It was a day of celebration. Driving through the streets of Tripoli, we passed numerous checkpoints, some manned by official security forces, others by the revolutionary brigades, which have yet to be disbanded, incorporated into the military or brought under government control. Our driver, himself a former revolutionary who had been wounded in the struggle, flashed victory “V” signs and shouted “Allahu Akbar!”, and we were waved through. At the polling stations too, a festive atmosphere prevailed. Loudspeakers blared out chants of “Allahu Akbar!” Voters queued patiently and happily, some of the men punching the air in elation, with more cries of “Allahu Akbar!” One old man, almost overcome with emotion, told us in his broken English that he had last voted in 1964, in the time of King Idriss, and he was very happy to have the chance to vote again in his lifetime.
The voting and counting completed, there was an explosion of joy. A convoy of vehicles, security and international observers, accompanied the truck racing around the streets from polling centre to polling centre, picking up the packed and sealed ballot boxes. At each centre there was a party atmosphere, women dancing and ululating, men shouting with even greater vigour, “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” It did not seem to matter so much who had won. That was of secondary importance. The victory was that an election had been held at all, the crowning achievement of the revolution that had toppled Muammar Gaddafi only a few months before. It takes a country that has experienced decades of dictatorship really to appreciate the value of holding an election, something of which people in the jaded, cynical west too often lose sight.
There is a special atmosphere in a post-revolutionary country: fervour, optimism, belief. Things are different now, I heard again and again. Libyans are free. Free to mock the former ruler and his family openly; the bottled up taunts expressed in art and humour in the graffiti, some of it highly creative, that plastered the walls of the capital. Free to speak openly about the new would-be leaders competing in the elections. Women felt free as never before, determined to assert their rights, to play their part in the emerging new country. This was their chance. Forget stereotypes of the supposed conservatism of the Arab world. Libyans had fought for their rights, and through these elections they were determined to enshrine them. And women were not going to be left out.
Tripoli graffiti
But as in most revolutions there is also a downside, an underbelly of vengefulness against those accused of supporting the former regime. In some cases the vengefulness was collective, directed against whole towns, tribes or ethnic groups. Black African migrants from countries to the south, many of whom had lived and worked in Libya for years, accused en-masse of having been mercenaries for Gaddafi. And perhaps saddest of all, the people of Tawergha, also black, from a town close to the city of Misrata, heartland of the revolution’s most ardent supporters, and the most powerful of all the brigades to emerge from the revolution. The Misrata had driven the Tawergha from their homes, scattering them around Libya and abroad, hunting down Tawergha men, torturing and summarily executing them. They accused them collectively of supporting Gaddafi and of the most heinous crimes, including mass rape, so emotive in a traditional, patriarchal society. No matter that no hard evidence of mass crimes on such a scale has been forthcoming. I saw a young Libyan former revolutionary reduced to tears talking about the Tawergha, who in his eyes were guilty of the worst crimes of the Gaddafi regime. Another young Libyan praised Britain for the lack of racism he had found there. When I pointed out the rampant racism towards black Africans in Libya, he looked startled for a moment, and then “oh but Peter, that is different, let me explain why we hate them…”
For all the remarkable progress and extraordinary success of the first elections, Libya has yet to become a normal, stable country. The brigades remain far too powerful, even in Tripoli, where their anti-aircraft gun-mounted pick-ups still race around and break-neck speed, setting up roadblocks and sometimes fighting gun battles. Even in the capital their presence undermines the new authorities. In some other parts, the rule of law does not exist and the government’s writ does not run. Unless the Tawergha can be safe from their vigilante persecutors, the revolution will not have brought the freedom from oppression it aspired to. Holding an election might just have been the critical step in passing from revolutionary fervour and excess to a democratic, truly free Libya.
