Post-civil war democratic success stories in Africa and Asia are not abundant mate, not abundant.
Saying one wants democracy and actually understanding the content of democracy - rather than “getting my way” is two things that are not the same.
‘The People’ is a meaningless abstraction. A slogan.
Every conflict situation I am familiar with, ‘The People’ breaks down into leadership groups with guns. That’s human beings.
Maybe. But I didn’t predict mini-dictatorships, I simply predict(ed) that the Barons that will arise from this will have quite a word to say in the shape of a new regime (I already said above I suspect that petrol revenues can paper over divisions), they’re not likely to be favourable to a Monarchical restoration.
Since I made no such prediction, why don’t you try to reign in your nationalistic over-reaction, eh?
What makes you feel that Libyans are incapable of understanding Democracy? All they want is the freedom to choose who rules them and to have some say in how they’re ruled. How is that “getting my way”?
Again, what Barons? Which individuals do you think are going to have a disproportionate amount of personal power after the dust settles and what do you think that power will be based on? When you said “the men with guns”, you seemed to be saying that a few individuals with access to weapons would somehow be able to bully their way onto the political stage through force of arms. Or have I misunderstood? And I don’t think anyone there will be in favour of a monarchial restoration - I thought I made that point already.
Yes I was being hyperbolic, but I was reacting to your assertion that the Libyans don’t have a hope of establishing a real democracy and that the country is doomed to descend into violent chaos. I really feel that they’ll succeed because they don’t have many of the ethnic or religious divisions that many other countries have suffered from, plus other countries want them to succeed. Surely a stable, democratic Libya would be good for the whole region?
Understanding democracy and applying democracy are two different things. And human beings are human beings, overcoming unconscious habits set by dictactorship is hard.
Because few people have the experience with the give and take of democracy and my experience in Africa tells me that without that experience, democracy ends up being understood in a fairly unidirectional sense.
I am not assuming Libyans are any better or worse than anyone else in the world I am assuming that like every other transition via civil war from dictatorship that I know of, without experience in democracy, etc, the mental transition on a daily lived basis is a lot bloody harder than slogans and populist enthusiasm.
I am assuming like every other situation of this type I know about, that leadership groups, around nuclei of armed men / groups will emerge. Unless Libyans are somehow Martians or you think African examples are too black and African for you.
Those people will have influence.
Chill mate, I was agreeing with you for fuck’s sake.
I made no such assertion at all - well I don’t see a hope of real democracy in a mature democracy sense, but I also suspect there are enough resources exist that chaos can be avoided. I only asserted that relative to monarchical restoration, the interest groups / barons would block it.
Shrug. Other people “wanting” you to succeed pretty much does fuck all as far as I can tell. Everything I read say there are tribal divisions and what I know about human nature is that some people will try to promote to exploit for power. That’s humans. I don’t see Somalia, mate, I just don’t see the warm and fuzzy vision you do. Sorry, your country and all, but people are people.
No, I know South Africans are rightly proud of doing it themselves. It was South Africans, not American college kids or whatnot that mad South Africa work post-transition. If not for the right leadership at the right time, it would have been a disaster.
But then RSA had some reasonably functional institutions, and at least for Whites and a portion of coloureds, some reasonably functional democracy. That helped.
Some mate of mine said something like “That guy didn’t even given the fucking Libyans the good side of dictatorship.”
Hey mate, it’s not that I am wishing bad on Libya. Contrary, I hope it works. But I do think for expatted Libyans like yourself, you guys need to know that behind the slogans and populism, it’s going to be damned hard. But the country is going to need people like you to help evolve the political culture. It isn’t easy to overcome 40+ years of oppression like that. The unconscious habits, unspoken expectations that people don’t understand actually work against democracy…
I’ve seen as a businessman too many things go off the rails in Africa due to starry eyed optimism. I think it better to start out knowing that getting people emerging from oppression not just to want democracy, but to live democracy is really bloody hard.
Thanks, and I’ll take your well-wishes in the spirit they’re given, but I’m under no illusions as to hpw hard it will be. I was in Libya in April and saw first-hand what a complete mess the country is in, not on;y because of the current conflict, but because of 40+ years of neglect, abuse and misrule. They’re pretty much going to have to rebuild the country from the ground up. But after speaking with people in Tobruk, Benghazi, Ajdabiya and Brega and witnessing the mood of the people first-hand, I think it’s not so much a case of “starry-eyed optimism” as “steely-eyed” optimism.
The people know what they want and they’re not afraid to work bloody hard for it.
They had them before. The only difference is that this time they’ll hopefully be spent where they’re supposed to - on the people and the public good - rather than being used to line to pockets of Gaddaffi and his shamelessly corrupt cronies.
That’s what I meant. Heck, you’ll probably get way better shiny-new infrastructure, five or ten years down the road, than you would have had if Gaddafi had built it. (He might have brought in unemployed Soviet engineers and architects! :eek:)
In fact, if everything shakes out properly, I envision a high-speed rail line from Marrakech to Port Said, with a tunnel under the Straits of Gibraltar linking to Europe! (All decades away, of course.)
Yeah, well , for the moment Kaddhafi is still there, the rebels dont seem to be able to fight effectively, and the Nato bombings havent been the tide turner they were supposed to be.
You might very well have him, or a member of his family, as head of Lybia for some time.
I think we all would agree that sometimes revolutions are worth having, but always they are chancy. Even when the revolutionaries can be sure of victory they can never be sure what will result from victory, or how nearly it will resemble what they hoped for when they began, or whether – if a thing never tried before – it can even work. And all kinds of things can go wrong. The zealot wing of the revolution can overcome the moderates and try to restructure society top to bottom right now, an ideological cabal like Robespierre’s can take control, a military adventurer like Napoleon can take control, or the whole state can fall apart and then the people will miss the dictatorship, and in any scenario lotsa heads roll.
In Libya, at least, I don’t see any obvious potential for things going seriously wrong. The revolution is simply against Gaddafi and for democracy, and replacing a dictator with democratic government is by no means an impossible project, even in the Arab world where it seemed so not so long ago, and there are no visible ideologues offering any heroic alternative to Gaddafi’s Greenism or whatever, and the military establishment is too weak and rotten to take over. The worst things I would fear from a post-Gaddafi government would be incompetence (from inexperience) and corruption (from confronting unprecedented temptations), but any post-revolution government will have those problems and they’re survivable.
Except for those people that want something else entirely; those people are going to need a good hard killing, eh?
See, that’s the main problem I see with your reasoning: you assume that every single Libyan is on the same exact page, they all want the same thing you want, and they all want to accomplish it in the same exact way. Thing is, were this the case, you wouldn’t be in the midst of a civil war right about now. If there was a unified “Libyan” people, you wouldn’t be gleefully slaughtering each other at this moment. But you are.
There is a very real difference of opinions here, and you simply cannot wish it away. Even if you win the civil war, the contrary opinions will still be there. Then what? Well, your beloved rebels have already answered that by being involved in quite a few extrajudicial murders and torturing of captured Libyan soldiers. And, since people tend to dislike getting tortured and killed, I’m foreseeing a long civil war in Libya’s future, no matter which side nominally “wins” this current war.
Who knows? There has hardly been a national dialogue allowing all opinions to be heard. What is apparent is that the differences are very much material ones, as most people won’t go to war and risk getting shot in the face simply out of boredom. It is clear that, contrary to what Bibliovore would have us believe, the Libyan people do not currently speak with one voice.
I also find your question fascinating because it presupposes that some contrary opinions may evaporate upon the Colonel’s hypothetical removal from power. I disagree, since humans don’t really work that way. If a large segment of the population is fighting solely out of support for the Colonel, and the Colonel is nevertheless overthrown, do not expect that segment to shrug, lay down their arms, and bow down to their new rebel overlords. Take the Afghan Taliban as an example: did they give up the fight after the US took Kabul? Nope; a decade later, they’re still fighting the occupiers with a passion. I suspect that a similar scenario will likely unfold in Libya. Even if the Western bombardment dislodges Qadaffi and the rebels take Tripoli, the loyalists will continue the fight. If anything, they will be emboldened and inflamed by having people that they despise attempt to lord it out over them.
Dear God, let it be true. I’ve had this discussion with several Libyans and Libyan businessmen, but the feeling is that given Libya’s low population, vast natural resources and fantastic potential, there’s no reason it’s can be better than Dubai if the money is managed properly.
You wouldn’t happen to have anything, anything at all that resembles substantiation for this insulting and absolutely inaccurate appraisal of the posts by Bibliovore, would you? Or are you doing your usual thing when it comes to such discussions as the one in this thread?
Just go all Rousseauvian and be noble savages!