“Though the lion and the
antelope live in the same forest, the antelope still has time to grow up” Ghanaian
Proverb
A major casualty of the fury in Muslim nations over
a movie made in the United State which insulted the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.)
was the U.S Ambassador and three other US citizens. They died during a siege in
Benghazi, a city which has been the frontline and symbol of the Libyan people’s
uprising against their late leader, Muammar Ghaddafi. That uprising involved
the very active, and some may say, even decisive involvement of the US and its
allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The events in the last
few days in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and many other Muslim countries has refocused
attention on the difficult relations between the West and Islam. I have decided
to start this two-part series on Islam and the West with a comment I made for
our Radio and Television station which was broadcast on 25th
September, 2011, almost one year ago. It was titled, “Post-Ghaddafi Libya: A
Difficult Road to Many Destinations”:
The National Transitional Council which provided the
political leadership for the insurgency which ousted and killed Muammar Gaddafi
last week led the celebration for Liberation Day on Sunday, 23rd of
October. The world watched hundreds of thousands of Libyans formalize a victory
in Benghazi, the city which provided the bulwark of the resistance against
Gaddafi virtually for his entire reign, but particularly since the insurgency
built up and took on much of the traditional cultural and political fault lines
of the Libyan nation. It is difficult not to share some of the relief of the
Libya people that the 9-month old insurgency has come to an end. Nonetheless,
even as they celebrate, it is not difficult to see that the road ahead for them
will be fraught with many challenges, some of them with the potential to rob
them of the benefits of removing Gaddafi. This is a time for deep reflection,
and friends of the Libyan and African people should have the courage to give
them honest and practical advise as they commence the difficult task of
national reconstruction and reconciliation.
The image of
the dead and beaten up body of Gaddafi being dragged by a crowd made up of
supposedly civilised Libyan Muslims will remain indelible in the mind of a
global audience. It will dent the joy and accomplishment of the celebrations
even in Benghazi. It will particularly leave a negative image in the minds of other
Muslims who believe that a dead body, anyone’s dead body, deserves to be
treated with some dignity. When Americans threw the dead body of Osama Bin
Laden into the ocean for fish to feed on, they at least claimed that they gave
him his rites as a Muslim, and did not humiliate and violate his dead body and
gloat over their actions on television.
When the US captured Saddam Hussein, they tried and hanged him, instead
of killing and desecrating his dead body. Now, even NATO nations who provided
the fire power and the intelligence which led to the ouster, capture and
eventual killing of Gaddafi are joining the chorus of demands for enquiry into
how or why he was killed after his capture. Nothing will come out of this
hypocrisy.
The savagery
which was shown on global television by some Libyans has exposed the soft
underbelly of the revolution. Gaddafi’s 42years in power, much of it spent in
brutal suppression of opposition must have robbed many Libyans of their basic
humanity. The nine months of bitter and brutal campaign to oust him had further
affected every Libyan very badly. Both sides adopted the most inhuman methods
in the conflict, and in the end, the struggle to remove Gaddafi had stripped
Libyans of their civilisation and humanity to their bare bones. Those who
fought these bitter battles against each other, including those who dragged a
dead body through the sand, are going to continue to live within Libyan
communities. They will also keep their arms and ammunitions. And some of their
memories and bitterness. And they will count graves, and injuries and bullet
holes. And others will ask how all these will be justified by the outcomes of
the revolution.
There will
be many who will be counted among the defeated. They will continue to live in Libya,
but may have to pay a price for siding with, or defending Gaddafi. They too
will have their reasons and justification for their choices. And they will have
their arms and ammunitions; and their grievances and bitterness. They too will
ask how the revolution will be better than Gaddafi’s rule. There are yet many
who will wake up to a new Libya which has been thrown wide open to NATO
countries. They will ask how the new Libya will or should relate with Europe
and the US. They will ask deep and searching questions over the cost of
reconstruction; which nations among the NATO coalition will get the biggest
contracts for rebuilding what NATO bombers destroyed; and what type of
constitution and political system Europe and the US will now insist is adopted by
Libyans. Those among them who may retain some pride in being an independent
people that, although at great price, stood up to the US and Europe under
Gaddafi in the past, may resent the possibility that their faith and culture
will suffer to the degree of NATO influence in their lives. They too will have
their arms and ammunitions; and their memories and their sympathisers.
There are
tribal leaders, religious leaders and leaders of factions who will each jostle
for a place in the sun in the new Libya. Many will test the powers and the
resolve of the NTC, and its NATO backers. They will quarrel and bicker on the
type of constitution to adopt; on how victors and vanquished should be treated;
how Arab and Islamic they want the new Libya to be; and how to deal with the many
legacies and liabilities of Gaddafi’s 42 year rule. They will have to fight
over, and learn how to elect new leaders; how hundreds of thousands of young
people can be disarmed and demobilized; and how trust can be rebuilt among and
across communities. And they will have their arms and ammunition; and their
memories and bitterness over the course of the last 9 months.
The Libyan people have come through one of the worst
crisis any people can go through. The killing of Gaddafi and the bestial
treatment of his body may have given a small number of Libyan people some
satisfaction. But now the real work of reconciliation and rehabilitation has to
begin. There is no easy way forward. Every challenge they will meet has the
potential of opening up new theatres of conflict. They need a strong and
broad-based leadership which should disarm citizens and begin the process of
reconciling the people. They need NATO to lower its profile, and retreat
sufficiently to allow some semblance of Libyan influence in deciding a Libyan
future. They need to re-integrate with Africa and the Arab world in a manner
that acquires support for them to reduce the influence of NATO, as they embark
on the difficult road to a new life. They need to look at the abuses and
excesses on both sides of the conflict, and commence the process of addressing
the requirements of guaranteeing basic human rights, particularly for the
thousands of black people who have been imprisoned on sundry and questionable
suspicions. The journey of the Libyan people will be difficult because there
will be arguments over routes and destinations. It will be tragic if a
post-Gaddafi Libya continues to suffer because its people and leaders fail to
appreciate the fact that the reverse side of Gaddafi is the emergence of a
democratic system that gives every citizen a fair chance to make concrete
choices over how he lives, and who governs him. It will not be easy to build
that system; but failure to build it will mean an unending conflict and real
potentials for prolonged civil war. This is the one destination Libyans should
avoid at all cost
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