The Construction of LibyaSince 2011, the Arab countries have exp.docx

The Construction of Libya
Since 2011, the Arab countries have experienced big changes,
and the governance of these countries are facing unprecedented
risks. The president of Tunisian Ben Ali fled from Saudi
Arabia, which led to the actual collapse of his regime. The
president of Egyptian Mubarak designated in the voice of public
protests. Gaddafi’s regime in Libya fell under the guise of both
NATO and the domestic political opposition, while Gaddafi
died. The president of Yemeni Saleh was forced to resign and
took refuge in other countries. Syria governed under the Baath
Party is still walking on thin ice, facing an uncertain future. The
change experienced by the Arab world now is the third wave of
political system reform since the nationalism in the 1950s and
the Islamic revivalism in the 1980s. Because of its strong
impact, magnitude of the changes and the wide range of
influences, it’s deemed as another major political change as
serious as the collapse of the former Soviet Union and
tremendous change to East Europe, which led to the end of the
Cold War, while this change caused the “chain collapse” of the
power system in Arab countries and dragged the Arab countries
into violent turmoil. This change has attracted great attention
from international academic circles. Scholars discussed the
origins of this political change from various perspectives in
depth. Most of them believe that the occurrence of this change
is the comprehensive result of both internal and external
factors. The internal cause is the decay of the political
development in these countries (especially authoritarianism,
family politics, and old-age politics), stagnant economic
development and the transmission of new media on the Internet.
External factors are the aftermath of European and American
countries’ intervention and the “Democratization of the Greater
Middle East” in the United States, even climate change may be
one of the factors. However, Rome is not build in one day. The
root cause of this change is the problem of national construction

that has plagued the Arab countries to this day.
Judging from the historical process of modern times, the
construction of modern countries is mainly the construction of
nation-states. However, there is a difference between the
construction of the country and the construction of the nation.
The former is to construct a concrete and real political
community, and there is external force intervention such as the
great powers and the United Nations. The latter is a community
of imaginations with similar historical memories and cultural
symbols, although it is Constructed but external forces are
difficult to intervene.
In Habermas's view, state-building refers to a nation composed
of citizens, and nation-building refers to a nation composed of
people. The coincidence of the two conceptions is the ideal
national state construction, and the alienation between the two
will lead to the tension of citizenship and national identity. In
addition to the general issues of nation-state construction, state-
building also includes the advancement of specific political
agendas. Judging from the practice aspect of nation-building,
Neil Robinson believes that state building is not only about
controlling a piece of territory, but more importantly, building
certain kind of political authority and completing issues such as
market economy and democratic system construction.
In this sense, some scholars believe that “national construction
refers to the construction of the country’s political structure,
institutions, and laws, including the integration and
concentration of administrative resources, enabling the state to
implement unified administrative control over the territories
within its sovereignty. In general, the construction of the state
mainly refers to the establishment of a nation-state based on the
establishment of a political community. Within the framework
of a nation-state, how to construct the political community,
based on external forces or internal forces, or promote by both
internal and external forces, all these considerations will affect
the state construction of the post-development countries

compared to Western developed countries. There was a wave of
decolonization and nation building in the independent countries
in Asian, African, and Latin American after the Second World
War. The construction of most countries in Asia, Africa and
Latin America was driven by internal nationalist forces.
However, although the nationalist elites played an important
role in the construction of Arab countries, the external influence
of the great powers has been more obvious. Libya's state-
building is even more tortuous. Libya was finally "made out" by
the United Nations during the game of big powers. This
distinctive way of state-building manifests the complex role of
Libyan nationalist forces and geopolitics in the establishment of
the country's political community.
Some scholars have studied related issues
. Although they pointed out the positive role of the big powers
in the construction of Libya, they ignored its negative impact.
The game of big powers and the construction promoted by the
United Nations only make Libya a country with modern
political sense in terms of form or content, while many
substantive issues rising during the construction have not been
fundamentally resolved because of split geopolitics, tribal
society, etc. Though historical problems have not been
effectively resolved, in the recent new period, these factors and
the game of great powers repeatedly exercised their complex
role in the construction of Libya. In 2011, the NATO, led by the
United States and France, assisted the Libyan political
opposition in overthrowing the Gaddafi’s regime. The root of
this political change can still traces back to the congenital
shortcomings of construction of Libya promoted by the United
Nations and the development of the immature state of Libya in
modern times. Therefore, regarding the issues about state-
building in Libya, we need further explore: How Libya's state
construction carried out within the framework of a nation-state.
To deal with this question it is particularly important to focus
on geopolitics: why the big powers handed it over to the UN,

how this country’s construction approach affected Libya’s
politics.
Libya is located on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula, Africa
and the Mediterranean, to the east is Cyrenaica, to the west is
Tripolitania, and to the southwest is Fezzan. However, between
these three countries there are desert barriers. Because of
inconvenient interactions and separate independence, they have
never been integrated into a unified political community in
history. The diplomatic relations between the three regions were
different: Cyrenaica and Mashreq (Mashreq, including Egypt
and other countries in the Middle East) were very close, while
Tripolitania recognized the Maghreb countries (including
Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania). As the southern part
of Libya extended deeply into the Sahara Desert, Fezzan
contacted frequently with sub-Saharan African countries.
Therefore, in fact, Libya has been in a centrifugal structure that
has been extended by the interests of the Maghreb countries and
the Mashreq countries. For this reason, Allison Paget pointed
out that Libya's construction is purely accidental. The history of
Libya is a simple addition of the history of each region. Libya
before independence is only a geographically agreed expression.
Libyans prefer to be called the Tripoli, the Cyrene and the
Fezzan.
In the sense of modern state, which is integrated with
administration, economy and politics, Libya has a history of
only 60 years since the United Nations and great powers
promoted the founding of the country in the 1951.
Because of the location in the border area of Europe, Asia and
Africa, and the geographical structure of the division, Libya is
extremely vulnerable to interference from foreign civilizations.
In the historical process of the competition of foreign
civilizations, Libya has formed a complex political culture. The
unification of Libya not only faces the integration of separate
geopolitics, but also the integration of these composite

civilization factors, namely, the geographical features of Africa,
the characteristics of the Arab nation and the characteristics of
Islamic religion.
Berbers, the indigenous people of Libya don’t have their own
written language. It is still a mystery of history as for when the
Berbers came to Libya. The Phoenician (also called Punics), is
the first foreign resident in North Africa. In BC 1000, the
Phoenicians occupied Tripolitania and made it a part of
Carthage. From BC 218 to BC 202, the Carthaginians were
defeated in the second Punic War, and Tripolitania was
conquered by the Roman Empire. In the 1st century AD, the
Romans defeated the Ptolemy dynasty and occupied Cyrene,
where the inhabitants spoke Greek.
In terms of geographical features, Cyrenaica had a more
European style, while Tripolitania had an African style.
Therefore, the political and cultural background of Cyrenaica
and Tripolitania are quite different.
In the 4th century, after the split of the Roman Empire, the
eastern and western parts of Libya were separately included in
the territory of the Byzantine Empire and the Western Roman
Empire. In addition to a certain trade relationship with the
western part of Libya, the Fezzan area maintained an
independent state. In 632, the Arab army entered the North
African region. In 644, the Arabs occupied the island of
Senegal. In 646, Arabs entered Tripolitania. In 663, the Arabs
entered Fezzan. The arrival of the Arabs brought Arabic and
Islam to the Libyan region, which had a lasting impact on
modern Libyan society. However, this does not mean that these
areas had quickly completed “Arabicization” or “Islamization”.
The Berbers were stubbornly resistant to the Arabs in the
hinterland of Tripoli. Moroccan historian Abdullah Laloy said:
"The Arabization has gone through many centuries, and
Islamization was done by the Berbers themselves. They
ambiguously acknowledged the rule of the Arabs, while the

people agreed more with the authority of local leaders.”
Even during governance of the Ottoman Empire, Libya’s
Arabization was still going on, while Islamization has already
completed. Arabic was the main language of social interaction.
However, the Arabic language of Tripolitania and Fezzan
absorbed the Maghreb dialect, while the Arab dialect of
Cyrenaica was similar to the Arab peninsula. Many Berbers
used Arabic as a second language.
In the 11th century, Libya, which then was under the rule of
Fatima Khalifa, was invaded by the Hilar and Salim tribes from
the Arabian Peninsula. This was the second Arab invasion, and
it had a profound impact on the formation of the Libyan tribal
society. From the perspective of history and distribution, the
Libyan tribes were related to the Hilary tribes and the Salim
tribes. In this case, Libya became a typical tribal state. The
tribe is powerful social organization in Libya, as well as a
vague political unit and a source of political legitimacy. The
two tribal countries had strong exclusivity, based on ethnic
kinship, founded on common ethnic or ethnic ancestral myths
and historical memories. Political rights and even privilege
were granted only to lords of tribes, namely those political elite
in a dominant position and the ruling class associated with it.
Usually Libya’s state power was controlled by one lord tribe,
while other tribes were in a vassal status. The nature of the
Libyan tribal form was more reflected in the connection and
integration of sociology rather than ideology, and the
cohesiveness of the tribes and mutual relief depended on blood
relationship. Tribal members often combined political identity
with ethnic origin and identity. Each tribe had its own lifestyle
and behavioral norms, so some scholars refer to this cultural
unit of Libya as tribe-nation. When tribal nation and tribal
countries are in consistent, they merger into tribal state.
However, in most cases they are in consistent. Blood, tradition
and tribal ties are exclusive. Tribal interests often run counter
to national interests, which leads to the conflicts between tribal

society and the state.
In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire conquered Libya but
did not directly rule it. Local power and tribes were still in
domination. From the mid-16th century to the fall of the
Ottoman Empire in1911, Libya was nominally the territory of
the Ottoman Empire. At the beginning of the 19th century, the
Ottoman Empire faced the threat of the emerging European
powers to the colonization of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
In the face of aggression by Britain, France, Italy and other
countries, the Ottoman Empire was even unable to protect itself.
Libya, as the nominal territory the Ottoman Empire, had to be
the first to bear the brunt. On one hand, with the growing
enthusiasm of multi-level interactions between European
countries and African regions, Libya's geostrategic importance
had become more apparent. On the one hand, it is the traffic hub
for the Mediterranean and southern Africa, the Tripoli region
was the only way to South Africa. On the other hand, it is also
the trade center and transit station for European economic
exchanges with Africa. The trade included feathers, ivory, gold
and slaves. By the middle of the 19th century, nearly half of the
African slave trade had transited through Libya.
In order to continue governance and ease the pressure on the
empire, the Ottoman Empire supported the rise of religious
nationalist power to resist the invasion of European countries.
At that time the Senusi Order grew stronger. The mission of the
Senusi Order is to revive Islam through pan-Islamic movement.
It preserved the mysterious rituals of the traditional Sufis and
sternly condemns the views with a pantheistic tendency. Its
teachings were in line with the Wahhabi faction.
The Senusi Order was founded in 1837 and the event venue is
known as Zawiya. After 1843 Zawiya spreaded to Cyrenaica,
Fezzan and surrounded area.
Pan-Islamism got supported by the Senusi order and the
Ottoman Sultans. In 1886, Sultan Hamid II became a full
member of the Senusi Order and soon became a caliphate. He

set up permanent establishments the Senusi order in Istanbul.
The goal of the religious nationalism was directed at the French
colonists, which to some extent fit in with the interests of the
Ottoman Empire. The Order did not reject secular politics and
did not contradict with the secularism of the Ottoman Empire. It
was supported by the Ottoman Empire and became a positive
political force. The empire’s support for the Sanusi movement
fostered a religious nationalist force, which grew stronger after
Italy’s invasion of Libya. The Order launched a large-scale
resistance movement in the name of "jihad".
As early as 1870s, Italy was actively preparing to invade Libya.
In 1896, after the failure of invasion of Ethiopia, Italy
determined to build Libya into the "fourth coast" to the
Mediterranean. As a rising, although it has just achieved
reunification and its economic construction was still in its
infancy, Italy always had the ambition to seek the status of
great power. The occupation of North Africa was the first step
in its pursuit of that status. Many Italians believed that the
exercise of Italian sovereignty to the region once ruled by the
Roman Empire was the obligation given by history.
On September 29, 1911, Italy publicly declared war after three
days of ultimatum sent to the Ottoman government. On October
5, 1911, the Italian fleet occupied Libya. The "Three-Day War"
between Italy and the Ottoman Empire ended in the failure of
the latter. On November 5th, the Italian government announced
the annexation of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.
Italy’s invasion provoked the emergence of resistant
organizations. But those organizations scattered in different
areas, and their respective political ideas were inconsistent. The
Sanusi Order, which aimed at reviving Islam, directly resisted
the invasion in Cyrenaica, and the Ottoman Empire had been
supplying them with weapons and equipment. After the demise
of the Ottoman Empire, in 1913, Saeed Ahmed established the
state of Sanusi and adopted a "jihad" against the Italian
invaders, and guerrilla warfare with Italy. The early resistance

movement organized by the secular nationalist forces that
opposed the pan-Islamism in the establishment of an Arab state
in the Tripolitania region was unsuccessful. In the struggle
against Italy, these two forces were constantly developing and
creating national and government organizations in their
respective senses.
In April 1915, European countries signed the London Treaty,
recognized Italy’s occupation of Libya. However, due to the
chaotic of domestic political, economic and social situation,
Italy did not want to spend too much energy in Libya. In
October 1920, Cyrenaica and Italy negotiated to reach the
Rajma Agreement. Idris, the leader of the Senusi Order, was
awarded the Emir of the Cyrene Rica to manage Kufa oasis and
other places. Idris received monthly salary and living
allowances from the Italian government. Italy provided police
and administrative staff, and the Senussi regime is responsible
for disbanding the tribal armed forces in Cyrene.
During the rule of Italian fascist, under the leadership of Idris
the Cycladic people launched an anti-fascist uprising. After the
failure of the uprising, Idris took refuge in Egypt, but the
resistance movement under the leadership of his assistant Saeed
Omar Mukhtar gained political legitimacy through the
cooperation of the tribes of Cyrenaica and became an important
power in the process of building Libya.
It can be said that the geopolitical pattern of division, the
complex tribal social structure, the competition of Berber,
Greek, Roman, Arab, Ottoman Turk and Italian in three regions
became the theme of Libyan history. It is the background of
Libya's national form. In modern times, under the circumstances
of various foreign powers, the local Sanusi religious
nationalism and Arab nationalism movement have also been
promoted.
The Great Country Dividing Program and Collective

Trusteeship Program during the Potsdam Conference. On July
18, 1945, President Truman proposed to hand over the Italian
colonial issue (including the Libya issue) to the Foreign
Ministers Committee composed of the five foreign ministers of
the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom.
The Soviet Union suggested to divide Libya. US Secretary of
State Burns and British Foreign Secretary Aiden opposed the
Soviet Union and suggested that the Libyan colonial issue be
put on hold. At the end of the Potsdam Conference, the
positions of the major powers on the Libya issue gradually
approached, that is, collective custody.
On September 11, 1945, the foreign ministers of the British,
American, French, and Soviet held a meeting in London. The
solution to Libya was becoming clearer, namely the choice of a
collective custody scheme and a UN hosted model.
In April 1946, the Foreign Ministers' Committee held a meeting
in Paris, known as the Paris Conference. British Foreign
Minister Bevan revisited the issue of hosting the Italian
colonies by the United Nations, while France proposed to hand
over the sovereignty of the Italian colonies to the United
Nations. The Soviet Union proposed to invite Italy to
participate in Libya's trusteeship, set up an advisory committee
composed of four countries: Britain, France, and the United
States. Italy served as a deputy, and the Soviet Union
administered Tripoli. Ten years later, these colonies achieved
independence. British Foreign Minister Bevin immediately
raised a rebuttal and suggested that Libya become a sovereign
independent country.
After the announcement of the British plan, it immediately
received support from the Libyan domestic population.
France opposed the British idea and supports the Soviet
proposal for two reasons: one was to worry about the British
control of Libya; the other was that Libya's economic
development was backward and there was no condition for
independence.

On July 15, 1946, at the second Paris meeting, the United
States proposed that the time to deal with the Italian colonial
issue should be extended by one year; if the major powers could
not reach an agreement within one year, the Libya issue would
be submitted to the UN General Assembly. Although the Paris
Conference did not achieve any results, the idea of setting up a
commission of inquiry to examine the Libyan people was also
reflected in the pragmatic attitude of the big countries seeking
solutions to problems in the difficult situation.
In February 1947, Italy signed the Agreement on Peace,
canceled the colonial relationship between Italy and Libya,
stipulated that the ownership of Libya was jointly decided by
the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union, and considered
the intention of the Libyan people.
On December 15, 1951, Britain and France handed over all
powers except defense and diplomacy to the Libyan interim
government in accordance with the arrangements of the UN
General Assembly. On December 24th, the United Kingdom of
Libya was established, and Idris was king. The establishment of
the United Kingdom of Libya marked the initial completion of
the construction of the Libyan state.
The transfer of the Libyan issue to the UN General Assembly
had a decisive impact on Libya's future. As far as the actual
situation is concerned, there is no nationalist force in Libya at
that time that, with its own authority, can establish a
government with political legitimacy that is convincing to the
people. Under the impetus of the United Nations, geopolitical
leaders and nationalist forces have reached a certain consensus
in the establishment of a political community, which has
enabled Libya to end the situation of separation and gain the
basis for unity of the country, but contradictions between
nation-building and state-building are still deeply embedded in
this new political community.
� Patrick Sutter, State-Building or the Dilemma of

Intervention: An Introduction, in Julia Raue and Patrick Sutter,
eds., Facets and Practices of State-Building, Boston: Martinus
Nijhoff Publishers, 2009, pp. 7-9．
� Neil Robinson, State-Building and International Politics: The
Emergence of a New Problem and Agenda, in Aidan Hehir and
Neil Robinson, eds., State-Building: Theory and Practice,
London: Routledge, 2007, p.13．
� Adrian Pelt, Libyan Independence and the United Nations: A
Case of Planned Decolonization, New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1970; Hisham Sabki, International Authority
and the Emergence of Modern Libya, India University, Doctor
Degree Dissertation, 1967
� Majid Khadduri, Modern Libya: A Study in Political
Development, p.v．
� Abdulhafid Fadil Elmayer, Tripolitania and the Roman
Empire, Markovz Jihad al-Libya Studied Center, 1997,
Deposition Number 1996/1915/Dar. Kotob. P. O. Box:
5070/Tripoli, p.56.
� Henry Serrano Villard, Libya: The New Arab Kingdom of
North Africa, New York: Cornell University Press, 1956, p.12.
� Abdallah Laroui, The History of the Maghrib: An Interpretive
Essay, trans. Ralph Manheim, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1977, p. 87.

� Louis Dupree, The Arabs of Modern Libya, The Muslim
World, vol. 48, no. 2, 1958, pp. 113-124
� Abdullatif Ahmida, The Making of Modern Libya: State
Formation, Colonization, and Resistance, 1830-1932, New
York: State University of New York Press, 1994, p.86.
� E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1959, pp. 24-25
� Lisa S. Anderson, The State and Social Transformation in
Tunisia and Libya, 1830-1980, Princeton University Press,
1986, p.118.
� Ronald Bruce St John, Libya: From Colony to Independence,
pp. 57-58．
� Dirk Vandewalle, A History of Modern Libya, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006, p.28.
� C. Grove Haines, The Problem of the Italian Colonies,
Middle East Journal, vol. 1, no. 4 (October 1947), p. 425.
� Scott L. Bills, The Libyan Arena: The United States, Britain,
and the Council of Foreign Ministers, 1945-1948, p.56.

� Hisham Sabki, International Authority and the Emergence of
Modern Libya, p. 46.

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