Americans policymakers and voters are due for a crash course on Libya’s internal politics, in much the same way they learned about Iraq’s tangled politics after the celebrated removal of Saddam Hussein from power in 2003.
In many ways, Libya’s new, emerging identity will be severely tested as various regional, tribal and ideological groups compete for power.
In Libya, “the good news is that you can start from scratch” to build a reasonably democratic state, without Iraqi-style religious divides, said Michael Rubin, a Middle East expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
But, he added, “the bad news is that you have to start from scratch” because Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year dictatorship eviscerated Libya’s government institutions and education system.
President Barack Obama hinted at such divides in his brief Aug. 22 statement. Libyans can build a country that is “peaceful, inclusive and just … true justice will not come from reprisals and violence, it will come from reconciliation,” he said.
“Libya is an artificial country created by Italian colonialism,” said Brice Reidel, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution. Starting in 1911, and continuing under Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, Italian forces united the western Tripolitania territory with the eastern region of Cyrenaica, but did not unite Libyans under a common national identity, he explained.
However, Reidel said, “his last six months may have nurtured a new Libyan national identity.” (RELATED: Will Gaddafi’s downfall vindicate Obama’s war?
For the moment, the triumphant rebel coalition and its loose leadership at the National Transitional Council have allowed a few technocrats in Gaddafi’s government to remain in their posts.
During political crises, Arabs retreat to the protection of their tribes, said Ahmad Majidyar, an Afghan now working at AEI. That practice will ensure that tribal leaders will play a large role in the transition process, including tribal leaders from Gaddafi’s own Gaddafi tribe, Majidyar said.
Majidyar told TheDC that the army’s demise will boost the tribes, which tend be be organized into hierarchical groups, and to be concentrated in either the western Tripolitania territory or the eastern region of Cyrenaica. Natural tribal rivalries will also be amplified by competition for oil revenue. (RELATED: McCain, Graham: More US airpower would have routed Gaddafi sooner)
Nearly all Libyans are Arabs, but a small population of Berbers will also try to gain some power in post-combat disputes. They want some level of autonomy for themselves and their language, but they don’t have much power.
In Libya, as in other countries, “the problem is that minorities tend to suffer whenever you have chaos,” said Rubin.
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Women are also unlikely to fare well, Rubin cautioned, partly because Gaddafi’s 42 years of rule instituted severe sexual discrimination and denied women opportunities to play a role in politics. “The women will fare worse in Libya than anywhere else … [they] are going to be competing with the women in Saudi Arabia for the bottom of the barrel,” he predicted.
Rubin was also critical of Gaddafi for wrecking Libya’s education system: “You have had an indoctrination system since 1969 … [it will take years before] a generation of Libyans is ready to enter the modern world.”
Even in neighboring countries, including Egypt, education modernizers say Arab education methods hinder economic development by emphasizing rote-learning, downplaying critical analysis, and sidelining science.
The jostling for power will also be complicated by the interest of the Turkish and Qatari governments in the country’s direction. Libya is a former province of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire, and Turkey’s Islamist president is now praising recent developments there. The Sultan of Qatar supplied military aid to the rebels, and the Qatar-backed Al Jazeera TV network played a part as well.
After Saddam was removed, Iraq’s politics splintered along religious and ethnic lines, partly because the Saddam’s Sunni minority — which included most military officers — fought very hard to prevent the majority Shia community taking over of Iraq’s government. Libya doesn’t have such sharp rivalries.
This is partly because a broad group of people and groups has united against Gaddafi, said Rubin. But he also warned that Gaddafi prevented Libya from creating the democratic government or political institutions that the new leaders will need.
And the process of building democracies is the Middle East is only getting harder, Rubin said. “You thought Iraq was hard, but that’s nothing compared to Libya.”