Stability in a Post-Gaddafi Libya

Today marks my final day as a Knowledge Manager at the NATO Civil-Military Fusion Centre (CFC). Fortunately, my final report titled "Stability in a Post-Gaddafi Libya" was released as a noble gesture of my departure. The report will eventually be available at the Cimicweb (you need to register to view most of the content, but not to retrieve the reports).

This report provided the basis of my presentation at National Defense University's 7th annual International Lessons Learned Conference from 30 November to 2 December 2011 in Washington, D.C. I presented on a panel titled, "Lessons from Transition in the Maghreb". You can view the full program here.

Below is an excerpt from the report for your reading pleasure.

--beginning of excerpt--

CFC Report: "Stability in a Post-Gaddafi Libya"

Even before the capture and death of Moammar Gaddafi on 20 October 2011 and the official end of the NATO mission Operation Unified Protector on 31 October, scholars and practitioners were discussing ‘lessons learned’ from Western intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, Rwanda and Somalia that could apply to post-revolution Libya. As early as August, Gordon Lubold addressed lessons for Libya in his United States Institute for Peace (USIP) article, “What’s Next for the New Libya” and Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution wrote “Lessons of the Libya Intervention”. In September 2011, Thomas Carothers, the vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discussed lessons learned drawing upon the United States experience in Iraq. Other examples followed immediately after Gaddafi’s death in October. Chatham House released an article titled “Libya’s New Era: Lessons from Iraq”. Even now, experts are discussing the lessons learned from the Libyan context that might be applicable to the unrest in Syria and Yemen.

The Arab Spring uprisings were not “a monolithic phenomenon”, according to Eugene Rogan, Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. While there are some similarities to which a ‘lessons-learned’ approach can be applied, there is much about the Libyan revolution that is unique, according to Laith Kubba, Senior Director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the National Endowment for Democracy. Kubba points out that the uprising in Libya largely mirrored the Tunisia and Egypt uprisings; however, Gaddafi, and what he was capable of inflicting, was very different from any other leader in the region. In response to what looked to be a significant humanitarian crisis, the United Nation Resolution (1973) to intervene in Libya violated sovereignty, even as lives were saved.

As reconstruction begins, there are serious obstacles that may require immediate and sustained attention within Libya in order to achieve stability and maintain peace. This report examines three broad areas for lessons within Libya: 1) governance and stability; 2) development; and 3) international implications. Additionally the report engages in meaningful discussion of ways forward that support the development of a vibrant and stable Libyan society.

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If you are hooked and cannot wait for the report to become available at the Cimicweb, you can leave a comment on this blog post, and I will email you the CFC report. Alternatively, you can write to Robin.Barnett@cimicweb.org to request a copy be emailed to you. If you enjoyed this report, be sure to register at Cimicweb.org so you can receive future reports and newsletters. Registration is free. You may list your "sponsor" as: LT Robin Barnett (robin.barnett @cimicweb.org).

Kristine Goulding's article "Tunisia: Feminist Fall?"

In the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings, governments, activists, and scholars are negotiating the roles that women will play in the emerging political landscape. One such article considers some of the obstacles to women's effective participation in governance in the new Tunisia. In Kristine Goulding's "Tunisia: Feminist Fall?", she lists Islamism as an obvious barrier to women, but the article also proposes women's lack of qualifications as another barrier. For example, the author considers literacy to be a necessary political qualification. Gender-based parliamentary quotas, according to the author, threaten women's equality by undermining the role women might play. In other words, in order to fill gender quotas, there is a real possibility that unqualified women will win seats. However, the author does not define what is qualified and what is unqualified, other than to mention literacy and formal educational levels.

This is a sad norm among feminist writers. This particular article even concludes that if women are not represented, they are to blame for not being "ready or willing". The point is subtle, as the author craftily maintains gender-neutral grammar. However, it is certain that the author means women and not Tunisians. For example, in the paragraph that immediately precedes her statement about the readiness or willingness of the people, she is specifically speaking to women's qualifications, and especially rural women's lack of qualifications. And after she makes her point, she laments that only the Tunisian government and political elites really "get it" in terms of women's participation and equality for all. It is, sadly, a typical conclusion, but all the more frustrating coming from an otherwise excellent set of articles.

In the rest of the article, she makes some interesting and important points. It is just a shame that she falls in the same "illiterate equals obstacle" trap rampant among scholars and practitioners.

Lessons from Libya: Syria and Yemen

Written in October 2011:

According to Voice of America (VOA), some Syrians expressed feelings of empowerment as a result of the death of Moammar Gaddafi. Former White House adviser Marc Ginsberg told VOA that one lesson learned from Libya could be that there will be increased pressure on the United States “to determine how and what to do about Syria”. So far the Syrian people continue to wait for external intervention. According to Chatham House’s Sir Richard Dalton, they may be waiting indefinitely. Dalton writes that Libya is probably not a precedent for foreign involvement in other Arab states. His justification is that Libya represented an unusual alignment of popular demand from the Libyan people, international willingness (except for a few of Gaddafi's former allies in Africa), an internationally legal intervention resulting from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and an affordable military task with a clear exit strategy for external participants.

According to Ted Piccone, the NATO operation expanded the interpretation of the UN mandate. Consequently this expansion of power solidified opposition from Russia, China, Brazil, India, and South Africa. The direct implication for Syria is that there is no consensus to act. For Libya, the consensus and the rhetoric were present. The United Nations is unlikely to act in Syria. Libya is an exceptional case, but could possibly be a precedent for future situations to bring United Nations and NATO together, though probably not in the case of Syria.

Al Arabiya reports that the Libyan victory shows other Arab Spring protesters such as those in Syria and Yemen that victory is possible. However, “the concept of civilian protection still competes with deeply held norms of sovereignty”. In the case of Syria, the leaders are in control of the state’s territory and the security forces have the backing of influential allies, according to Foreign Affairs magazine. These factors make humanitarian intervention unfeasible, according to the article.

More pop culture hatin' on illiterates

As I dwell on [how I wish I spent more time finishing] my dissertation, I often avoid reading interesting pieces, tucking them away as treats for future reading. One such piece, “Nashville presentation focuses on homosexuality and the Islamic culture, Author Nonie Darwish will lead discussion of ‘The Rights of Women and Homosexuals Under Shariah Law’” by Blake Boldt, ended up frustrating me more than informing me. Not only does the article replicate some of the usual tropes about Sharia and Muslims, but it also contributes to the misrepresentation of illiterates as obstacles to development and democracy. How tiresome.

In this rant, I will focus on her assumptions and logically flawed claims about the Arab Spring and illiteracy.

Here is the offending passage:

“The Arab Spring (Editor's note: Arab Spring is a wave of demonstrations and protests that began in December of 2010) did not bring the freedom and democracy that many young men who protested wished for. Unfortunately they are the minority in Egypt, where the illiteracy rate is over 50%. In a recent poll, over 75% of Egyptians said they wish to live under Sharia law, which is against freedom of speech, thought, religion, sexual freedoms, and discrimination in the application of law on the basis of gender and religious affiliation, where non-Muslims live as second class citizens.”

The first MAJOR problem with this passage is that it wasn’t just ‘young men who protested’ during the Arab Spring.

The second and third problems here are with syntax and logic. In the first sentence, she says “many young men who protested wished for” freedom and democracy. In the second sentence she says, “They are the minority in Egypt”. I assume she is referring to her previous, spurious declaration: “many young men who protested” (I cannot refrain from another frustrated mention that it was not just MEN, who protested, and it CERTAINLY wasn’t just YOUNG men.) Furthermore, Nonie Darwish elides right into the sloppy assertion that these young men exist in contrast to illiterates in Egypt. Clearly, no illiterate would have or could have or did participate in the protests in Egypt. Indeed, we might even extrapolate ridiculously from Nonie Darwish that no young man in Egypt who participates in calls for freedom in democracy is illiterate. And, only illiterates “wish to live under Sharia law”. This is clearly untrue, if we take Nonie Darwish’s figures as true and accurate. If the illiteracy rate in Egypt is over 50%, but more than 75% of Egyptians wish to live under Sharia law, then CLEARLY it is not just illiterates who wish to live under Sharia law. If illiterates are obstacles to the development and evolution of democratic governance in Egypt (an assumption which I STRONGLY challenge as ridiculous and untrue), then they are not the ONLY obstacles, based on Nonie Darwish’s data. She also says that “Sharia law…is against…discrimination in the application of law on the basis of gender and religious affiliation.” This claim is discontinuous with her other claims of that which Sharia law “is against”. Sloppy.

The third major problem is the typical, unquestioned, unchallenged dismissal of illiterates as obstacles that pervades media and popular representations of illiterate people. In the interview, Nonie Darwish indirectly declares that illiterates do not support “freedom and democracy”, because only “young men” support democracy and freedom, and according to Nonie Darwish, young men are the minority. Or is it young men who support democracy and freedom are the minority? It’s impossible to tell with all of the fallacious and logically inconsistent claims she makes in the interview IN JUST THIS PARAGRAPH. What is true is that young men are in no way a minority in Egypt. What is also true is that those demonstrating in person and via social media, both men and women, young and old, across social classes, are a minority in Egypt.

Ugh.

Urban planning and Islam as a unifier in medieval Morocco

The following post serves to make use of some dissertation writing that won't be of much use, it turns out.

In Morocco, urban planning has a history of softening and blurring tribal lines, in part using Islam as a unifier. As cities formed, tribal groups moved in together as a unit, occupying physical spaces with clear boundaries separating them from other tribal units.[i] During the 13^th and 14^th centuries in Morocco [and possibly up till the 17^th century], depopulation was a significant problem. The ‘rite du drap’ was adapted to unify communities within cities. When a local woman’s labor became difficult, school boys, at the behest of their teacher, would walk around the neighborhood suspending a sheet with an unbroken egg and uttering prayers bidding god to intervene on the woman’s behalf to induce birth. The practice was a unifier across communities, as the procession eventually widened beyond tribal communities, thus expanding the sense of obligation of other city-dwellers from their immediate families to the unborn of the community struggling to enter the world. It is an example of Islam acting as a unifier up against customary practice. This phenomenon is a promising example of the success of Islam in counteracting divisive customary law, especially for the well-being of women. Caveat—this bridged communities in the ancienne medina (old city), but it is not certain that it expanded into the Merenid’s ville-nouvelle established in 1276.[ii]

The practice that did bridge the ancienne medina with the new city the two was the ‘rite des pantalons.’ Abdelhaqq, founder of the Merenid dynasty, was a saint with powers of baraka or blessings.[iii] The ceremony of the pants describes the practice of bringing the pants and/or coat of the blessed Abdelhaqq to the woman experiencing a difficult labor to wear. Donning Abdelhaqq’s clothing (long after he had died) eased the woman’s difficulties and expedited the birthing process.[iv]

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[i] Abdessamad Dialmy, Le Féminisme Au Maroc, 1st ed. (Casablanca: Les Editions Toubkal, 2008), 62.

[ii] Ibid., 63.

[iii] Ibid., 65.

[iv] Ibid., 67.

UPDATE: Who are Abdelhakim Belhaj, Abdel Hakim al-Hasadi, and Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq?

UPDATE: We have our answer. BBC was right and NYT was wrong. On 31 August a correction appeared here stating that Abdelhakim Belhaj and Abdel Hakim al-Hasad are two different people.

Abdelhakim Belhaj (also known as Abdel Hakim al-Hasadi and Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq) is the former commander of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), currently called the Islamic Movement for Change. According to NYT, Abdelhakim Belhaj is the same person as Abdel Hakim al-Hasadi. According to BBC, Abdelhakim Belhaj is the same person as Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq. Who is right?

Update to post: Misogyny catalyzes unrest... [from January 2011]

Update to post: Misogyny catalyzes unrest... [from January 2011]

The BBC published a great follow-up in June that echoes some of my thoughts in January this year.

To re-cap: The woman thought to have slapped Tarek 'Mohammed' Bouazizi spent 110 days in jail. She did not receive due process, nor has any proof of her wrong-doing ever been established.

Meanwhile, there are accusations that the family of the Bouazizi who died from self-immolation 'cashed in' on the revolution, and that the real hero is another man of the same name--alive and well--is the real hero.