Gaddafi is dead. Libya’s new dawn or another civil war?

A new dawn awaits the Libyan people now that Col Gaddafi is gone and they can work on building a democratic state. But will they be able to?

by Alfred Kola

Col Gaddafi’s brutal death, despite controversies surrounding it, caused widespread relief, especially in the Arab world. It marked the end of a 42-year dictatorship and opens a window of opportunity for the country to build a democratic state. But, it also raises serious concerns about the country’s future in the post Gaddafi’s era and whether the Libyans will be able to achieve a certain degree of consent to enable them to overcome their deep divisions. Analysts and officials around the world doubt this.

Libya, after all, is a deeply conservative Arab country where loyalty to tribe and family will always take precedence over the demands of the state. While the revolution is at its end and the jubilations spread, deep divisions remain in the country, and fears of civil war are ever present. The Libyan rebels themselves are far from unified and have been jockeying for power amongst themselves for months. Now that the focus of their firepower – Gaddafi – is gone, many Libyans fear that the divergences among rebel factions will erupt in violent ways that will likely lead to a full-scale civil war.

The democratization process of the country seems like a long shot with a National Transitional Council (NTC) deeply divided between tribal and religious factions.

Mahmoud Jibril, the head of the NTC’s interim government, has said that he wants to hold parliamentary and presidential elections next year, which will be the first time in the country’s short history that Libyans have been able to participate in the democratic process. From this perspective, the Libya’s future looks really bright.

But a democratic Libya will take upon itself the difficult task of the more equitable distribution of its oil wealth generated by the largest known oil reserves in Africa, which have been, thus far, distributed among Gaddafi’s ruling elite. Those Western countries, such as Britain and France, that have backed the opposition’s attempt to overthrow Gaddafi’s regime will also be hoping for improved relations with Tripoli, as well as lucrative oil and gas contracts.

Until Mussolini created modern Libya in 1934, the region was divided on the basis of strict tribal loyalties between Cyrenaica in the east, with Benghazi as its capital, and Tripolitania, the region around the modern capital, Tripoli.

While these tribal divisions have become blurred during the Gaddafi era, with Gaddafi gone, they are expected to resume as opposition groups have objected to the dominant influence of Benghazi-based tribes over those from other parts of the country. The other challenge that the NTC must contend with is the growing influence of Islamist groups throughout Libya.

On the other hand, the western governments will keep an eye on Libya amidst concerns that an Islamic government with ties to al-Qaeda might gain ground in a post-Gaddafi Libya and sending troops there remains an option.

In Iraq, the worst sectarian violence took place after Saddam Hussein’s capture, not before.

It is vital, therefore, that the Libyan people rise above their tribal and religious differences if they are to avoid a similar fate.