that Italy abolish all its political parties, but yesterday Colonel Muammar Gaddafi won praise from hundreds of leading Italian women by condemning the Arab and Muslim world for treating their sex “like pieces of furniture”.
Addressing women drawn from politics, culture and the economy at the Auditorium concert hall, Colonel Gaddafi called for a “world female revolution”. Too often, he said, Muslim men treated women as “piece of furniture which you can change when you want, and no one will ask you why you have done it”.
Colonel Gaddafi — who travels with a squad of female bodyguards dubbed The Amazons by the Italian press — is making his first visit to Libya’s former colonial power for 40 years. The formal gathering, at which the Libyan leader addressed the women audience from the stage, was organised by Mara Carfagna, the former topless model and TV host who was appointed Equal Opportunities Minister by Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, last year.
Ms Carfagna told Colonel Gaddafi that Italy was committed to the rights of African women. He called on Italian women to have more children, saying that unless there was “greater attention to the family” Italy would “disappear altogether by 2050” as its population declined.
He did not mingle but sat behind an imposing desk up on the stage, with Ms Carfagna next to him on a chair, blowing kisses to the women as he left. He has not earned universally favourable reviews during his visit, however. In addresses this week at the Senate, Rome University and Rome town hall he has branded America as “equivalent to al-Qaeda”, justified Somali piracy and said the world had to understand the “reasons for terrorism”.