Libya Paper Libya is located in North Africa and is currently controlled by different powers due to being in a state of civil war for several years. It is a relatively young country and has only had two leaders who have both been overthrown because of being disliked by the people of Libya. Libya consists of three main regions which have been ruled by many different groups and countries and were not known as Libya until 1951. The Fezzan is the largest of the of the three regions but is the least populated due to it being primarily a barren desert. Cyrenaica is located in the Northeast of Libya and has three important ports on the Mediterranean Sea: Benghazi, Darnah, and Tobruk. Tripolitania is the Northwest region of Libya and is where Tripoli, the capital of Libya, is located. Many cities have been built up and down the coast of the Mediterranean where the climate and location is more ideal for civilization than in the desert. Unfortunately, being on the coast of a sea that many other countries have tried to control means there has been a lot of conflict and war. For a period of time Libya was under the control of Rome, then Saudi Arabians who brought and popularized the religion of Islam, then the Spaniards and Ottoman Empire. In the 20th century Italy invaded during World War I and stayed until they were defeated by Allied forces in World War II. After a few years it was decided by the United Nations that Libya should have its own government and it set up a constitutional monarchy led by Muhammad Idris al Mahdi. Idris was overthrown in 1969 by Muammar al Gaddafi who ruled until 2011 when he was killed and could not successfully be replaced because of multiple new groups and leaders that were trying to
rise to power. Libya is currently in the divided state it is today because of the arrival and influence of Islam on the region, King Idris s rule, and Gaddafi s want to be in absolute control over his people. In 643 the Arabs invaded Libya and brought with them the religion of Islam. The Arabs remained in control of Libya for a few hundred years and in that time many Libyans converted to Islam and within four hundred years the majority of Libyans were Muslims. Then the Spaniards invaded Tripoli and controlled the city until 1551 when the Ottoman Empire, which was based in Turkey, took control of Libya. The Ottoman Turks popularized the idea of being a Sunni Muslim, someone who believes that anyone should be able to succeed Muhammad, as opposed to to Shi is who believe only direct descendants of Muhammad should be able to take his place (Willis, page 97). The influence of the Arabs and Ottoman Turks changed the lives of Libyans for years to come, Most Libyan citizens more than 90 percent are Arabic speaking Sunni Muslims (Willis, page 85). The Arabians and Ottoman Turks influences not only played a role on the everyday family s day to day life, but also the different groups that are trying to control Libya and t he law of the land. Libya s current transitional constitution states, Islam shall be its religion and Islamic Shari a (The religious laws of Islam (Willis, page 70)) shall be the main source of legislation (Libya s Constitution, Article I). This is a part of the overarching constitution of all the groups that are currently trying to control Libya, and shows that even amidst the chaos of the civil war, Islam still plays a huge part on the current situation Libya is in.
Although most Libyans might agree that Islam should be Libya s religion and used as law, not all groups that are trying to control Libya follow the transitional constitution. The constitution also states, The State shall guarantee for non Muslims the freedom to practice their religious rituals, (Libya s Constitution, Article I) which sadly is not always upheld. The Sunni Islamic extremist group, ISIS, first emerged in Libya in the form of a relatively new global jihadist group Majlis Shura Shabab al Islam (the Islamic Youth Shura Council), or MSSI (Zelin) that announced in 2014 that it claimed territory in the city of Darnah and that it was to be ruled by ISIS. Less than a year later ISIS was implementing its extreme rules in certain places, a Libyan affiliate of the Islamic State released a sordid video showing the group s militants marching a group of 21 prisoners whose only crime was being Christians, and foreigners. After a short speech from one of the jihadis, the Egyptian Coptic prisoners were simultaneously beheaded before the video panned to a scene of the blood soaked Mediterranean Sea ( Gartenstein Ross ). Libya was and is very fertile ground for a group like ISIS because not many people are completely loyal to one government and are easily swayed from one group to the next (in addition, most Libyans are Sunni Muslim). Islam has and continues to play a key role in most Libyans lives whether they are worshiping, trying not to not break the law or taking part in the jihad. Despite being such an important part of Libyan life, it is not the only reason for all the conflict in Libya today. Another main reason for a lot of the fighting that is happening is because Libyans have had a troubled history with leadership which has led to a lot of political instability.
When Gaddafi lost power and died in 2011, it was not the first time that the leader of Libya had been overthrown. Gaddafi himself had risen to power by capturing military bases and the palace while King Idris, the first king of Libya, was out of the country because of being in poor health. Idris had a major impact on why Libya is the way it is today because of his decisions around oil. In June 1959 (Willis, page 56) oil had been struck and spirits were high as people in Libya believed life was about to improve. And yet, as more and more oil came out of the ground and shipped off to other countries for high profits, life did not seem to change for most Libyans and when it did, it seemed to be for the worse. Many Libyans still lived in poverty and the cost of living went up as well, (Willis, Page 56) so where did all the money go? King Idris and a select few controlled most of the profits from the new oil business, which did not sit well with the Libyan people. It was not very surprising when a group of young army officers overthrew Idris and Gaddafi became the new leader of Libya, facing very little opposition. If it wasn t for Idris s decisions about what to do with the money the country made from oil production, Libya might be in a completely different state today. There might be less poverty and Gaddafi may have never risen to power, without whom Libya might not currently be in a civil war. Gaddafi was the butt end of many political jokes during his decline in power for his odd style, but in Libya he was known for more serious things, which eventually gave way to him being the last leader of Libya before chaos broke out. The main things that he did that did not sit well with Libyans and eventually led to them overthrowing him
were how the people of Libya had very little say in the government while he was in charge and how he tried to stop any opposition of his rule. When Gaddafi rose to power he changed the country s name to The Great Socialist People s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The term jamahiriya (which Gaddafi coined) is meant to mean the masses, as a plural form of the Arabic jumhuriya, or "republic." This is used to indicate a communist society ostensibly ruled by the masses, though Gadhafi's government is actually power concentrated in the hands of a non elected ruler (Johnson). The system of government Gaddafi set up allowed people to share their opinions and ideas by splitting Libya into zones. Each zone was allowed to elect a representative for the legislative and executive branch, who then proposed ideas for Gaddafi who had the ultimate say on what was to be done (Willis, Page 70) which gave the Libyans voices very little weight. Many people didn t appreciate how much control Gaddafi had and how little the people did, but Gaddafi managed to keep many of the ideas of a monarchy and prohibited political parties and people to run against him for a long time. The main way he was able to stay in power so long, in addition to not tolerating any political opposition, was because he punished people who publicly denounced him in any way. Fathi Eljahmi is one of the most famous examples of this. Fathi Eljahmi made negative comments about Gaddafi s government system to the international media during a conference in Tripoli about how the people should have the right to free speech and there should be a clear constitution. After making these remarks he was immediately put in prison (Eljahmi). Gaddafi s attempts to suppress the people's voices worked for a
while but eventually caused the spark for massive protests of his rule which led to Gaddafi s demise and after which, anarchy. The three main things that have caused and perpetuated the disarray in Libya are the influence of Islam on the government and extremist groups, King Idris s misuse of the wealth gained from oil production, and Gaddafi s want to be in absolute control over his people. Libya s misfortune of having leaders that always wind up being overthrown might be due inpart to when it was decided by the UN that Libya should be a constitutional monarchy. In monarchies it is easy for the citizens of the country to feel like/actually not have a say in different issues and if the leader does not do anything that benefits their lives a lot they can feel like/actually have their only option for a new leader to be to overthrow the leader that is in power. The UN was not the only outside power that had large effects on Libya, big oil companies had a major impact on the exportation of oil to other countries and impacted Libyan people's distrust of their leader. The invasion of the Arabians played a major role in how previous Libyan governments and new groups are greatly impacted by Islam. So did the corrupt leaders really play a major role in turning Libya into a battleground, or did they merely tip the scales that had already been weighed down by the influence of foreign powers?
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