President of the General National Congress of Libya, Mohammed Megaryef attends the first cabinet meeting of the newly formed Libyan government on November 21, 2012. MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP/ GETTY IMAGES[/caption]More good news than normal has come out of Libya these past two weeks. On April 10, the General National Congress (GNC) agreed to amend the constitutional declaration to elect a sixty-member constituent assembly that would draft a constitution in the allocated time. A few days ago, Law 30 of 2013 made GNC member Suleiman Aud Zubi the president of the committee that would oversee the law regulating that election of the committee. And on April 4, an errant militia gave the prime minister back his aide, Ali Ghatous. Progress is being made.
Asconvoluted as this all may sound, these are very positive developments—especially if we consider the situation just one month ago. The bimonthly reports of the Bokra Youth Organization on the GNC sessions, entitled Ayn 'ala al-Mu'tammur (Eye on the Congress), give us an insight into the very basic problems that the GNC faced in March. The latest report published details of the sessions between March 1 and 15, in which the seventieth and seventy-first meetings of the GNC took place. In fact, the abduction of Ali Ghatous was only the final flourish in a story that comprised twists and turns—a story that would have been farcical, if they had not been so dangerous for the legislators of the GNC and for Libya’s future.
An important thing to note from this report is that these two meetings were not held in the hall designated for the sessions, but in secret locations, for two reasons.
First, the legislators could not get into their building because it was being occupied by disabled veterans of the revolution. The “amputees,” as they are described in the report, would not budge despite the GNC’s offers of pensions and free travel passes, and Libya’s legislators were compelled to abandon their hall for other premises.
Second, they feared for their personal safety, and were attempting to protect themselves from even more belligerent lobbyists.
These fears proved justified when gunmen stormed the session at noon on March 5, demanding the immediate implementation of the Political Isolation Law. GNC member Fatima Al-Mujbari reported that the protesters threatened members with guns and beat fellow member Juma'a Al-Sayyih. The president of the GNC, Mohammed Al-Magarief, reported that their captors did not allow them food or water for the rest of the day.
Al-Mujbari went on to recount to the NGO’s reporters that GNC members had found it suspicious that their captives knew exactly where the session was being held, and the exact time that they would be discussing the Political Isolation Law.
In fact, their suspicions were proven correct. When Al-Mujbari accused fellow member Salah Badi of being complicit in the storming of the GNC session, Badi admitted responsibility. By way of warning or threat, Badi retorted that Libya’s security would be compromised if the Political Isolation Law was not passed immediately, and stormed out.
Magarief was also personally threatened with firearms by individuals demanding that he order the immediate return of Libyans held in Iraq to Libya. Later, his car was shot at.
At the very least, then, Libyan legislators survived the Ides of March, and are now enjoying the luxury of having a safe venue to legislate without fearing for their personal safety. Even the writers of the new Egyptian constitution, who faced the continuous hazard of dissolution as an assembly, did not face these very basic challenges.
The sort of militia impunity that vexed the GNC in March is a favorite topic of English language media, and with good reason. This does indeed reflect a crucial issue. On April 10, Libya Al-Mostakbal, considered one of Libya’s most respected news sites, opened a discussion page on the issue of security. Almost every response called for the dissolution of the private militias.
Yet the English-language media may be missing something. Considering the dangers to which the GNC was exposed, we might ask another question about loyalties. During the GNC’s seventieth and seventy-first sessions, why were the soldiers of the Supreme Security Committee (SCC) not protecting the transitional government? And since they were not, whose interests were they serving? The problem of militias acting with impunity is well documented, but it would be interesting to know to what extent state security services act independently as well. Likewise, Libya Al-Mostakbal’s discussion page reflects the fact that the issue of foreign mercenaries, so well documented during the revolution, is still a problem.
Tribalism is another watchword of English language media on Libya, and as an analytical trope suffers from a similar problem. Looking into “tribal divisions,” Jeffrey Fleishman reports that the refusal of Zintan tribesmen to hand over Saif Gadhafi reflects “criss-crossing interests,” but he does not attempt to explain exactly what these criss-crossing interests are exactly. No doubt each tribe wants a role in the new country—but what role? And what sort of country?
There are strong exceptions to this tendency of the Western media. Mohamed Eljarh of Foreign Policy and Maggie Fick of Al-Monitor offer nuanced explanations as to why the Political Isolation Law is so controversial. Equally, a broad picture of the situation is difficult to ascertain for a few reasons. The Libyan polity is incredibly fractured and difficult to follow, let alone fit into an overarching narrative. And, while independent media has exploded in Libya since the overthrow of Gadhafi, even Libyans have difficulty picking their way through its mixed offerings, which are often rumor driven, factually incorrect or simply poorly produced.
On top of the ambiguities presented by broad and often ill-defined tribal and regional divisions, Mazin Ramadan explains the paradox of multiple occupancy of the middle ground in Libya, where the great energy released by the revolution meets great intransigence:
“No one is secular, but they all want civil government institutions. Everyone supports the Political Isolation Law as long it does not happen. Everyone calls to disband armed militias and build a national police and army, yet they are each embedded with a militia. Everyone wants to rush the Constitution, yet they support the long drawn-out process of an elected ‘Committee of 60.’”
But it is the art of showing the intersection of these conflicting ambitions that would give us a more nuanced idea of the obstacles that are hindering the constitutional process in Libya.
That process may have turned a corner, but it is entering another difficult stage. The GNC members are safe for now in their designated hall, and the decision to elect a constituent assembly is an important one. However, if Egypt is anything to go by, this is a decision that will lead to more, not less, division, and greater polarization rather than increased consensus.
Indeed, even before the putative Libyan constituent assembly sits down to resolve controversial issues, such as how to deal with the human legacy of Gadhafi’s state and the Social Justice Law, the same divisive questions that the Egyptian constitutional process posed will have to be asked. Who will be included in the assembly, and on what grounds of representation and legitimacy? How will they ensure that the regional and partisan interests are incorporated, in addition to the tribal interests particular to the Libyan polity? Furthermore, will they be able to rely on the continued loyalty of the security services?
If we are to get a better idea of how these questions might be answered, we will have to go beyond flagging up tribal, militia and regional animosities and delve into their actual interests.
