The Uncivil Libya

By: Daniel Nardini

Two things may have escaped almost unnoticed in the U.S. newsmedia. First, the National Transitional Council (the new government of Libya) has passed that Sharia law (Muslim religious law) will be the law of the land. This means that there will be no separation of religion from the state, and hence all courts and prosecutions will be governed under religious law. Second, the Libyan government has removed all of the laws against polygamy. In other words, a man can now have more than one wife. By these two decrees Libyan women have been not only disenfranchised but now will have little or no say in whom they may marry. Whatever my position on Islam, I definitely do not believe that a country should be governed by a set of out-dated religious laws.
Recently, the National Transitional Council also thanked the Sudanese government for providing them with the weaponry and ammunition that overthrew Muamar Gaddhafi. There is no question that the Sudanese government hated Gaddhafi and tried to overthrow him. Why did the Sudanese government hate Gaddhafi so much? Because strangely enough Gaddhafi gave weaponry and money to the Darfur rebels fighting the Sudanese government that was committing genocide against them (oh yes, the Chinese government gave the Sudanese government tens of millions of dollars in weaponry to help the Sudanese government slaughter the Darfur rebels. The same Chinese weapons that the Sudanese government had they gave to the former Libyan rebels). It is ironic that the new Libyan regime relied in part on weaponry given by a government that is guilty of genocide.
Despite their claim to the contrary, the Libyan revolutionary government is holding up to 7,000 detainees whom they say fought or supported the new ousted Libyan dictator Muamar Gaddhafi, and there are credible cases of torture, rape and murder against former Gaddhafi supporters according to Human Rights Watch. In fact, one whole city called Tawargha still remains completely empty of its inhabitants because the National Transitional Council will not allow them to return because they “supported Gaddhafi.” The new government will disperse the entire Tawargha population to other cities and make sure Tawargha no longer exists. In other words because some of the inhabitants supported Gaddhafi, all of the inhabitants are being forever expelled from their homes and their families are dispersed or murdered. Sadly, the murder and torture of former Gaddhafi supporters continues in Libya away from western eyes.
The Libya that may be coming about may be an Islamic state with no real freedom to speak against Islam or the new government lest any opposition is labeled “Gaddhafi supporters.” The fact that the new Libyan government is aligning itself with some of the most ultra-reactionary Islamic regimes in the region does not bode well for the Libyan people nor the region. Just as equally troubling is the fact that former or alleged former Gaddhafi supporters are being imprisoned, tortured and murdered suggests that despite its pronouncements that there should be some kind of “reconciliation,” the new Libyan revolutionary government is in deed doing the opposite. My fear is that we will see an ultra-religious, extreme reactionary and fanatical new Libya. Despite NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) governments stating that “Libya has entered a new era of democracy,” we may be seeing what happened in Afghanistan. When the United States helped defeat the Soviet Union and its Afghan Communist allies, we instead helped put in the ultra-fanatical Taliban. So far the new Libya does not look too promising, and I am wondering if history is repeating itself?

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