Since Libya’s founding in 1951, world leaders and political scientists alike have struggled to envision democracy in the dictatorial stronghold. Civil society has proved chronically weak, the authoritarian government strong, and middle-class yearnings for socioeconomic equality essentially nonexistent. However, in the past year, a grassroots rebellion erupted, defying many doubters, and culminating in the overthrow of Colonel Muammar Qadaffi. Since the Colonel’s ouster, the nation has begun the process of democratization under the guidance of the National Transitional Council.
As Libya demonstrates its willingness to dismantle its previous regime, analysts nonetheless question whether or not Libya can overcome the historical tensions, rooted largely in tribalism, oil, and regionalism, that now stand between the country and pluralistic democracy. While skeptical writers have painted such obstacles as insurmountable, these concerns may prove as overblown as the leader who once presided over them.
The End of Tribes
The idea of Libya conjures images of heavily factionalized, semi-nomadic tribes locked in a vicious cycle of mutual distrust, thanks to the corrupted lens of Gaddafi. While tribal identity remains quite strong in parts of the country, it is not nearly as powerful a cleavage in Libyan society as it once was, nor potent enough to destabilize the emerging government. Ronald Bruce St. John, author of several books on Libya, told the HPR, “The last forty years in Libya have been marked by an enormous amount of urbanization,” a force which has done much to dilute local tribal identity. In fact, as of 2011, eighty-eight percent of Libyans dwell in cities.
Rapid urbanization has produced highest GDP per capita in North Africa and wiped out illiteracy in the major areas. For the educated, elite residents on the coastal urban strips of the Mediterranean, tribal affiliation seems increasingly irrelevant. This is especially true for Libya’s youth, for whom, as field journalist William McClean puts it, the idea of tribalism simply “does not compute.”
On top of urbanization, tribalism may further disintegrate with the fall of Qaddafi. For the first decade of Qaddafi’s reign, the Brotherly Leader actively attempted to undermine tribalism. However, by the late 1970s, Qaddafi reversed course, and began systematically patronizing tribes through the establishment of the People’s Social Leadership Committee, which exchanged state funds for loyalties and other conditions. Thus, for the past few decades, tribalism has grown into “an artificial construction by the Qadaffi regime,” claims Brookings Doha analyst Shadi Hamid. As such, there is reason to believe that with the end of de facto government incentives for tribal affiliations, tribalism will slowly disintegrate and be replaced with a more common conception of democratic civil society.
Historic Regionalism
In addition to tribalism, many analysts have pointed to inter-regional tensions as a potential source of conflict in the emerging government of Libya. Arising from the vast separation of the developed regions of the country, regionalism asserts a pride in one’s own place of origin. Whereas tribes are a clan-based construction, regionalism is a geographic statement.
The nation of Libya began with the unification of three of historical regions: Tripolitania in the west, Cyrenaica in the east, and Fezzan in the interior. Cyrenaica contains most of the nation’s oil riches; however, Tripolitania, Gaddafi’s homeland, has historically reaped the economic benefits of he resource. As a result of this imbalance, feelings of intra-national alienation persist.
Nonetheless, the February 7th Revolution movement remains imbued with the idea of a singular national identity. As St. John claims, “Libyans see Libya as one country.” Further, St. John indicates that the National Transitional Council has demonstrated devotion to fair inter-regional representation. The recent flood of images of pro-unity demonstrators celebrating in the streets of Benghazi reaffirms these notions of solidarity. Regionalism may still lead to political disagreements, yet this is not fatal for most other pluralistic societies. Thus, apart from the remnants of Qadaffi’s cronyism, regionalism no longer divides and separates Libyans into differing identities, but rather invigorates the idea that they are parts to a whole.
The Curse of Oil
Under Qaddaffi’s rule, oil profits proved the means of support for an autocratic structure, while leaving the majority of Libya’s population oblivious to the conduct of the state-owned companies. In order to make the oil companies more transparent, the government still needs to make strides to ensure that their wealth does not fall into the hands of the few again. According to reporter Vivienne Walt of Time, a large percentage of Libyan oil revenues came in the form of under-the-table contracts, with large bonuses for Qadaffi and his supporters. These arrangements siphoned off valuable resources from the state coffers, and prevented the rest of the country, particularly those not belonging to Qaddafi’s tribe, to reap the benefits of the nation’s resources. The National Transitional Council has assured the country that the oil industry will no longer be a breeding ground of corruption.
As the NTC pledges, the cronyism built during Qadaffi’s regime will be done away with, and “contracts will be awarded on merit rather than political favors,” according to Guma el-Gamaty, the U.K. coordinator of the National Transitional Council. If the national oil companies make strides in eliminating cronyism, it could lead to an economic boom that would produce benefits across the socioeconomic spectrum. Although the country cannot continue to develop if it remains fully dependent on oil, the oil industry might very well be the catalyst for further economic development, urbanization, and job growth.
The Reset Button
Perhaps the greatest threat to democracy is not tribalism, nor the emergence of the rentier-state, nor regionalism. Instead, as the former U.S. charge d’affairs to Libya, Charles O. Cecil, noted in a statement to the HPR, the nation has had “absolutely no experience with civil society for decades, and must start from scratch in the construction of its new government.” Of course, the virtue of this void comes in the fact that Libyans now have the opportunity to build democracy on a foundation free from the corruption, odium, and the political baggage of the past. When the nation came together in 1951 to unite its historical regions into a common kingdom, societal fissures were intense.
Now these fissures rapidly melt away. What remains is a nation freed from the shackles of its past: a nation urbanizing, and embracing the West. To be sure, democracy will not come naturally; the NTC and the Libyan people face unforeseen challenges and must work out a governing system filled with the unknown. Still, as the previous constructions that held autocracy in place disintegrate, democracy is quickly becoming more able to replace the nation’s dictatorial tradition.
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