Libya has been devastated by chaos and looting. Communities are clashing over control of the country. Islamist factions derive their strength from foreign fighters who do not recognize the concept of nationhood (a geographically defined space that was home to ancestors) but the words of their leader, booty, and looting it abroad. These two concepts are the ABCs of political Islam, especially that of the misguided Brotherhood.
No class or community has an exclusive right to the homeland. The nation cannot be reduced to a class or community that seizes it to exploit it. The homeland is not a real estate asset or a cake. Indeed, it is the foundation of our lives. Nonetheless, we sometimes see it come second to the community first in the minds of the deluded, which could reinforce isolation. However, this view might not be representative of any more than one percent of the population, meaning that the armed factions give their ambitions precedence over the supreme national interest. Thus, they are willing to undermine the interests of the homeland and its social harmony merely to exclude their political opponents from any dialogue, project or law.
We have groups willing to split the homeland in accordance with the interests of their communities, and they could also privatize it as well. They do all of this because of their misconceptions about nationhood, citizenship and the national interest that arose as a result of the intellectual degradation in the country, the depths that political discourse has descended to, the failure of the elites, a culture of partisan loyalties, and the rise of concepts other than go against the national interest.
Meanwhile, the fact is that the homeland is the foundation of every citizen’s life, which demands that we develop a new definition that contests these narrow loyalties, chauvinism, and the prioritization of the party or community at the expense of the homeland.
Most of them are now loyal to a community or party. In fact, things have gone so far that opponents are attacked as apostates. Some of them won the votes of the people by presenting themselves as independent of any party, faction or communal affiliation, only for the facade of their independence to disappear after they weaseled their way into parliament. They then wrap themselves in partisan loyalties, violating the trust of their constituents and showing them contempt.
These chameleons do not seek coexistence and partnership with other members of the homeland. Instead, they demand singular rights that perpetuate insularity. They shed doubt on the other’s allegiance to the homeland despite the fact that differences of opinion and divergent views enrich the nation and give rise to a healthy democratic climate in which the interests of the homeland, not a class, party, or community, are furthered.
To carve a way out of this narrow and suffocating tunnel, several conditions must be met. First and foremost, partisan or factional approaches to general national entitlements must be abandoned. A new social contract should be drafted through the constitution. Partisan competition should be maintained, but within the framework of ordinary politics - without animosity - as citizens live in the homeland as citizens, not as politicians.
Coexistence in a nation that serves its citizens, without exception or discretion, where we have development, freedom, democracy, human rights, and democratic civil society, engenders a spirit of fraternity and tolerance. This is what we want for our homeland.
Libyans now need to agree on a constitution that builds on the principles of the 1951 constitution that unified Libya and brought all of its components under the same roof.
Libya needs a national project that puts an end to the havoc wreaked in the name “revolution and revolutionaries.” It must establish order and pave a path toward democracy, where all Libyans, without exception, can enjoy their rights. We must forgo collective punishment, as crimes do not create a civil state.
Libya is currently split by partisan, factional, and even tribal fault lines, after having drowned in the quagmire of ideological and doctrinal schism carved by Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda and ISIS. They all cost the country dearly, though the Libyan army managed to rid the country of their scourge.
Nonetheless, politicking, political disputes, and politicians’ disregard for the concerns of the homeland and its citizens have rendered Libya into a source of plunder rather than a homeland. Meanwhile, the helpless citizens of this country find themselves caught between either the crossfires of terrorist groups or conflicting governments and politicians.
