It is sometimes joked that, of the multiple governments now staking a claim to rule in Libya, some exist purely on Facebook. Indeed, between a UN-backed Presidential Council, a rival House of Representatives, a self-declared prime minister and an army commander with aspirations to power, it can be difficult to discern any coherent source of national authority in Libya. Today’s political disintegration could not come as more of a contrast to recent history, when the country was ruled by the Arab world’s longest-standing, most totalitarian leader.
Libya’s current atomization has its roots in 2011 with the overthrow of its flamboyant dictator Colonel Muammar Qadafi. Almost 60 years after Libya’s 1951 constitution was enacted – the only document enshrining citizens’ rights since the country was created in 1911 – the man most responsible for its violation was pulled from a drainpipe in the city of Sirte and shot. His body was then displayed to the public from an industrial freezer for three days, ‘to make sure everybody knows he’s dead’.
