Renewed civil war is inescapable in Libya
- By Wang Jin
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E-mail China.org.cn, August 1, 2014
The opposite part is the armed Islamist group which Haftar believes they are "hiding terrorists." During the reign of Muammar Gaddafi, the Islamic political forces in Libya have been heavily suppressed. Gaddafi, who referred to himself as "the student of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser," had always attempted to resist traditional Islamic politics through secular reforms. When he was in power in Libya, the ideology and power of Islamic extremism have been strictly controlled and excluded. While Libya's neighbor Algeria was in an abyss of suffering due to Islamic extremism, Libya became a pioneer in North Africa and the Saharan region, fighting against the Islamic extremism ideology.
However, since the civil war against Gaddafi broke out in 2011, the Islamic extremists and armed groups began to spring up. On the one hand, the dissatisfaction towards politics and the Gaddafi family's corruption makes Islamic ideology popular among Libyan young people; on the other, a large number of armed Islamic extremists and the "North African branch of al-Qaeda," armed men from the north and south of Algeria, Mali and Chad sneaked into Libya to advance their political interests. Since Gaddafi was captured in 2011, Libya has not established the authority of the central government, so the political system became fragmented and more chaotic.
In this case, one side stands political veterans and various political powers in favor of secularity, while another side is held by Islamic militia and armed groups who are deeply influenced by Islam ideology. The two sides are both capable of destroying each other, in a country which has no sophisticated democratic system. If peaceful democratic competition lacks effective checks on power, if political confrontation cannot be defused by the noisy parliament, if the weak Libyan central government becomes merely a decoration, then a new round of civil war is inevitable in Libya.
The writer is a Ph.D. student in International Politics at the University of Haifa in Israel.
The article was first published in Chinese and translated by Lin Liyao.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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