The news that Libya has been 'rehabilitated' by none other than the world's only hyperpower the United States of America reminds one of the scene in George Orwell's 1984 .

At one point the main character of the novel Winston Smith, attends a hate rally organised by the ruling (and only) party in the dictatorial state in Orwell's nightmare vision of the future. The speaker, a party ideologue with beady eyes and whose glasses shine in the glare of floodlights looks almost like a grotesque insect, ranting and raving against the enemy bloc called Eurasia, if memory serves me correctly. He whips the crowd into a veritable frenzy of unrestrained bloodlust, and their cries for violence and vengeance against the perceived external threat reaches fever pitch.

Suddenly in mid-speech the speaker is interrupted, and told that Eurasia is no longer the enemy. Without blinking an eyelid the speaker redirects his wrath at the other competing bloc, but the crowd continues unabated and unreflective in its explosion of spontaneous violence. Winston Smith, who witnesses this, feels he is the only one who noticed the semantic leap. 'Thought control' at its finest he reflects.

The same scenario has just been played out before the collective attention of the seemingly passive world public. For decades, going back to the Reagan era of the1980s, successive administrations in Washington have condemned Libya and labelled its political elite as evil and a menace to the world.

This was the government which was, if we care to remember, accused of everything under the sun- from engaging in terrorist actions against the West to sponsoring terrorist movements in practically every part of the world. When President Bush Junior coined the term 'Axis of Evil', it was obvious that Libya was not that far off the list too.

Club house diplomacy

But those who watched Bush's speech on Proliferation of Nuclear Arms this week would have noticed the few catchy yet strategically placed references to the erstwhile enemy Libya, which not too long ago was accused of being a major threat to world peace.

Without blinking his eyes or taping back his ears, Bush openly commended Libya and its leader Muammar Ghadafi for being open and cooperative. He praised Libya for its apparent about-turn on its policy of developing weapons it can use to defend itself.

(Lest it be forgotten, it was Tripoli that was bombed by American F-111s, and not Washington. In one of the attacks members of Ghadafi's family were killed as well as other non-combatants.)

So now it appears as if the enemy of the past is back in the club of the great and the good. Promises of normalisation of trade and investment have already been showered on that much beleaguered country. Libya's foreign minister paid his respects in London and the embarrassing questions of the past have been conveniently thrown into the bin of history and deleted.

What few of us may realise is the enormous amount of stage-setting and behind-the-scenes negotiations that took place prior to this latest PR coup: Libya (and Ghadafi's) re-entry into the club of nations in fact began at a gentleman's club in London, on Pall Mall no less.

There, in a quiet room cut off from the rest of the world, the deal was struck to allow Libya to re-enter the global diplomatic arena, but on the condition that it would hand over much sought after secrets related to Libya's own weapons programme and its information on alleged 'terrorist' groups operating in the Middle-East and elsewhere.

The mercurial and ever-unpredictable Ghadafi and his cohorts acquiesced, the deal was struck, and presumably a few glasses were clinked as well. American-style gunboat diplomacy may bring spectacular results, but the 'Old Europeans' are still the undisputed masters of club house diplomacy!

Divide and rule

So now that Libya is back among the fraternity of 'safe' nations, what are the likely prospects for the future? It doesn't take much genius to see the scenario that is being played out and the likely trajectory for the near future.

Already, Bush has stated in his recent speech that nations like Iran and North Korea have to be checked, if not stopped, in their quest for nuclear energy on the grounds that they are really engaged in developing nuclear weapons capabilities.

Divide-and-rule remains the operative paradigm and while the old enemies are being brought in from the cold the old allies are being booted out of the club: the black-balling of Pakistan in the mainstream global media being the case these days.

And the saddest aspect of this entire diplomatic circus is that none of the other Muslim nations in the world seem overly concerned or prepared to do anything to correct the demonisation of other Muslim countries like Iran and Pakistan, for they themselves are busy trying to join the club.

Indonesian writer Goenawan Mohamad once raised this point in the most explicit way when he asked the rhetorical question:"During the anti-colonial days we fought the colonial masters because we resented the way they treated us, the way they abused us, and kept us out of their clubs. Now that the revolution is over, our leaders are selling us short by crawling back to our former masters. Is that what the revolution was for? Did we fight our colonial masters simply because we wanted to join their clubs?"

Dr FARISH A NOOR is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist.