Gaddafi's fall a lesson to continent's autocrats

20 October 2011
African Star News Magazine

editorial

Leaders in other parts of the world, particularly in Africa, who have also displayed the tendency to think themselves indispensable, and the desire to hold on to power, must also learn a singular lesson: The people’s will must ultimately prevail.

The killing of ousted Libyan Muammar Gaddafi should mark the end of the last pockets of resistance to the people’s revolt that toppled the 42-year old regime.

Now the National Transitional Council must consolidate its position, restore law and order, and the semblance of an effective administration across the entire country that has suffered the ravages of the bloody revolt for much of this year.

But the new leadership must realise that wiping out the Gaddafi regime must not merely be about replacing one dictatorship with another.

The Libyan people revolted because they were tired of a megalomaniac one-man rule. They have aspirations to rule of law, democracy and respect for human rights, as do other peoples across the region, who have voted on the streets against autocracy and totalitarianism.

Strongmen in Tunisia and Egypt have been toppled by the popular revolts dubbed the Arab Spring. Others in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and many other countries in North Africa and the Middle East continue to hold out through either brutal repression or grudging acceptance of cosmetic reforms.

Old assumptions that the Arab people have no aspirations to democracy have been shattered by the Arab Spring, and developments in Libya will surely motivate rebellions against feudal or military dictatorships elsewhere in the region.

Leaders in other parts of the world, particularly in Africa, who have also displayed the tendency to think themselves indispensable, and the desire to hold on to power, must also learn a singular lesson: The people’s will must ultimately prevail.

But the yearning for freedom must not be hijacked or betrayed in Libya or anywhere else. In Tunisia and Egypt, the long-serving dictators were toppled in palace coups by their own confidantes when it became apparent that the people’s revolts would not be stopped.

No to retribution

The transitional regimes that took power must ultimately work towards peaceful transitions to democracy.

The same applies to Libya where beyond asserting its authority, the National Transitional Council also has the task of establishing its own legitimacy in countering perceptions that it is nothing but a lackey of the western Nato military alliance that played a critical role in defeating Gaddafi’s military.

This also must not be the time for retribution. Accounts of the manner in which Gaddafi was killed after capture signal an inauspicious start for a new leadership that must rise above savage bloodlust.

The new leadership must demonstrate speedily that it desires to bring the country to a fresh start in a new dispensation that has room for all.

This administration would have the limited mandate of restoring security, and must be committed to giving way to a democratically-elected government, while ensuring there is no vacuum that might be exploited by anti-democratic extremists.

The same principle applies to the rest of the Arab world where dictatorships have been toppled. It remains important, however, that the transition to democracy be speedy, lest the interim regimes themselves test the peoples’ patience.