Written by Mickey Grant   

Evidence of the Beginnings of Democracy in Libya

I just returned from my third trip to Libya, my second during the revolution. For the most part, witnessing this revolution has been a joy and great leaning experience. Last week I witnessed and filmed the first neighborhood meeting. Most of the time nearly everyone was talking at once. What was refreshing was that I didn’t see anyone yelling or getting mad, as I often observe in local grassroots political gatherings in the U.S.

It has been troubling to me to hear more and more rumblings that Libya will eventually become a fundamentalist Islamic state. My experience in countless interviews with Libyans is just the opposite. When I ask them if this was a possibility, more than once their response has been something like, “Why would we want to trade someone like Qaddafi for another autocratic ruler?”

On the contrary, I have often been very inspired by inclinations toward democracy that I have observed in average Libyans. For instance, last week I went into the very poor Tripoli neighborhood of Abu Salim in search of supporters of Qaddafi. Murad, a translator that was helping had told me, “There are many people in that neighborhood who still support Qaddafi.” That neighborhood is next to Qaddafi vast Bab al-Aziziya compound that rebels captured about 10 days earlier. Plumes of smoke had rose from the compound at that time as Qaddafi loyalists in Abu Salim were firing into the captured compound. Abu Salim is home to a notorious prison and is thought to be one of the regime’s final strongholds.

There I found a young couple that still, in effect, supported him. Soon I discovered that their support revolved around a welfare payment that Qaddafi promised earlier in the year prior to the revolution. They indicated that if the new government would keep the promise of the welfare payment, then they would support the new government.

As I was leaving this neighborhood, I stopped at one of the many checkpoints in Tripoli and asked the young men how they felt about some of the poor people in this neighborhood who still supported Qaddafi. The young man in charge immediately said, “As long as they didn’t kill anyone, or steal, then they are free to say whatever they want.” Earlier that day I had interviewed a man at another neighborhood headquarters who was presented with a man who burned the new Free Libyan flag. Several Libyans were upset about this. The temporary neighborhood chief told the culprit that he had burned a flag that had been given to him for free. He said that if he wanted to buy a flag and burn it, be his guest.

All of this has led me to expect that a genuine democracy is apt to emerge in Libya.