An early book on the aftermath of Muammar Gaddafi’s 1969 coup was subtitled The Elusive Revolution. Nine months after his ouster from Tripoli, it might seem that the revolution that unseated him is even more fiery than it is elusive.
... NTC ministers need to work with middle-ranking bureaucrats steeped in the obfuscations and venality of that system- Ranier Fsadni
Last Monday’s shooting at Tripoli airport is only the last of a series of flare-ups between armed militias and the National Transitional Council. It could lead to the postponement of the Constituent Assembly elections scheduled for June 19.
Col Gaddafi would have turned 70 today (to go by the most cited date of birth). Even his sympathisers – of whom there were not a few in the western interior – accept that the time of his order is past. However, 42 years of rule obviously cannot be undone quickly.
Ironically, some of the major difficulties that the NTC is facing have to do as much with Col Gaddafi’s co-option of Libyans into his system of rule as with his suppression of popular involvement. The NTC has been criticised by various militias for recycling people associated with the old regime, whether it’s the people known as “Saif’s cronies” (who include the reformers and technocrats that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi had gathered around him in an attempt to reform the system from within) or the tens of thousands of policemen and soldiers and functionaries.
By doing its own co-opting, the NTC was trying to avoid one of the worst mistakes committed in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein – the purging of anyone ever associated with the ruling Baath party. It led both to the loss of important administrative experience as well as to the exclusion of a significant minority from a stake in the new Iraq.
My impression is that, in western Libya, the NTC’s readiness to co-opt anyone not accused of serious crimes enabled many ordinary families in the provinces – previously fearful of the consequences of having had an uncle or cousin on a local committee under Col Gaddafi – to identify with it once another uncle or cousin joined an administrative branch of the new order.
Co-option has seen the ranks of the NTC itself swell from fewer than a dozen known members to just under 100. Many of them are unknown to the population at large and, coupled with widespread accusations of corruption and misuse of funds earmarked to compensate the thuwwar (the fighters who took on Col Gaddafi’s brigades), it has led the NTC itself to be accused of lack of transparency.
The Economist’s Nicolas Pelham, writing for the Middle East Report and Information Project (June 1), has indicated the problem has been compounded by other factors. The thuwwar compensation fund was judged too meagre and, in any case, was suspended. There have been symbolic slights dealt to the thuwwar, which have rankled, although the problem of finding the right balance is a delicate one. How far can one go without giving the armed men a greater sense of privilege and ownership than is right in a democracy?
Another problem of delicate balance concerns the NTC’s own sense of legitimacy in pursuing administrative reforms before elections are held. Mr Pelham judges that the Prime Minister, Abdul Rahman al-Keeb, has erred too much on the side of caution in refusing to overhaul the opaque bureaucratic procedures of the previous regime. In any case, NTC ministers need to work with middle-ranking bureaucrats steeped in the obfuscations and venality of that system.
Following the news of Monday’s temporary takeover of Tripoli airport by Tarhuna’s Al-Awfea Brigade, the comments board of The Times was filled with knowing comments about Islam’s compatibility with democracy and how a country like Libya can only be ruled with an iron fist if its tribes are to be kept under control. But both kinds of comment are naïve.
If Islam has featured in the issues I have described, it has been as an appeal for national reconciliation, with the citation of the example set by the Prophet Mohammed in embracing his former enemies once they asked to be integrated within his community.
And while “tribes” are sometimes cited by Libyans themselves as part of the problem, it’s important to remember that the Arabic term is often used loosely and without precision.
Monday’s incident, for example, occurred because of the unaccounted disappearance of the commander of Tarhuna’s brigade, Abu Ajila al-Habshi. His personal prestige is not based on “tribal” position but on his role in the 1993 attempted coup, for which he served a 16-year sentence, and in last year’s fighting.
The brigade in Bani Walid, often named as a trouble-spot associated with the former regime, is led by another 1993 coup-leader whose family and tribal genealogy I know. Had the NTC’s problems with Bani Walid been tribal in a forceful sense, they should have spread beyond Bani Walid to wherever his tribe is to be found. But I’m told the problem is limited to Bani Walid.
None of this is meant to discount the real pitfalls facing Libyans who want their country to have a dignified, secure future. The immediate fraught question is this: How will the thuwwar react to the election results? A year ago they were ready to lay down their lives for a more democratic order. But elections will see their own moral authority, earned in the fight, seep away towards the representatives of the peace, vested with the legitimacy of a popular vote.
ranierfsadni@europe.com