Who are the Libyan rebels?

The last 4 days have been eventful and momentous in equal measures for the people of Tripoli and Libya. Yesterday afternoon, the rebel forces, loyal to the National Transitional Council, stormed Muammar Gadaffi’s Tripoli compound, giving them victory in the Battle for Tripoli. Gadaffi’s forces are in disarray, falling back to his home town and redoubt of Sirte, while there is no sign of the embattled Colonel or his family. These events have been hailed as seminal and epoch defining for the Arab world, a continuation of the Arab Spring, which kicked off in Tunisia in December before spreading across the Middle East. Certainly they are of historic importance, but there are questions that need to be asked that have not been in the mainstream press.

1. Who are the rebels?
2. Whose interests do they represent?
3. Why is the West supporting them?

1. The rebels are guided by the National Transitional Council (NTC), as mentioned above. Their origins were in demonstrations against Gadaffi beginning in February in the eastern city of Benghazi. This city was the original base of the ‘revolution’ and remained the rebel’s capital until this week. There is no doubt that in its origins the rebellion was a demonstration of popular discontent inspired by the example of Egypt and Tunisia. However, there are question marks surrounding members of the NTC cabinet and leadership who were not involved in the rebellion at the beginning and joined after initial successes. The NTC de facto Prime Minister, Jebril, worked in the USA for decades before returning to advise the Gadaffi regime (more on this anon), while a prominent military commander, Khalifa Haftar, has loig been known as a CIA asset following his defection from Gadaffi in 1987. Clearly, these two are not representatives of the Libyan street and people, as the rebels have been represented. Indeed, one might say that they seem to be run of the mill pro-Western and pro-Corporate collaborators that one tends to find in conflicts such as that in Libya.

2. As noted above, the leadership is not representative of the Libyan people or the bulk of those who originally started the rebellion. In that case, one might ask, what exactly do they represent, what are their political views, and what policies are they likely to implement in power? Jebril, the TNC Prime Minister, was a political scientist and advisor to the regime, as noted above. From 2007 to 2011, as head of the National Economic Development Board, he supported the implementation of privatisation and deregulation in the Libyan economy- in a cable released by Wikileaks, he invited the American ambassador to bring in corporations to help ‘diversify’ the Libyan economy, stressing that Libya was ‘virgin territory’ for American multi-nationals. Clearly, someone who was open to the idea of economic development in the interest of multi-nationals, regardless of its effects on the Libyan people. One must wonder what having such a man as head of government will mean for Libya’s state-owned oil industry.

3. Which leads us on nicely to the final question, why did the West support the rebels with weapons, funds, and sustained and murderous air strikes? Clearly, it was not done in support of democracy, otherwise there would have been similar interventions in Syria or Egypt. What Libya has which those countries don’t is substantial oil reserves. Now, it is perfectly correct that the Libyans sold their oil to the West and allowed Western companies to produce, but they charged a relatively high level of tax on that, and given energy insecurity with peak-oil, there are massive profits to be made in exploiting Libyan reserves in the future. Of course, this is speculation, but I would not be in the least surprised to see the new government privatising the Libyan oil industry. It neatly dovetails with their pro-Western links and would go a long way to explaining the involvement of the Western powers in Libya.

One thing is sure- the benefits the Libyan people enjoyed under the Gadaffi regime in terms of social provision, free health care, which resulted in Libya’s position as the most developed country in Africa on the HDI index, are now at serious risk. Ties to the Nato bombers and implementation of a neo-liberal agenda could quickly undermine support for any new government, and leave open the possibility of a pro-Gadaffi insurgency or the development of radical Islamist organisations in the country.

Some observations

As you’ll know if you’re looking at this, I’m a newbie to wordpress. I’ve decided to blog because, as the economic crisis deepens in Ireland and across the world, and we continue on the road to perdition recovery, there are few people out there who question the zeitgeist or who put forward a truly radical solution to the many problems facing our society and economy at present.

This blog is an attempt to address this lack of radical and informed comment and vacuum of solutions, and radical solutions are needed more urgently now than at any other time for the last 80 years.  The trade union movement in Ireland has entirely capitulated to neo-liberal economics, repeatedly selling out strikes and undermining those of their members who tried to lead struggles against the Government/IBEC axis. The ‘Labour Party’ who the unions backed in the last general election, are now firmly ensconced in government, where they are cutting services, reneging on election promises and previous policy, and acting like born again Fine Gaelers. Meanwhile, Sinn Féin continue to speak out of both sides of their mouths, implementing Tory policies in the North while attacking the Coalition government in the South for doing the same down here. As for the ULA and its various parts, they seem doomed to remain stuck like an ostrich with their heads buried in the sand of water charges struggles, continuing to miss the wood for the trees, while the SWP wend their merry way into the swamp of opportunism with their ‘Enough’ front campaign.

By contrast, the forces of reaction are united and strong in their aim of impoverishing ordinary people to protect the international banking system, and restore rates of profit. The privatisation of State assets (in Ireland and elsewhere), the attack on conditions of the low paid with the planned abolition of JLC agreements, the proletarianisation of college graduates with the new internship scheme, and the approaching social welfare cuts, are nothing more than attempts to further liberalise the labour market in the bosses interests, and weaken the power of organised labour to set wages and bargain with employers- as the old adage goes, never waste a good crisis. This is being done to protect larger Irish businesses and the multi-national companies who are in the state, while the bank debt which necessitates all these attacks to pay for it has been taken on to protect the Irish developer class, and the European banking system. It is worth remembering that German, French, Italian and Austrian banks had/have large exposures to the Irish banking system, as well as insufficient levels of capitalisation, and any reneging on Irish, Greek and Portuguese debt would see them in a dangerous position and their very survival in question. So long as we continue to service our banks’ debts, their Irish holdings will remain performing assets on their bank balance sheets. Social consequences like emigration, unemployment and mass poverty are of no concern to these people so long as it does not threaten their ability to make profits. Hence, the attacks will continue as long as the people are indifferent to fighting back or while they remain ignorant of the causes of this economic crisis.

Despite the events of the last couple of years exposing quite clearly the true nature of the system, there has been no apparent shift in people’s consciousness, behaviour or attitude towards the system. As Gramsci wrote in ‘the Prison Notebooks’, there is a twofold division in times of crisis when blame is ascribed. So far, the first type, blaming individual personalities and parties, has been overwhelmingly dominant. That was quite apparent in the General Election in February, when people voted ABFF (anyone but Fianna Fáil) en masse. This (completely justified) hatred of Fianna Fáil has hampered attempts to point out how the system itself is to blame, as even those on the anti-capitalist left used ABFF rhetoric in their election campaigns. Thus, the left is at an impasse as the hoped-for reaction has not materialised, and seems unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future. In some cases, this has lead groups to pin all their hopes on a water charges struggle as the best way of mobilising a fight back, in a desperate attempt to build a mass movement. This ignores the fact that in similar circumstances in the 1980s, such a movement was built which dissipated once the campaign was over, with negligible gains for the left in terms of personnel or influence.

The question is thus posed, where now for the Irish left, how can they grow and what their priorities need to be. This blog is going to attempt to address this in future posts. The prospects look bleak, but perhaps a re-examination by the left of tactics, programme and received wisdom could make a difference. It is not yet too late.