September 27, 2011-- Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan
We've moved on. Libya is no longer on the front pages.
The dramatic war part with the Europeans leading the bombing and the U.S. the logistics is over. The mop-up proceeds but how boring is that in comparison to Republican and Democratic wrangling about the budget and the GOP presidential aspirants tearing at each other?
Muammar Gaddafi has been toppled though we and our NATO allies have no idea where he is. When he is finally captured, eliminated, or surfaces snugly exiled in Iran, for a day or two we will again pay attention to that place Italian colonialists back in 1911 cobbled together into a country called "Libya.”
Down the line, a few years from now, after competing interests within Libya fight for dominance or, more likely autonomy, we will see not one country but three-- Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan.
As part of the Scramble for Africa engaged in by the dominant European powers in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, the Italians, striving to rival the French, English, and Germans, made a grab for that part of North Africa not far south from them. In 1911 they would up in control of three provinces--actually more tribal regions (again, Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan), which they quickly amalgamated into a pseudo-country--Libya.
(I have linked below a map of that geographic conglomeration.)
It was only by force of arms, first by the Italians and then the British, accompanied by the widespread use of government-sponsored terror, that these three rivalrous provinces, more accurately tribal regions, were fused together.
After independence, for 42 years, Gaddafi kept the "country" intact by using pretty much the same tactics as his colonial predecessors.
But he and thus that are now over. The genie of tribal separatism is out of the bottle and no matter what we and the Europeans wish and attempt to foster--that Libya continue as a country (after all, there's a lot of oil there)--will not come to pass.
What is likely is a return to the ancient cultural borders that existed many centuries ago and which will reassert themselves.
We can see evidence of that today.
Early attempts to form a coalition government are already unraveling. As the rebels continue their mop-up and capture leftover weapons from the Gaddafi forces, rather than taking them to some central government military base or warehouse, depending of who takes possession of the tanks and rifles, they are trundling them to one of three provincial capitals in . . . Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, or Fezzan.
We may not like any of this. A return to tribalism makes life much more complicated--especially foreign and energy policy. But there is another potential side effect--stability.
The kinds of sectional differences we are seeing in Libya and Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, Turkey and even Israel only work when there are strongmen in charge who can keep the lid on ethnic and nationalistic aspirations. That era is ending, perhaps over, and we will have to figure out how to live with and benefit from the consequences.
The dramatic war part with the Europeans leading the bombing and the U.S. the logistics is over. The mop-up proceeds but how boring is that in comparison to Republican and Democratic wrangling about the budget and the GOP presidential aspirants tearing at each other?
Muammar Gaddafi has been toppled though we and our NATO allies have no idea where he is. When he is finally captured, eliminated, or surfaces snugly exiled in Iran, for a day or two we will again pay attention to that place Italian colonialists back in 1911 cobbled together into a country called "Libya.”
Down the line, a few years from now, after competing interests within Libya fight for dominance or, more likely autonomy, we will see not one country but three-- Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan.
As part of the Scramble for Africa engaged in by the dominant European powers in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, the Italians, striving to rival the French, English, and Germans, made a grab for that part of North Africa not far south from them. In 1911 they would up in control of three provinces--actually more tribal regions (again, Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan), which they quickly amalgamated into a pseudo-country--Libya.
(I have linked below a map of that geographic conglomeration.)
It was only by force of arms, first by the Italians and then the British, accompanied by the widespread use of government-sponsored terror, that these three rivalrous provinces, more accurately tribal regions, were fused together.
After independence, for 42 years, Gaddafi kept the "country" intact by using pretty much the same tactics as his colonial predecessors.
But he and thus that are now over. The genie of tribal separatism is out of the bottle and no matter what we and the Europeans wish and attempt to foster--that Libya continue as a country (after all, there's a lot of oil there)--will not come to pass.
What is likely is a return to the ancient cultural borders that existed many centuries ago and which will reassert themselves.
We can see evidence of that today.
Early attempts to form a coalition government are already unraveling. As the rebels continue their mop-up and capture leftover weapons from the Gaddafi forces, rather than taking them to some central government military base or warehouse, depending of who takes possession of the tanks and rifles, they are trundling them to one of three provincial capitals in . . . Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, or Fezzan.
We may not like any of this. A return to tribalism makes life much more complicated--especially foreign and energy policy. But there is another potential side effect--stability.
The kinds of sectional differences we are seeing in Libya and Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, Turkey and even Israel only work when there are strongmen in charge who can keep the lid on ethnic and nationalistic aspirations. That era is ending, perhaps over, and we will have to figure out how to live with and benefit from the consequences.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:31 AM
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