all this week, c-span is brought you live gavel to gavel coverage of republican national convention in tampa, florida. this is a final session among the speaker jeb bush, florida senator marco rubio and presidential nominee mitt romney. watch every minute on c-span. in the meantime, it's booktv here all day every day throughout the convention. it's highlights highlights with non-fiction authors and books from the past year. on c-span 3 also throughout the convention, 4 hours of american history tv with lectures, oral history, and look at historical american sites and art -- arty facts. coming up today on booktv journalist lindsey hilsum on the libyan revolution. and then several authors illustrate the advancement of the civil right movement through education and more. later a bookstore owner, a

publisher and a literary agent give their perspective on the future of books and bookstores. coming up next from the 2012 print error lit fest, lindsey hilsum talks about the coverage of the february 2011 uprising in libya and the overthrow of mohammed gaffe d.a. if i.sureo this is about 30 minutes.or >> thank you, john.on, om let me clarify i'm no longera dy working for the "chicago tribune." that was many years ago. it is in my bio. thank you for mentioning it.c gooda afternoon, and welcome. my name is mar that dunn sei. gadhafi presided over libya from 1969 to 2011. the longest period of rule of any post colonial arab leader.rm

during the 42 years, he was bestowed upon himself the title3 of such as guide and brother leader. deprived citizens of basic civil and human rights, while at the same time, he asserted that his people were in control of their own country and destiny. beyond the borders of libya, gaddafi sponsored acts of terrorism. the most notorious was the bombing of pan am flight 103 in december 1988, which claimed the lives of 270 people, including 189 americans. gaddafi succeeded in rehabilitating himself with the west at the turn of the 21st

century by making reparations to the families and hoping his mass of weapons of mass deception programs in 2003. during his rule, he raised the let standards of living and life expectancy of his people, using oil revenues that allowed him to avoid the perils of foreign debt. nonetheless, with the arab spring revolutions already underway in neighboring tunisia and egypt, in mid- february 2011, libya exploded in its own revolutionary fervor. eight months later, in october 2011, assisted by a nato air bombing campaign, and weapons provided, they took control of libya, and executed

gaddafi, opening up a new chapter in libyan history. during those eight months of revolution, lindsey hilsum, an editor for channel four news, made four trips to libya, leading her to write the book that we are here to talk about today. "sandstorm: libya in the time of revolution." ms. lindsey hilsum is familiar to her audience for her appearances on the pbs news hour, cnn, and nbc. she has covered the major conflicts of the past two decades, including the wars in iraq, kosovo, and afghanistan, as well as the israeli-palestinian conflict and genocide the genocide in rwanda. in 2001, she reported from egypt as well as libya. her journalism has won several prizes, including an emmy and recognition from amnesty international. please join me in welcoming journalists and author, lindsey

hilsum. [applause] [applause] [applause] >> okay. now we can chat. lindsay, let's start with you talking about your reporting trips to the region last year. tell us about how you were able to navigate the country, how sources cooperated with the organ, and about the general mood of the people that you observed and interacted with them. i would just like to add, in addition to providing a compelling narrative on the history of libya, which he has done is we've and profiles of libyans, both who had been in the country all along, and some who have returned to libya

, to help us better understand how the revolution had an impact on ordinary people. >> thank you very much for coming. chicago is an amazing place, and it does feel like a very long way from tripoli. lester, the arab spring, i guess that was the year i went into journalism for. it was the most extraordinary time. it was a time when history was happening all around us. we still don't know how that history is going to end up. this is a story which is only just starting. but i have been covering and i think that covering the middle east for about 20 years. none of us knew when or how the lid of this would come off.

it started with the suicide of a vegetable seller in tunisia. then libya started, egypt started and so forth. egypt was over in 18 days. but you know, libya, was the only true revolution. the leader of tunisia, it was as if he hijacked the state for a while and then now he is not in power. and then in egypt, the real powers haven't changed that much. in libya, everything was thrown up in the air. gaddafi was like the spider at the center of the web. the revolution cut the web away, and then there was nothing.

it is year zero in libya. let me go back to how i got here. i have been in egypt and then we went over the border to libya. i say we because i am a television reporter and was with a producer and with cameras present. we saw on the walls of the border, a big sign in english that said welcome to free libya. there was a young man there who was perfect. he looked just like rambo. he had long brown hair, he had a bandanna, a vendor of bullets around them. he seemed to be our guide. we drove up, which is in eastern months on 10 city.

one of the things that they did in eastern country, was that they destroyed the statues of a green book. the greenback was gaddafi's mat philosophy. they destroyed them with pick axes and hammers. that was an incredible symbol. what this gentleman did is filmed his friends doing that. he then locked himself inside the internet café, there was one for 11 hours, and the line went up and down. eventually the line was cut. by then, he had done what he needed to do. he put up the pictures on his facebook page, and he also put up his name and phone number. he said if anyone is interested

in revolution in libya, call me at this number. now, that was very brave. that was very brave. his father had spent a lot of time in prison for opposing gaddafi. when he told his father what he had done, he said if you ride the camel, you can keep your head down. so they rode a camel. gaddafi's forces gave up. very quickly. our experience initially, something incredibly positive. libya was enclosed, it wasn't north korea, but it wasn't far off. journalist that women tended to go in an interview gaddafi. ultimately, they were not allowed to speak to foreigners. these people were desperate to talk to us. they love having us there. they wanted to give us free accommodation, and it took us a long time to convince the driver

we should pay for his services. one of the inspirations for "sandstorm", is that people were telling us stories for the first time. four decades of not being able to trust anyone outside the immediate family. four decades of one relatives were locked up, murdered, people forced into exile. nobody had been able to tell these tories. as the revolution were on -- civil disobedience, fighting and so on, that is why wanted to write the book. i wasn't satisfied with ordinary reporting. i wanted to go back and tell stories, and that is what i have tried to do. >> okay. talk to us a little bit about what you were able to learn from the people who were ruled by him about gaddafi himself.

he had a habit of presenting himself to the outside world in a rather flamboyant way. i am sure many of you are familiar with looks of him on television or photos of him in the newspapers. it is not only how he expressed himself, but there was also a custom element. beyond that, you write about, and maybe you can share with us, his ideas about statecraft and how he ran the country or didn't run the country. domestically, and also, you know, how he saw his role as an arab leader in africa and the larger arab world. >> it is very interesting to look at the two victory of the gaddafi. one of the things that i have in the book is an archive of photographs, which were found in the ruins of some of the government buildings after he fell. you see these pictures of him when he seized power in 1969.

he was 27 years old, he was handsome, he was wearing a crisp army uniform. and he was somebody that gave bolivians lot of hope. they had been ruled by a king until then. he was known as the reluctant monarch, because he just didn't want to be king. it didn't suit him. the country was -- that people perceive their country to be weak and fallen behind. upsets this handsome young officer. you look at the photograph, he loves cats. as time goes on, more and more flamboyant, sometimes he is wearing a kind of army uniform with medals over here. you would've had to fight in at least six world wars to get that many medals. sometimes he would wear these long robes and african robes.

pictures of africa embroidered or printed on them. he had this extraordinary sense of himself. that's what he believed in. he believed in himself. and if he thought -- or he grew to believe that he was invisible. he said when people ask you libyans before, people would say lebanon, liberia, but now they say gaddafi. i have made you famous. this guy, who was something of a joke on the world stage, they were humiliated by his presence in many ways. they felt that he didn't represent them in any way. also, just like you and me, they watch shows -- reality shows, game shows, other shows.

one of my favorite lines in their shows was gaddafi, you are the wind this week. goodbye. [laughter] he didn't believe in the state. he pretended that the state was run by the people. there was a word invented an array back. he had his own channels as well, the revolutionary committees. his family. as well. gaddafi's brother-in-law was doing something completely different with the leadership there. so nobody ever quite new where

they were. that was part of his best part of the plan was that nobody should ever know where they are at. they didn't even know what it was. that was because they normally calculate the calendar from the death of the profit. he decided that he was going to calculated from the birth of the profit. he got up one day and said the libyan calendar will be different. and he changed the names of july and august. for quite a while, libyans did not know what day it was. that is a whimsical way of ruling, which i think anger people. then there was the brutality, quite the extraordinary brutality as well. let me tell you about the brutality. that is such a key thing. when i got to the city, i saw on the courthouse wall -- the

center of the revolution -- all these pictures of men. i asked who they were. i was told that they were the martyrs. asked what was that it was a prison massacre. and i -- i feel guilty because i didn't know about it before. this is the signature atrocity of the gaddafi machine. i don't think many of us knew about it. one of the things i am proud of in the book is that i have two eyewitnesses to this massacre. it is the first time that this story has been told freely. in the '90s, there were a lot of opponents of gaddafi, and they tended to be imprisoned in tripoli. people were dying of tb and starvation. some of the prisoners, most of who were sick, brighton for

better conditions. they thought they had a deal to negotiate. what happened was that they were herded into a courtyard, and soldiers were positioned on the roof, in 1270 men were gunned down in cold blood. 1270 men. it took three or four hours, 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on june 28, 1996. i went to the prison, to have a look. then i met this gentleman there and he told me the story. nineteen years -- he spent 19 years in prison. he told me how he looked out of his cell window and saw the laws of the courtyard turning red with blood. when i heard about this, this is obviously something very

important. if i didn't understand this, i couldn't understand about libya. i asked if i could meet some of the victims families. and he said yes. i stepped into this room and i was expecting to meet a couple of people. the room may be a quarter size of this term, there were about 15 or 20 women on the side. the same number of men on the other side. each of them were holding up photographs of the husbands or brothers or some person that they have lost. they were completely silenced. the atmosphere was extraordinary. an old man came forward to tell his story. a small guy, traditional libyan headgear. he said it was my brother-in-law. and we used to go up to tripoli every couple of months to take in food and toiletries. the guards would say you can't see him, but leave the stuff

here. we did that for 14 years before they told us he was dead. >> i cannot believe that. fourteen years. i have been in lots of countries that people disappear and people are tortured and terrible things happen. i have never been in a country where the regime actually keeps the families living in hope for 14 years when their relatives are long dead. that really haunted me and it actually haunts me still. this atrocity and the way the atrocity has been dealt with, was at the center of people's hatred of gaddafi. they have tried rising against him before, and they have failed. it was certainly tunisia and egypt which would trigger the things. it was this episode that had been in the people's hearts

since 1996. it could never forgive him for that. >> the elements of gaddafi's brutality and repression. they are trademarks of many, if not all, dictators. at the same time, it is not widely known or written about in the west, at least, that as i mentioned in my introduction, there were some objective, measurable, improvements in certain standards of living during the 42 years that gaddafi was in power. for example, the literacy rate went from 10% to 9% over this period. the life expectancy of libyans increased from 57 years to 77 years.

he provided a system of education and housing assistance. my question is, as you are traveling the country, and perhaps libyans felt free to speak about gaddafi in ways they haven't felt free before, did you encounter any acknowledgment or appreciation of these factors, what was the brutality and oppression of his rule so overshadowing of things that these other factors really weren't on people's minds? >> certainly come he did have some support. i met one woman who worked for him. she always called him the guy. he was a charismatic leader. she adored him. she thought that he was great -- shouldn't leave all these stories. i said what about this, and she said oh, that was his

brother-in-law. she said it wasn't him. of course, some people benefited from his rule. a lot of libyans, you know, support him -- they did support them at the beginning. and he did all those things you talked about. but then things changed. one of the things he did was he kicked off the oil boom in the 1970s. he was the first person to say to the western oil companies, were not getting enough as it is. we can't get more pro-^ profits, then you guys can leave. he didn't blink. they blinked. that was a forerunner of the oil crisis in the 1970s. they found oil in 1958, they were only just beginning to work with it. most of all, they were nomads. it was a very poor place.

with gaddafi, they had this huge injection of cash. he did increase the age at which children would leave school and so on. one of the people embodied what i think a lot of libyans thought, i met this gentleman in tripoli. he is the guy who makes the copper happens. he bangs them out. he told me how in 1969, he loved gaddafi. he said we would be like egypt. and he went running out and showing his support. he felt that this was libya's chance to enter the modern world. that is exactly what happened. and i asked what made him change his mind. he said in the 70s he would go home from work and people would

say don't go down that street because they have hung someone. and someone was singing. then one day, he was walking and men grabbed him, and he ended up fighting one of the most gruesome wars, the war in czechoslovakia. if it is something that libya does not need, it is desert. there is plenty, believe me. so this money, which was originally spent on health care and education was being spent on wars and terrorism. livingston like that. i think that many of the people who are originally supported him..

they were disappointed. also, his sons, they were completely this optional. when money started to come back and read it there was a period of sanctions, you know, a all the companies were run by his sons. one of the sons, he cemented himself as a very good soccer player. he paid an italian team so that he could play. normally, those teams play millions to get to play. but this guy plays because he wants to play. he was the only soccer player you could research them by name. anybody else had to be referred to by number. nobody was allowed to be more famous than gaddafi and his family.

when he was angry with a particular soccer team in a country, he had their clubhouse bulldoze and their fan club leaders put in prison. those kinds of things, indian, overshadowed any good that gaddafi had done in the early years. >> during your reporting trips last year, you had first-hand observation of the execution and the effects of the nato involvement in the country. in which the united states, britain, and france were at the forefront. can you tell us, and you write about this in the book, a little bit about the political considerations that went into the nato decision to get involved. i believe you wrote that it was preceded by a vote by the arab league, requesting, and also coordination with the u.n., and also something that is probably on a lot of people's minds. if you could perhaps give us

your view. why did nato find it opportune to become involved in libya, but have not, to date, done the same in syria? >> gaddafi didn't have many friends left by the end. he had some friends in africa because he had quite a few african states that he sponsored. the arab leaders really hated him. that is because he had a really annoying habit of trying to assassinate him. it just doesn't go down well, you know? [laughter] they were more than happy to get rid of him. he was seen as an embarrassment for the whole region. for western countries, there were a couple of issues. some think it is all because of oil, and it is to some extent, but there were other issues. others try to befriend gaddafi.

there was a guy in benghazi at the time, the country fell to the rebels very quickly, and the rest do not. the rebels tried to go up the road to take tripoli and the others from gaddafi's hands. i will have to tell you that they are probably the most useless guerrilla army i have ever come cries across. they were rubbish. they were mostly teachers and doctors and things like that. they had never picked up weapons before. they didn't know how to fire them. i came across one boy who said, a bit is missing from my weapon.

i said which bit is that? i said so what are you going to do and he said i will wait until the bit comes. i said hello to you? he said i am 17. then i heard myself say, does your mother know you are here? [laughter] he said yes, and she's very proud of me. i said she won't be very proud of you if you go into battle with a bit missing from your weapon. they were not great. they were getting pushed back down towards and hanlon said he would fight house by house. after people said that he was prepared to die as a martyr, people knew that he meant it. he was going to go through with it.

i think if the intervention hadn't come, it would've been a huge refugee exodus to egypt. i think he would probably have a war going on to this day. then, of course, libya is so simple. it is a small population about six my people. it is all desert in the south end of this coast roads, all the main cities along the coast roads. the main fighting was along the coast roads as well. militarily, it was quite simple. he didn't have any friends. now you look at syria, and none of those conditions apply. another thing it is a homogenous society as well.

now, syria is shaping up under the sectarian struggle. they have support from christians. 70% rule by minority. what is happening is that the government, bashar al-assad, has the support of iran. and the opposition, has the support of saudi arabia and other gulf countries. it is shaping up into a regional battle, and there is a great danger that this war will spread. also, the russians. russians allow that security council with libya. they have no great love for viddafi, but, it went tough t s, hideous.

children are being murdered, civilians are being killed everyday. there are massacres all the time. sectarian strife is increasing. the danger is, there are going to be killings on both sides. and yet, western intervention, it made things even worse. everybody seems to be stuck. it just shows the limits and the responsibilities to protect and the limits and theories that we

will see a long and brutal war in syria. >> i would like to ask one more question, and then we will take questions from the audience. this goes back to your thoughts on what lies ahead in the immediate future for libya. next month, if things go according to plan, there will be an election in libya is something called a public national conference, and that conference will appoint a prime minster, cabinet, and a constitutional -- i'm sorry, a constituent authority. they will be tasked with writing or drafting a constitution, which will then be put to a referendum. if it passes, within short order, there will be a general election, so all of these officials can become elected by popular vote instead of appointed. that is the plan. that is the theory. >> it sounds good, doesn't it?

>> going back to what you said about this being year zero for libya, what is your sense, of course, we are not asking for prophecy, but what is your sense of some of the challenges and difficulties that lie ahead. for the libyan state and libyan people. >> well, you don't go from a monarchy to a dictatorship to a democracy overnight. the libyans have no tradition of democracy. they have never had a proper election, neither under the king or under gaddafi. all of this is new. you have a very weak central government. this is a revolution of youth. they are all young people out there. the government is really made up of old men. some of them are academics and business people.

some are lawyers and things like that. many of them have been in exile. the prime minister was a professor of engineering at michigan state university. the boys who picked up guns, they don't want to lay their guns down, and that is partly because the central sources stably, and they say why should we. they have never had this their whole lives. that is what they learn how to do. you have the sense of chaos. there were also people who were gaddafi loyalists. different militia groups in different times. they sometimes fight each other. all of these things are the negative side. on the other hand, there is very good voter registration.

2.5 million people are registered to vote. some of the towns have had their local elections already. people are mad for voting. they are really keen on it and are desperate for it. they manage to get oil and gas production up to where it was prewar levels. all of that is quite prosperous. one of the people i met said that our real problem is that we each have a live gaddafi in our heads. >> i thought that was such a great way of putting it. it is not there in the political culture. that is one issue. there are people who want a islamic state and people who

want a secular state. that is a major issue. the secular -- people are not used to compromising. it's the same thing about women. women participated in the revolution, they were not there fighting, but they were running hospitals and there were women spies. i have a story in here about a young woman who had her headscarf. no one checked her and checked where the weapons were. she ended up in the tension. she had a pretty bad time. you will have to buy the book to find out about it. [laughter] now, some of the men are saying thank you very much, ladies. would you like to go home now? now, some women are saying, no. one of the women i talk about say to her, you women don't have

the experience to take part in politics. and she said, you guys don't have the leadership either. some of these tensions are rooted in libyan society. last week, some militia got annoyed because they said that their leader had upset them. suddenly, there is a bunch of guys with grenades on the runway. well, it doesn't look good. all of these -- it is all very fraught. they have the opportunity to get it right. as human beings, they usually

screwed up, don't they? [laughter] >> okay. we have five minutes, and i am sure that lindsay would be happy to entertain your questions. yes, >> it is interesting that saudia arabia and kuwait have avoided the conflict situation. i'm interested in a couple of words from either of you. is that just a matter of having a critical mass, or is it a fundamental difference? >> it is a fundamental difference. basically, saudi arabia has a shia and sunni population. they have had demonstrations, because they are very suppressed. those demonstrations have been put down. the reason they are putting put down is to make sure they don't spread. they have a sunni population and not one quarter has been given.

the same weekend that nato intervened in libya, the saudis wanted to make sure that those people did not overthrow their government. the gulf states are extremely hard off, and there's no way it's going to happen. that is what they say. are there any more questions? >> yes? >> in libya, there were a number of high-profile journalists that were killed. can you speak of the danger of covering these types of events? >> yes, it is increasingly dangerous. three of my colleagues, they were killed in libya. chris and tim were in ms. rodda. it was under siege and they came in by sea and it was shelled by

gaddafi. they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. it is getting more dangerous to do my job. these days, governments know what's going on. they know that we are trying to uncover human rights abuses. we get targeted. paris was my friend and she was killed about two months ago. we think she was targeted by government forces. her report, her last report, it was from homes. she wrote about how the government was sharing a civilian area in what the children were going through. she wrote about the widows baseman, where the widows -- it

was one of the most beautiful and moving pieces she had ever wrote. and she paid with her life for. >> are there any other questions? okay, well you'd like to thank you for live gavel to gavel coverage of the republican national convention in tampa, florida. still to come tonight. florida senator marco rubio and the acceptance speech from mitt romney. watch every minute every speech on c-span. here on c-span2 it's booktv all day every day throughout the convention with highlights of non-fiction authors and books from the past year. and on c-span 3 also throughout the conventions, 24 hours of american history tv with lecture, oral history and a look at historical and american sights and arty facts. >> john kennedy once met with the british prime minister and

you read that. they discussed arms control or whatever issues between the two powers. which they sure did. but only long after wards did we get the know what they said to each other in private. it turned out kennedy spent a lot of time explaining about bad coverage they were being tough on jackie. mcmill said why do you care? brush it out. kennedy said that's easy for you to say, how would you like it the press said your wife was a drunk and he relied, i would simply say, you should have seen her mother. it was the kind of thing that -- a fun thing to fbi you an idea what the people were like. you can't learn in real time. >> historians and biographers use the advantage of hindsight to understand the projects through a prism of time. sunday your questions, calls,