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At Large
Avoiding the Islamist Stigma
Explaining Libya’s surprising interim cabinet appointments.
Recently it has been reported that Libya’s interim Prime Minister — Abdurrahim el-Keib — has named a line-up of secularists as part of his interim cabinet at the expense of Islamists, running counter to the expectations of many analysts. Most notably, Osama al-Juwali, the chief of the military council in the small town of Zintan in western Libya, was appointed defense minister instead of Abdelhakim Belhaj, the Islamist head of the Tripoli Military Council.
What are the reasons behind these surprising appointments? Do they show Libya is on the path to true liberal democracy?
The most important point to appreciate is that the country’s transitional leaders are keen to avoid an impression of acting at the behest of a foreign power. For the Islamists, therefore, backing from Qatar has now proven to be a hindrance rather an advantage in the struggle for power. On more than one occasion, figures in the National Transitional Council (NTC) like the Libyan ambassador to the UN have rebuked Qatar for what is perceived as excessive interference by the Gulf nation in Libyan affairs.
This is hardly an unjustified criticism. Qatari aid has circumvented the NTC and besides the close ties to Belhaj, one Libyan Islamist cleric supported by Qatar is Sheikh Ali Sallabi, who presently resides in Doha.
Even now, Ali Tarhouni, who has said he refused an offer to join the transitional cabinet on the grounds that the members are not representative of the country as a whole, could well have been alluding to Qatar — as suggested by a journalist and something to which he did not object — when he was speaking of outside nations that had interests in backing the rebels in Libya, “some which we know and some which we don’t know.” In a somewhat similar vein, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, head of the NTC, slammed Qatar earlier last week for interfering in Libya.
Linked to this rejection of Qatari interference is a desire to placate factions based around Misrata and Zintan that are deeply suspicious of the likes of Belhaj, were responsible for capturing and handing over Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and have grown alarmed at the Islamist presence around Tripoli.
Accordingly, they have been competing with Islamist militias for control of the harbor and airports of the Libyan capital. Thus, the interim government naturally feels a need to calm tensions in the western parts of the country and maintain some degree of stability.
The transitional leaders are also undoubtedly eager to restart economic ties with the West: particularly Western Europe. Given Libya’s dependence on oil and a virtual halt in petroleum production on account of the civil war, the interim government evidently fears that a significant Islamist presence in cabinet positions could jeopardize potential business deals with Western companies to revive Libya’s economic growth by increasing oil output to pre-civil war levels.
So do these cabinet appointments mean that my predictions that Islamism would probably be the dominant ideological force in Libya are all wrong? Not necessarily. To begin with, the Islamists may well decide that it is better to maintain a low profile to avoid triggering outside alarm, and therefore devise a de facto arrangement similar to that which existed in Mubarak’s Egypt, whereby the Islamists might be snubbed formally in the higher ranks of government but their ideology permeates at the ground level.
Such an arrangement included numerous concessions to the Muslim Brotherhood, such as the glorification and teaching of jihad in Egyptian school textbooks, discrimination against the Copts, and the promotion of discourse on television with Brotherhood clerics calling for the extermination of Bahais in Egypt and inciting mob attacks upon them in villages.
Furthermore, as Michael Rubin notes, “a Brotherhood sympathizer took Koran scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd to court in Egypt. To appease the group, the court — with Mubarak’s consent — declared Abu Zayd an apostate and forcibly divorced him from his wife, because a Muslim woman cannot be married to a non-Muslim man in Egypt.” Another clear instance of enforcement of Sharia norms in Egypt.
In this context, it is worth pointing out that Abdul-Jalil’s pronouncements that Sharia would be the principal source of law were more likely an indication of his feeling intimidated by Islamists rather than sincere ideological convictions on his own part. Yet this sense of intimidation is precisely the problem, for Libya’s transitional leaders have already felt the same impulse to pander to the Islamists, above all in the debacle involving David Gerbi and his attempts to rebuild Tripoli’s abandoned synagogue.
Meanwhile, Belhaj — Libya’s leading Islamist — has been sent by the Libyan authorities to meet with the Free Syrian Army in Turkey, seeking to provide money, weapons and perhaps training for Syrian rebels.
It is also noteworthy how the interim cabinet appointments have completely excluded the Islamists’ most vociferous opponents and advocates of liberal secularism in Libya: the Berber minority, prompting justifiable outrage on their part. Indeed, the contrast between the generally liberal mores of the Berber town of Zwara and the dominance of Islamism on the ground in the neighboring “Arab” (in reality just Berbers who have been Arabized over the centuries) city of Sabratha could not be more apparent.
In short, therefore, the cabinet appointments of “technocrats” (as is being widely reported) are not automatically a cause for optimistic hope of liberal democracy in Libya. Islamism in Libya does not appear to be going away anytime soon, and could well entrench itself even more deeply in the country in the coming months.
About the Author
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University. His website is http://www.aymennjawad.org.
Intelligent Design| 11.29.11 @ 8:27AM
We "Infidels" should all understand that Islam is a 7th century political ideology, the essence of which is to destroy individual human rights and religious freedom. As the Ayatollah Khomeini said, "Islam is politics or it is nothing." About 97% of Libyans are Sunni Muslim, and its government will be Islamic. Those who say that Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, etc. will some day be our trusted allies are either naive fools or cynical, sinister demagogues.
DTOM| 11.29.11 @ 9:04AM
Roger that. Islam is a political system that calls itself a religion as Greeks bore a gift of the Trojan horse to enter and destroy Troy. It enters states stealthily so as to conquer. Look at Europe. Look at Detroit.
Call it a "Trojan religion."
What else do we need to know?
Intelligent Design| 11.29.11 @ 2:09PM
What is Islam all about? It's about the merger of state and so-called religion, forbidding and precluding the practice of any other religion, to form a totalitarian government where freedom is dead. Nothing could be more hostile to the U.S. Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and human rights everywhere on earth. Labels such as "moderate Muslim" or "radical Islamist" are irrelevant, since there is no difference. Islam is a 7th century political ideology, not actually a religion at all.
Muslims not only fail to respect the rights of others, they not only fail to assimilate with others, they actively promote and use violence to force their views on others. This is evident, for example, by the fact that Muslim terrorists have committed about 17,800 attacks since 9/11/01, worldwide. Muslims hate the "Infidels", which means anyone who is not a Muslim. And they even hate each other, as the various sects and tribes fight and kill each other. In just 50 recent days, Muslim terrorists around the world have killed over 1,000 people and wounded more than 2,000 people.
The Palestinian Muslims and their Palestinian Authority are joined at the hip with the terrorist organization Hamas, which in turn is an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood. The MB is active in Egypt of course, and also in North America, where its objective is to destroy Western civilization from within, by subversion. It typically works through mosques, campus groups, and fake charities, seeking to undermine the Constitution of the United States and our freedom.
The latest rocket attacks by Muslims in Gaza against Israel are just a few of thousands which have been made in the past few years. The objectives of the PA and Hamas are to destroy Israel and kill Jews. The majority of Palestinians agree with those objectives, they celebrate the attacks, and they honor terrorists. In contrast to the hatred and venom boiling over in the Muslim world, Israel is a peaceful country where 1.5 million Arabs live in security, knowing they won't be harmed. At the same time, there are very few Jews living in Muslim countries, because they fear for their lives. Right after Israel became a state in 1948, 880,000 Jews' were driven from Muslim countries in Nazi fashion. Jews homes were destroyed, many were tortured and executed, and their property taken without compensation.
It's time for the U.S. Congress to recognize Islam for what it is: a subversive 7th century political ideology. The U.S. is giving hundreds of millions in aid to the Palestinians, and therefore to terrorists. The U.S. is also funding UN aid to the Palestinians, giving even more money to terrorists. It has been doing this since 1948. We hear the politicians talk about the "peace process" in the Middle East, as if it were real. It's a naive ideal at best and cynical propaganda at worst. There will be no peace until Muslims become ex-Muslims, reject the 7th century and join the 21st century. They chances of that happening are nil. Muslims have been engaged in hatred and violence for 14 centuries, so it is not realistic to think they will change soon.
Timothy L. Pennell| 11.29.11 @ 8:46AM
A "Secular" Muslim, is like a Smart Liberal. A Colourblind Black. A Progressive Economist. A Worker's Paradise. A Democrat Military Expert. A Pink Unicorn. Hope and Change, from a New Kind of Politician.
It's a LIE. It doesn't exist.
obadiah| 11.29.11 @ 2:04PM
Islamists are evil and Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a brilliant scholar who has assembled all of the available facts that show how the evil Islamists are taking over Libya. He's got the facts, folks, and no doubt is possible. We need to threaten and hurt and choke those evil Islamist as soon as possible.
gary siebel| 11.29.11 @ 4:39PM
Disregard the ignorati postings, above.
The main problem with (current) Islam is that it has yet to have a Martin Luther moment, by which I mean, a point at which someone significant objects to clerics as being the sole arbiters of the meaning of the Q'uran, and through that objection leads Muslims to believe religion is a matter of individual conscience.
Islam today is very much like early Catholicism; demands for Sharia are no different than demands that Papal law and authority should govern. Catholicism was eventually brought to heel -- but only grudgingly. It took centuries of warfare to make it recognize civil government should predominate. It may be appropriate, and time, to declare a fatwa on Muslim clerics, to be treated as outlaws until they get the message that their interpretation of Islam is just that --THEIR INTERPRETATION. Our battle is not with Muslims, it is with the clerics. Similarly, Catholicism is not a problem, just the pedophile priests.
Something interesting is happening in Iran in that regard. Ahmenijad (sp?) the hopeless retard, is reported to have said (in Al-Jazeera) he would like an Islam without the clerics. Very profound, and from an unlikely source.
No question the "Arab Spring" countries will be dominated by Islam; but it will be just like Marxism, doomed to failure in the long run. The clerics will not be able to keep the world at bay, information will leak in, and their authority will eventually crumble. Could take 50 years, however.
Sending Belhaj to Syria could be rather like sending Che to South America -- a very clever removal.
DTOM| 11.29.11 @ 6:05PM
I am pretty sure that the existing Muslim power structure would allow their "Martin Luther" about five seconds of life before hanging him from a fork lift or cutting his head off with a pocket knife.
And Martin Luther intended to save the Catholic Church from its own hubris. The Bible was NOT the problem, it was the Catholic Church's power structure that ran amok. Islam has no hubris-free doctrine to go back to. Also, they will tell you that Jesus was a mere prophet whose mission was to foretell the coming of Muhammed. They're gonna need hubris-proof hip waders...
Nick| 11.29.11 @ 7:02PM
Mr. Siebel,
Your knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church is severely lacking, I'm afraid. The Church has always taught that there were different roles for the clergy and the princes. It was the secular authorities who were constantly trying to impose their views on the Church.
Yes, there were some popes who exceeded their proper roles, but, there were far more kings who thought they were competent to be theologians.
By the way, who is the pope of Islam? The Moslems have been split into Sunni and Shia almost since the Prophet died. They have never had one leader, as the Catholic Church has, for nearly 2,000 years.
So, who is this Moslem Luther going to rail against?