For more than a decade, Libya has been caught up in an intense civil conflict with close to no end in sight. After leading Libya for over four decades, Mu’ammar Al-Qadhdhāfī, or Muammar Gaddafi, was removed from power and killed through a NATO-backed coup that seized power over the nation. Since then, Libya has experienced immense hardship and is in dire need of repair after a decade-long humanitarian crisis. Despite being viewed by the Western world as a brutal and oppressive dictator, a reputation not entirely unearned, Gaddafi was well-loved by a great number of the Libyan population and under him Libya achieved levels of prosperity unparalleled in the majority of the post-colonial world. To this day, large portions of the Libyan population yearn for the days under Gaddafi to return.
Prior to Gaddafi seizing power in 1969, Libya was ruled by Idris I under a Saudi-controlled monarchy. Despite achieving formal independence in 1951 during the aftermath of the Second World War, the nation remained entirely dependent on, and essentially a puppet of, the British government. It was a country rife with inept and backwards policies that took wealth and resources out of the hands of the Libyan people and served the needs of the British state and its military interests. At this time, only a quarter of Libyans were literate and public services such as healthcare and housing were virtually non-existent.
As a high ranking leader in the Libyan military, Muammar Gaddafi led the coup to oust the monarch Idris I from power. Gaddafi was initially a proponent for Arab socialism and pan-Arabism, though later opting instead for pan-Africanism, making clear his goal for unity among nations in the post-colonial world and his strong stance against Western imperialism. Although advocating for a socialist form of governance and economics, Gaddafi’s new government rejected communism, largely due to its atheistic roots, and instead proposed a unique form of socialism which eventually culminated in Gaddafi’s own Third International Theory, which combined elements of Mao Zedong thought and direct democracy.
Under Gaddafi’s leadership, Libya emerged as a prosperous nation well ahead in terms of traditional notions of development compared to most other African and Arab nations. The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, as it was named under Gaddafi, provided housing, healthcare, education, and food to all its citizens and implemented a number of initiatives aimed at the development of Libya into a sustainable and prosperous nation. Libya under Gaddafi was considered a high-development country by the United Nations Development Programme, which meant that it had high levels of gender equality, literacy, and general quality of life. Although the Gaddafi government provided a large amount of security and well-being to the Libyan people, it did also develop into an authoritarian regime and police state that systematically violated human rights in a number of significant ways. A highly divisive and unpredictable figure, with an impulsive streak that led to him being considered a wildcard on the world stage, Gaddafi’s rule is remembered as an oppressive but altogether extremely prosperous period in Libya’s history.
After more than forty years under Gaddafi, discontent began to stir among large sections of the Libyan populace. Despite the number of significant ways in which the Gaddafi government improved quality of life and welfare within Libya, the widespread abuses of human rights and authoritarian nature of many aspects of the Libyan government led many people to become disillusioned with the way Gaddafi ran the country. In 2011, civil war broke out with Libyan rebels, who stood opposed to Gaddafi, seeking to overthrow his decades long rule. These rebels were backed by the NATO alliance and – aided by a number of Western nations who were angered by the anti-Western, anti-imperialist stance taken by the Gaddafi government and the nationalisation of their resources for the benefit of the Libyan people – eventually managed to oust Gaddafi from power. Shortly after fleeing the capital with his family, Gaddafi was captured by the rebels and murdered. The brutal way in which Gaddafi was killed was widely condemned as a breach of international law and a gross violation of a person’s body.
In the aftermath of Gaddafi’s death, Libya regressed into an unstable nation with only the barest semblance of national leadership. Warlords vie for control of the nation and its people while common Libyans starve. The stability and prosperity brought about by the Gaddafi regime is entirely a thing of the past, the Libyan economy and government has all but collapsed. What was once considered the most prosperous nation in Africa is now the centre for one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes of the 21st century.
Recent developments in Libya indicate a hopeful shift in the tide of the crisis. Although violence between warlords and opposition groups still continues, a tentative ceasefire was signed in 2020. An election was attempted in late 2021 and, although it failed to overcome the difficulties faced in the modern nation of Libya and was ultimately indefinitely delayed, it showed an attempt to move forward and carve out a better Libya. One of the candidates standing for election is Muammar Gaddafi’s own son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who represents a shift back towards the Gaddafi era. Given the widespread levels of nostalgia and fondness towards the Gaddafi regime among the people of Libya today, it’s not unfair to assume that Saif al-Islam has a good chance at winning the election.
Since the death of Gaddafi, Libya has been afflicted with a terrible crisis rife with violence and instability. Many Libyans want to restore the Gaddafi era of Libya and see an end to the crisis. Of course, the repression and brutality attributed to the Gaddafi regime is not without justification, and Libyans may not wish a return to the authoritarianism present in that time despite the welfare it might bring. Regardless, the fact remains that Libya maintained levels of prosperity achieved by few if any post-colonial nations under Gaddafi, and it has objectively taken a turn for the worse since his death. For all his faults, Muammar Gaddafi provided stability and wellbeing to Libya and many Libyans desire a return to those times. Assuming he won the election that will hopefully come soon, Saif al-Islam would likely revert the country back towards the Gaddafi era. Although imperfect, this would provide Libya with the tools necessary to rebuild the nation and achieve even greater levels of prosperity than found in the past.
Edited by Robyn Matthews
Alexander Morris-Schwarz is a third-year student at McGill University where he is majoring in Political Science with a minor in Communication Studies. Alexander is currently a staff writer for Catalyst and he is interested in international relations and imperialism.