Road to Libyan democracy may be a rocky one

After 42 years in power, exercised through ruthless means, ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi was killed by his own countrymen in a bloody showdown. He was nabbed by rebel forces just as he was trying to flee for the border.

His death marks a victory for the Libyan people, but it is surely too early to call this revolution an unqualified success. Too often we see revolutions not living up to the high expectations set upon them.

Gadhafi came to power the same way he left it – by a coup d’etat. While his 1969 coup was bloodless, the same cannot be said about his departure.

Unlike the former presidents of Tunisia and Egypt –Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak – Gadhafi refused to go easily. But the revolt in Libya was different from those in Tunisia and Egypt in the sense that the rebels had the direct military help of foreign powers, namely certain members of Nato.

Initially, the western powers were split. Both sides had strong arguments for and against intervening in the Libyan uprising. While France and Britain were quick to get out of the starting blocks, the US was reluctant. The Arab countries, meanwhile, were suspicious. Some wondered if they, too, could somehow come under the gun of their own people.

The idea that stronger countries should use the means they have, including military force (as a last resort), to protect the populations of oppressive states, was refined by an international commission that became a norm for the United Nations in 2009 under the concept prescribed as the “Responsibility to Protect”.

To some, this notion is perceived as a cloak for a new form of western imperialism. Others point to Iraq and Afghanistan as examples of how good intentions can turn out to be disastrous in effect. There is a sense that it was a mistake for the US and its allies to go into a tribal society like Afghanistan and impose foreign notions like democracy and elected representation under the name of nation-state building.

Nevertheless, in the case of Libya, one certainty is that the newly liberated country will need all the help it can get in its recovery effort and construction of a new administration. Unfortunately, the US Congress cut US$8 billion from its foreign aid budget this past spring, while House Republicans have also called for an additional $12 billion cut for this fiscal year. This is about 20 per cent of the entire foreign aid budget.

But in the end it will be up to the people of Libya to determine which direction their country takes, not US lawmakers, in spite of the fact that American military support helped the rebels in Libya succeed in overthrowing the dictatorship.

Libyans and Arab people are calling for liberty and freedom, and many thousands of them have put their lives on the line to bring about change. Whether this massive region-wide rebellion will go the way the West wants it to, no one can say for sure. The best that the western powers can do at this juncture is to provide moral support and all the assistance they can, to ensure that the path towards democracy goes as smoothly as possible.

The recent incident in Egypt in which the military gunned down 34 Coptic Christians and came under tremendous criticism from the country’s Muslims is a case in point. Initially, the military tried to play the race card and dismiss the Copts as ungrateful troublemakers. But it didn’t work, as the people saw through it.

Like the Egyptian military, the new rulers of Libya must learn to respect the will and desire of the people.