Libya is the world’s nightmare and right now, there is no clear clue to the end of the long night. The Berlin Conference fails, like that of Moscow failed before. No conference will work that is going to use the same orthodox methods of hiding the truth about motives of the parties involved in the conflict, since Mu’ammar’s deposition and murder in 2011. Vladimir Putin and Khalifa Haftar are part of the problem. But what was Emma Macron doing in Berlin?
Can the cause be a solution to the same problem? What more do the French wantfrom Libya?Because the actual whims behind the different interests in the conflict remain hypocritical, no orthodox model like the current time wastage for more killing will work because of democracy, for which reason Ghaddafi was deposed in that manner. So far, nothing points to the real, working way ahead, and the tangle only kills more innocent.
Of course peace will elude Libya as long as God wants because a leader who held his people in peace and without needs and wants for over forty years, is murdered, painfully by the use of his own people, beneficiaries of his social welfare, in the name of freedom and personal liberty. The blood on the hands and on the murder floor is still fresh.
And, yes, no orthodox model will work because democracy or its universality is blind to the fact that it has some inherit weaknesses, shortcomes and inadequacies as exposed in the American double-standards, pretense and false claims demonstrated by the Trump Impeachment Inquiry to, now, Trial, in relations to the Quid Pro Quo over Ukraine as the defining factor enough for Trump to be trumped.
The world will not see peace – and, yes, that is the perhaps goal, no peace for the world ever – until the limits, inadequacies and hypocrisy of democracy and the selective judgment and application of its values across cultures and peoples is both understood and selectively used. Democracy has come to stay as the most popular system of rule, okay. For most countries, it is the honest alternative for the current international system. But it must not be blind to certain fabrics of indigenous, local systems.
But lessons from its excesses and shortages tell us that its application and use must be selective and creative in respects of certain inherit peculiarities of host societies where it has to be the only option. That is the lesson the world must learn first.
Any idea that supports the notion that democracy is a convention that must be enforced on any people in any place is false and inept, meant to ensure endemic wars and killings in the world.
That is crazy and difficult idea to expect from a system that is blind arrogant to any opposite idea to its legitimacy, and that is reason we should stop pretending and wasting the world’s resources on Libya if peace is not the goal.The concept of this proposal for an unorthodox model for Libya begins with the idea of re-understanding Libya and its society as unique among all people and societies of the world, different and remarkably distinct from even the neighbouring Arabs themselves.
Yes, Libyans are Arabs. But Start to understand them as unique by marking out the different dialects of the Arabs, peculiar to almost every Arab nation. The problem of the world is compounded by this simple lack of recognition, understanding and brutal refusal to respect a person or a people’s right of difference and distinct features of their living and environment.
This is something, I am afraid, for which Ghaddafi was hated, pursued, deposed and maimed.The right to think, behave, act, move and associate is a freedom enshrined in the laws of the lands but it is the most precarious fallacy which holds the world and nations against themselves. Throughout his life as a western, British-educated exuberant youth and as a leader, Mu’ammar ignored popular culture and modernity and lived a Bedouin life – lived in castles, farmed and reared animals.
We say democracy is about choice but those who choose to be unique to their chosen ways of life are not free even in their families. And this, more than anything, is the world’s only albatross which forces strange values on those who hate the values only to push them into the wall of terrorism. Theories, maxims, sages and idioms are only ideals today’s reality cannot respect. If Muslims who find themselves in Rome must behave like the Romans, will they eat pork also? No. Can the Romans force them? No. This is the simple disrespect that creates our major conflicts.
The first person who understood the uniqueness of Libya as a modern-inclined country deeply rooted in traditional enclaves was the late Libyan leader himself. The oil money did not blind him from the very place, culture, values and etiquettes that gave him birth. That is the idea absent in the two set of leadership since 2011, and there may not be anything different soon.
All the present political leaders are paying for their hypocrisy and pretense about the truth of this Libyan reality truth and unique system which is in conflict to the one straight, one model democracy always enforces. For all the years, Mu’ammar lived that example and demonstrated it among his people in Libya, and where he was sought, needed, invited or asked. He did not force it on anyone, any people.
Even in inclining socialism, Ghaddafi was not blind to the fact. He used a quasi-socialist system based on the Green Book and was pragmatic to the realities of the differences at the grassroots, because every rule, like democracy, is about the people and must be with them, based on their existing culture, values and traditional system. They are heartful, selfconscious, unapologetically proud, belligerent and can be, defiant and moby on the slightest offence.
The Arabs are different people, and their culture contrasts in sharp snaps with others. And most Arab nations, check, are still pre-modern, even with oil wealth and permeation of popular culture, they are still, predominantly as local as the r sounds in their use of English words. I find that too obvious to say, sorry, except for the few ubanites, the many educated city dwellers whose hearts have been softened by elements of popular culture of the blue jeans, ice cream, fast food and hamburger.
It is insensitive to assume all Arabs as heartdeath as those we know swallowed by westernization and modernization. The majority are still in deep connect with their ancestral roots and values. And this is the misunderstanding that will keep Libya in endemic ruin, because, for all the years of Mu’ammar, Libyans had all needs met, but the population was held in control from all the elements of popculture that corrupts and destroys the social fabrics of conservativists. So they have no requisites for the values of democracy and the implications of rights, freedoms and privileges and what they can do with them.
The Arabs and Libyans Bedouin extracts have crude, grassroots loyalties to their families, tribes and the traditional leadership which the clan lords now enjoy to brandish clan might and fuel enclave controls and trigger local conflicts. There is nothing superior to that among the people at the moment to ask for ownership of a nation which is absent in real terms. Why then are the truces ignoring this deep local fabric of the Libyan society on which the Libyan nation must rest?
Libya is the most distinct Arab society. It is based on tribe or clan system, making almost every extended family a force to reckon with, and in the current reality, every clan is platoon with a warlord, fighting and defending its interest. Imagine the nestle of interest then in the vast country where, the problems compound to lack of access to free food, shelter, clothing, education and the rest. While all that was lost, the world media is not reporting any comparison to show the extent of ruin and the human tragedy existing.
The proposed model for Libya should be unusual. There should be a caretaker government to be called under a sole administrator, a Libyan military officer, serving or retired in order to sweep off the impression of freedom and rights. The y are the very problem. With freedom and rights negotiated and advanced under any democratic impression, there will be no submission to a central authority, and clan might will ever prevail over any weak will of a central authority, whatever the structures there may be.
The security of the country should be centralized in just representation of all the key clan forces to be led by a soldier of common repute, with a standing in all sectional eyes – respected and respectful – who has previous record for justice, peace, tolerance and understanding. In all the stages and organs of government and security, there must not be a foreigner or foreign-inclined or a stooge of the west or east. They must be educated Libyans of repute who served with dignity and integrity since the Ghaddafi years.
The caretaker should be given a long term enough for entrenching a good perception of a government of a new system credible to get the will and submission of the clan leaders and their followers, to repose a renewed confidence in an emerging civil society ripe for the opening of strong democratic institutions capable to be pillars for eventual peaceful democratic process to make a renewed nation under a new name reflective of the true historical features, cultures and settings of the society.
In all these, there must be no open or hidden hand of any nation – western or eastern. The process of the conception and implementation of the new caretaker system must be entrusted to, and deposited with, the United Nations. There must be a distance that must be real and conspicuous from the Arab League, any nation – no matter the previous or current ties with Libya – and resources for funding the entire process must come from the beleaguered Libyan purse, even if in gradual stages.
On no account should any help, offer or donation in any form be accepted from any organ, body or person. Not even from the UN itself. This is to shut out any immediate or remote claim to the UN or Libya from vesting any form of immediate or remote interest. Even with all this in place, Libya will be back in peace only if God’s sentence for the world system, the country and its people over the gravest mistake of 2011 is served. Until then, the theatre plays on.
Hassan Alhaji Hassan can be contacted on 08032829772/08050551220 (text only with full names and address)a[email protected]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect WikkiTimes’ editorial stance.
