Of Libyan Rugby

The exit procedure from the boat was unruly, to say the least; much more so than the latter stages of the entry procedure for foreigners, like me. Therefore, it gave plenty of scope for ‘customers’ to vent their feelings of frustration and/or revulsion, pent-up over the past twenty four hours.

What worried me was the lack of protection given to women and children now. The previous day’s stakeout in the sun had been dreadfully unfair on foreign men, but no woman or child had queued, whatever their nationality, on reflection. As things stood, there was no way for the crew to escort the fortunate or the vulnerable to the front now, so people in those categories either had to fend for themselves or wait for the impending fracas to subside.

I must say that a few men behaved very badly when the time came to exit the boat. I must also say that the crew’s oppressive herding instincts of the previous day, and the conditions on board overnight, probably contributed to the appalling behaviour now. As far as I could see though, there was no excuse for taking the view, ‘Every man for himself.’

Initially, the tight confines of the ship’s internal gangways had stemmed the human tide that gushed suddenly towards the car deck shortly after disembarkation was announced over the public address system. Unfortunately, the narrow outlets from these gangways onto the car deck lacked the necessary ‘valves’ and so several high-pressure ‘jets’ of human life spurted into something that soon resembled a large ‘whirlpool’.

Each person in this pool swilled about, this way and that, according to the numerous currents in play, frantically trying to reach the one and only outlet onto the quay. Although this outlet (the car ramp) was large, and could have coped easily with the volume of people wanting to leave, someone in authority had decided to limit the flow to a trickle. Yes, one large valve controlled the car ramp, causing a huge build-up of pressure behind it: this valve was a group of uniformed officials who resembled night club bouncers.

When my own period of human and metallic buffeting on the car deck ended, I shot off the ramp like a piece of soap pressed between two wet hands. Taking my cue from other passengers, I took a vacant seat on a shuttle bus that the port authorities had provided. When the bus was full, it trundled all of one hundred metres along the quay and stopped outside a single story building. Once it was stationary, the driver opened the folding doors and told us all to get off. When his vehicle was empty, he then scrunched the gearbox into reverse and backed his bus up to the ship’s ramp again. There, I saw a blonde mop of hair towering above the masses. Clearly, my Norwegian friend was still waiting for his short bus tour of Tripoli Harbour to begin.

It was very sunny, but I couldn’t understand why I had to ride from the ship to the building. I could have walked. A moment or two later, the purpose of the bus became clearer. The small packets of people that it contained were much easier to herd about at the single story building than one unruly gaggle. As I stood waiting for my friend, an official rebuked me in Arabic, probably for daydreaming and standing about idly. With that, he manhandled me firmly towards what looked like a customs shed. In a way, I was glad that someone was organising me, that there was some logic to the proceedings, a semblance of order.

Just outside the shed, standing in full sun, were some very hot metal railings that looked uncannily like sheep pens. These were clearly designed to facilitate rigid control over long queues, and represented a quantum leap forward in crowd control technology compared to Valetta’s snake-like line. In the pens, we resembled bewildered farm animals, very similar to the human sheep that I’d seen at Larnaca Airport some weeks earlier. Like those poor, confused, undignified souls, we too were unsure of our immediate fate. From the way that the other penned creatures looked at me, and I looked at them, it was obvious that no one really knew what came next. The only person who might be able to tell me was still waiting on the car deck. I was on my own.

Once in the pens, everyone behaved impeccably. We were obedient and passive; submissive even. Every order and gesture from our experienced shepherds demanded instant attention and received it. We had total respect for our guides, unlike the beleaguered young ‘Collie’ at Larnaca.

I remember one of our shepherds vividly, for he seemed to be equipped with the type of electrically charged prod that farmers use to control large, wayward beasts. In reality, his prod was probably a wand for detecting metal objects, or a military baton. Whichever, everyone had the greatest respect for him. He was clearly in charge and applied a strict protocol to determine who entered the shed first.

Thankfully, it seemed to be high-ranking Libyans, women and children first; then other Arab men; then the foreign men last. I say thankfully, because women and children now regained the preferential treatment they deserved. Even in these highly managed circumstances, a stampede was still possible. Consequently, only after a second long stint of enforced sunbathing, did my turn come to move forward.

On entering the shed, the first object to confront me was a large X-ray machine, of the type you often see at airports. I shovelled my two black bags on the conveyer belt, in the hope that I would see them again soon. I couldn’t see where the bags might reappear at this stage, for there was a wall of sweaty men in front of me. As the wall moved forward, I saw my bags and grabbed them quickly. I never did see an operator.

Now, I found myself in a large room. From its size and shape, it might have been a down-at-heel church hall somewhere in rural England, but there were no trestle tables, stackable chairs or elderly ladies with blue-rinse perms here. Instead of hot tea and sweet cakes, all I could smell was stale body odour. In reality therefore, the room was much more like a large sauna in need of a good scrub with disinfectant. In this sauna, some sadistic person had turned the boiler’s temperature knob to the ‘impossibly hot’ setting and thrown several buckets of water over the coals. Didn’t this person realise that I was inappropriately dressed for such activities?

With most of the women and children escorted safely ahead of the men, and no shepherds to be seen anywhere, the undignified ‘free-for-all’ that had begun on the car deck broke out again. The mob’s aim apparently was to get through yet another manual valve: a concertina partition door at the other end of the room. This partition was much less rigid than the metal pens outside. I could only wonder what lay on the other side of the partition, to make all the pushing and shoving in such torrid conditions worthwhile. Perhaps some famous film star; perhaps free World Cup final tickets; perhaps some cool, clear drinking water. Never before had I seen such fervour from a group of men.

Whatever the cause, the effect was significant strain on the flimsy partition. Several times, the fabric door parted from its guide rail in the floor. When it did, two burly bouncers on the other side physically bolstered the inadequate restraint, replaced it in the rail and verbally berated those nearest the gap. Amusingly, they weren’t really the one to blame: it was the men further back in much less favourable positions. About every five minutes, the bouncers let another five men through the gap at the centre of the door. Instead of relieving the pressure though, it just incited the remaining men to press harder.

Although I’d been relatively passive on the car ramp, I now decided to play an active part in the game. After all, the other players were all youngish men in good physical condition; the majority of them younger than I was. No one was getting hurt, indeed there was a fair amount of good-natured banter going on.

I couldn’t make my mind up though from which direction I should assault the gap initially. I could either hang onto the fringes of the maul, slyly probing for any weaknesses, whilst slithering along the partition towards the gap. Alternatively, I could drive straight through the centre, with my head down and legs pumping hard, as I used to do when towing a lorry tyre when rugby training in my youth. I tried flanking attacks but got nowhere, and slowly manoeuvred myself into position for a frontal attack. I too really wanted whatever was on the other side of that partition by this time.

At one time, I recall looking back over my shoulder, trying to see the Norwegian. I needed to teach him some basic rugby skills urgently. I couldn’t see his blonde hair though, above the sea of black and brown, and guessed that he must still be in a pen outside sunbathing. I could see the man with the baton though. Every time five people went through the partition, he seemed to let ten into the hall. If my suspicions were right, his actions sustained, no increased, the general mayhem. This was all so exciting. By far the biggest rugger game I’d played in for a while; the referees seemed so indifferent to any skulduggery between the players.

Occasionally, the influx of new combatants would include a woman with her children, or an old man. Whenever this happened, there’d be a loud shout from the back of the room and the good-natured squabbles between the younger men at the front would subside. Amazingly, the mob would then part in a scene reminiscent of the biblical blockbuster telling the Red Sea story. Once the vulnerable were safely on the other side of the partition, the two walls of humanity on either side of the rift would collapse, and the frenzy would resume. In one such parting, I managed to move from a flank to a central position.

Within seconds of entering the hall then, it was clear that this was not an occasion for the kind of ‘after you’ politeness that my mother and grandparents had drummed into me since my childhood. With the weak and defenceless receiving special treatment, and my competitors being of equal strength and vigour, this was truly the time for, ‘Every man for himself’. I must say that, in all the years of studying biology, in my youth and early adulthood, never before had I experienced such a fine and compelling example of Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest.’ The most able got their genes through that partition first.

Eventually, and I mean eventually, four Filipinos and I were expelled through the gap in the partition and trod on the hallowed ground beyond. In that champagne moment, I knew exactly what a liberated wine cork felt like. The other side of the partition was a huge disappointment though; there were no film stars, cup final tickets or water: just an L-shaped counter in a room half the size of the one that I'd just left. Instantly, I knew where I was. This was the room that I'd heard about in Cyprus. The one where Westerners’ gadgets were seized, allegedly. One anecdote, that I’d heard, told of a foreigner’s brand new laptop computer. Apparently, the customs officers in this room had confiscated it, despite the distraught man’s wild protestations, and then tossed it unceremoniously onto a heap of similar items, before sending him on his way.

There were so many stories like this, making it hard for me to judge which ones should guide my actions, and which I should treat as entertainment. With my own eyes however, I saw no expropriation of gadgets by the Libyan authorities that morning, perhaps because the four Filipinos and I couldn’t afford such luxuries. Neither did I see any piles of electronic contraband. I did worry about losing the cigarettes that I was carrying though; the ones that I'd been advised to buy duty free at Larnaca Airport, to help lubricate my travel arrangements. I needn’t have worried though. All I experienced that morning was the usual brusque but courteous questions that any customs officer might ask of a traveller anywhere in the world, and then a cursory search of my belongings.

That was it. A few minutes later, I sauntered casually out the other end of the customs shed a free man, my bags sporting two big white chalk marks, souvenirs of the special sporting event that I had just attended. I’d been ‘processed’ and it hadn’t been too painful. Once more, I tried to see the Norwegian, just to gesture goodbye, good luck and thank you. It wasn’t easy to pick out any detail at the other end of the shed though after so long in the shade: my eyes took a while to adjust to bright sunlight. I hadn’t seen him in the moment before my ejection through the partition and I couldn’t see him in the pens now, so I concluded that he must be in the customs shed somewhere, thrashing his way towards that gap.