Mahmoud Shammam, the Chairman of the Alwasat Media Group, said that the February 17 revolution was a “purely Libyan revolution” born out of injustice and deprivation, considering it the legitimate offspring of all the political, student, and social protest movements that accompanied 42 years of one-man rule.

In an interview with Libya Al-Ahrar satellite channel broadcast on Monday evening, Shammam explained that the revolution “began naturally and peacefully” and was not planned by political parties or external parties, as some claim, stressing that it came in response to the Libyan people's need for freedom, human dignity, and a decent livelihood. He added that it coincided with waves of protests in a number of Arab countries.

Shammam refused to describe what happened as a “catastrophe” or “disaster,” stressing that it was a revolution that started in the streets and began as a popular uprising before turning toward militarization. He pointed out that the militarization of the revolution came, in his words, after the attack on civilians, followed by a UN Security Council resolution to protect them, and then the call for NATO intervention.

Shammam: “February 17 brought down the most powerful dictatorships in the region.”

He added that the revolution “brought down the most powerful dictatorships in the region,” considering that the former regime was collapsing from within and that talk of a “NATO revolution” was nothing more than “empty claims.” He also believed that Libya did not have a deep state, but rather a “head of the regime.”

Shamam emphasized that the revolution was not linked to the political elite at its inception, pointing out that those who led it in its early months were dissidents from the regime and some from the reformist current within it, not from the traditional opposition.

He noted that Gaddafi “destroyed the civil foundations that could have allowed for peaceful and rational change” by suppressing student unions and banning political parties, which made the popular uprising inevitable. He emphasized that the revolution began without clear leadership or a unifying political vision, which, in his words, exposed it , to theft and deviation from its course, adding that those who control state institutions today “are not from the womb of February.”