As Libyans come to terms with a new reality after four decades of despotic rule, there is no stopping the wind of change that is blowing across the Arab world, according to President Emeritus Eddie Fenech Adami.
After Muammar Gaddafi was captured and killed by interim government forces on Thursday, focus now turns to the future that awaits Libya.
Dr Fenech Adami is “very hopeful” that democracy and freedom will take hold in Libya although the democratic structures and processes as professed in the West will not be in place overnight.
It would be a slow process of change, he said, adding that the biggest hurdle could be the fact that the democratic culture was not ingrained in Libyan society.
“But, definitely, the era of dictators is over,” Dr Fenech Adami said.
His optimism is shared by North African affairs expert Arsalan Alshinawi, who lectures at the University of Malta’s International Relations Department.
Dr Alshinawi believes Libya’s oil wealth may be an important factor in bringing about democratic change because it can prevent people from slipping into poverty causing them to question the new post-revolutionary environment.
Libya’s future has sometimes been likened to post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, which has been marred by deep divisions and violent outbursts but Dr Alshinawi refutes the comparison. “It will be less bloody and less problematic in Libya when compared to Iraq because there are no deep ethnic and religious divisions in Libya,” he said.
Education is another bonus that Libya enjoys and which will make it easier to have a less traumatic transition to democracy. “Despite all the criticism Gaddafi got, Libya has one of the highest literacy rates in the Arab world and Libyans are well-travelled with exposure to Western systems,” Dr Alshinawi said, adding that proximity to Europe was also beneficial.
But charting out Libya’s future is a difficult venture, according anthropologist Ranier Fsadni, because there are no available models that fit the bill.
“Libya is a unique country with a North African character and vast oil resources seeking to become a democratic republic. The future will necessarily be experimental.”
Interim government leaders have posited Turkey, which is an Islamic democracy, as a model for the new Libya but Mr Fsadni is unconvinced of the comparison. He said Turkey developed its democracy under “the watchful eye” of two long-established institutions: the state and the army that were “not always benign”. “Unlike Turkey, Libya will have to develop both these institutions, as well as democracy,” Mr Fsadni said.
The road ahead is fraught with dangers, one of which is a threat to return to fighting that may vitiate the political process, he added. “Another threat is that Libya’s new government would be internally perceived as a Western puppet,” Mr Fsadni said.
The pitfalls may be great but the removal of a four-decade-old regime has given rise to hope that a new beginning is possible. “The blood and pain to remove Gaddafi has created a unifying factor in Libyan society,” Dr Alshinawi said.
The struggle, he added, brought together people from all walks of life irrespective of where they lived or what social and economic background they had.
In the end, this may very well be the single most important development as Libyans chart out the course across an unknown desert.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com