The mercenary myth was successful in galvanizing popular support for the rebels because it contained a tiny of kernel of truth. More importantly, it tapped into the smoldering resentment that many Libyans harbored against Gaddafi’s gradual shift away from the Arab world in favor of Africa. […]
The answer to this lies in Gaddafi’s reinvention as an African leader and his re-orientation of Libya’s foreign policy and oil dollars towards Africa. Neither garnered the support of most Libyans. Like much of Gaddafi’s history, his involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa was idiosyncratic and contradictory. As early as the 1970s, he was already meddling in the region’s affairs, most notably in Chad, where he sought to gain control of the uranium-rich Aozou Strip.
By the mid to late 1980s, he emerged as a key player in a number of West African conflicts. […]
But the real turning point came in the wake of the 1992 U.N. embargo against Libya. Dismayed by the lack of support he received from Arab countries, Gaddafi responded by turning his attention and seemingly endless supply of oil-money toward sub-Saharan Africa. He now sought to firmly position himself as an African leader and a Pan-Africanist.
As a historian of race in modern Africa, and a pan-Africanist, I watched Gaddafi closely as he reinvented himself. His African adventures weren’t cheap. They cost him both cash and credibility. For most Libyans, already predisposed to seeing themselves as part of the Arab world, Gaddafi’s new predilection for Africa and for asserting Libya’s African identity, came at the expense of national priorities and pride. Things soured further when part of Gaddafi’s transformation included opening up Libya’s borders to sub-Saharan migrants who were a convenient source of cheap labor, willing to do jobs that most Libyans frowned upon. […]
But there is another dimension to the racism that is now tainting the Libyan revolution.
Despite the popular image of Libyans as light-skinned Arabs, there has long been a significant population of black Libyans, particularly in the south of the country. Their origins date back to the earliest days of the trans-Saharan trade, which provided highly sought after black slaves to the Arab world.
Today, their descendents are widely viewed as Gaddafi sympathizers. […]
But no amount of racial purging will erase the fact that Libya is an African country and that Libyans are Africans too. Post-Gaddafi Libyans must reckon with the complexity of their Arab and African identities in order to avoid reproducing the same brand of divisive rule that fractured Libyan society under Gaddafi.
