Articles • June 22, 2012
Transitionary Libya and Modern Aid– a conversation about challenges and opportunities
By Johan Turell
In the wake of Muammar Qaddafi’s ousting from power, following a bloody struggle at the forefront of the Arab Spring, the arduous toil of building democratic institutions has begun in Libya.
Part 4/4
Robert: A strong trend that we’ve seen in the elections across the Middle East is the prevalence of Independents, that is, candidates who run for themselves. These often outnumber the party candidates by several hundred percent. There’s a kind of ‘one man show’-mentality, many of these independents have their own parties. A large factor in this is the prevailing unwillingness to compromise. There’s something of ‘my way or the highway’ over it. At the same time, you see young people, often masked, walking around acting as ‘guardians’ of the revolution. They are there to make sure that the politicians act honestly – which of course, is fine – but they do this because of the predominant view that politics is a decidedly dirty business, and one that they themselves would never willingly enter into. So basically, the ordinary person opts out of politics, and those who run mostly do so by themselves.
Johan: But then, what can be done to engage people more widely in politics? How can SILC help to change the common view on politics and what is means to be part of party? How can SILC make people want to take part more actively?
Martin: Having a lecture on the merits of democracy in action would probably be of very slight value. Rather, meeting people active in politics, and having people take part in such work and activities as politicians do, is what really changes people’s views and beliefs. It’s when you’re taking them to congresses held by Swedish parties, involving them in policy-making, having them join debates, helping them do research on what to base one’s politics and so forth that they gain the necessary insights about what politics really is about. And it’s when you take them to a debate- arguments are shared and emotions run high but everyone comes out as friends- that you show them that although there may indeed be confrontation in politics, it does not have to end in quarrels or violence. And by compromising, most, if not all, can come out sufficiently happy. In short, what you need is politics in action.
Johan: These activities will, it seems to me, have to be conducted in foreign countries for the most part. Is there a risk that those who attend these activities will be thought of as bought by the West when they return? Or that they would be accused of having been indoctrinated whilst they were away?
Martin: That they will be thought of as bought is not something I hold to be among the greater risks. Rather, the real risk is that the people we send become so engrossed in the international work and all the opportunities that naturally follow that they lose their focus on the mission at hand. The project becomes a way out for them personally and therefore does not have the empowering effect upon the local community that we seek. This is something which tends to happen – for example, in the aftermath of the Balkan wars there were all manner of projects wherein people would go all over the world and talk of what happened during the war and what to do about it now, but a lot of that didn’t result in very much in the Balkans due to the simple fact the people talking about these things simply weren’t there. This, in turn, led to the effect that various actors lost relevance back home. It wasn’t a matter of being discredited as much as not being there at all. This is a risk we must remain vigilant against and it is something we must take care to avoid when we shape our projects and pick our partners. We discuss this regularly within SILC – do these people before us genuinely share our values and goals, or are they primarily into this to get an inroad into the international aid community?
Johan: Do you have any partners in your current work in Libya, either on the ground or back here in Europe?
Martin: I think it’s going to take some time before we sign a contract with any organization down there, at the moment we try to spend time getting to know each other and determining whether we seek the same things and function well together. Formalizing our relationships is something we do when we think that we have a clear idea about our prospective partner(s) and vice versa. Here in Sweden we have a lot of joint projects with various elements from the liberal movement such as Liberal Women, the Liberal Youth of Sweden and the local division of the Swedish Liberal Party in Gothenburg.
Johan: We’ve spoken at length about what has been and what is, and thus what remains is what, hopefully, will be. Supposing you receive the grants, how will the project proceed?
Martin: We will be doing ‘political schooling’ in the sense we’ve already talked about, aiming particularly at the youth and at women for a period of three years.
Robert: With a great part consisting of visits to various places to learn about the different guises and forms that the everyday political work may come in.
Martin: The Libyans will, at the same time, be made a very important part of the, if you will, SILC family, which consists of people from different countries but who work in similar conditions, so that they may exchange experiences and learn from each other. That the Belorussians get to meet the Egyptians and that the Libyans get to meet the Serbians is seminal. Quite possibly Swedes and others from our very safe and stable societies can’t really relate on a deeper level like these people can to each other. We have a yearly activist seminar in which we gather all our partners for three days and really try to go in-depth with the issues they grapple with.
Johan: Speaking of our ability to relate, how does it work for a Swede to come to a country like Libya, having all the presuppositions one more or less consciously walks around with? Will there generally be things I simply cannot understand without having spent a rather long while there?
Martin: On the basis of what we at SILC do, I would say what really is important, what really matters, is whether you have a comprehensive insight into politics. People and politics really aren’t all that dissimilar. Politics, as an activity, is a very particular interaction centered around a given number of individuals who all have their own claims to power and who compete for this power using various means. The tactics and the dirty tricks employed exists in Swedish politics as well. True, exactly what and how you do the things you do to obtain that power may differ, but not by much. Most importantly though, why you do it, and how you think about what you do and need to do in order to achieve that power is very similar indeed. People who have been into Swedish politics for any longer duration will understand this game, they will know that you need to know and know about a great deal of people and that one must be sure to ask in abundance before one gives any diagnosis or decides upon a given strategy whether one is here or in Libya. But, it should be emphasized, you really do need to have been into this for a while – simply having been a member of a party and having attended a few seminars will not get you very far.
Photo: Johan Turell, SILC-activist, Head of Communications, the Swedish Liberal Party, Östermalm division. (Title: SILC, the NFB and various other organizations at a meeting in Benghazi, February 2011. The SILC-delegation, in the middle, front row, consisted in, from left to right, the Programme Officer Robert Hannah, the Chief Secretary of Reporter Without Borders Ulf Löfqvist, the SILC intern Jasmin Jaziri-Stenberg and the SILC Secretary General, Martin Ängeby.)
(The opinions presented in this article represent those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of UF in any way, nor are they intended to represent the views of any organisation or company which the author represents. UF is a politically and religiously independent organisation.)
Part 3/4
Martin: We’re trying to build the kind of trustful relations to people taking part in politics in Libya which allow us to say these kinds of things and be listened to. For instance, in the local elections just held in Benghazi, the NFB didn’t run. They were only interested in the national level, and didn’t see how movements like theirs need to build from the grassroots and really anchor their ideas among ordinary people to gain the necessary momentum to pull through in the end. If the NFB had run, and won, then they would have the mayor of the second city of the country proclaiming their cause and he or she would not be doing so solely on the basis of the NFB, but also as an elected official speaking for the people of Benghazi.
Johan: At the same time, since the NFB is comprised of all manner of groups and interests, isn’t there, on the one hand, a risk that the movement begins to split up if the discussion is both deepened and widened, as the focus may then shift onto issues around which the various groups cannot agree, and on the other hand, that the NFB loses some of its momentum if it starts to talk about other issues?
Martin: There are indeed such risks. But, a very primitive form of federalism combined with nothing else, will not be something that will ultimately benefit Libya. Even if it should happen that the addition of more depth lessens the force and power of the message, I still think this is necessary. And besides, true, you may reach a certain length with an underdeveloped policy, but if you want be treated with respect and to deal on a more or less equal footing with international actors, you will need to show that you have a greater extent of political maturity than that.
Returning to the need to engage in local politics, there is a further problem and that is the issue of the widespread clientelism. This is something you see across the Middle East and elsewhere – you expect someone, a politician, to maintain a service. The position one holds for maintaining this service is associated with some sort of power, and at some point someone has seized this power… Often, by way of not very democratic means. People have grown used to this, and have learned not question it. Therefore they have very seldomly thought about what they would do if they had that power, about what they want achieve politically, about what matters and how society should be run and ordered. This is the kind of training and competence one naturally receives by partaking in politics on the lower levels and which one then employs when rising to the higher levels, when once the opportunity presents itself.
Now, since the attainment of power, and most often also the keeping of it tends to be ‘dirty’, people think of politics as something necessarily very dirty indeed and are therefore less inclined to take the step and partake themselves. This is actually something we see here in Sweden as well – many among the youth abandon party politics and join organizations working with a single question. This kind of mentality, that politics is so much more dirty than much else, is very unfortunate. You cannot have democracy without politicians, and you can’t have comprehensive politics without working in groups, and those groups are called parties. They are an essential part. You see this in international aid as well – commonly these days you support various people who voice just complaints, but you don’t support politicians who are the ones who ultimately will change the wrongs.
Part 4/4
Robert: A strong trend that we’ve seen in the elections across the Middle East is the prevalence of Independents, that is, candidates who run for themselves. These often outnumber the party candidates by several hundred percent. There’s a kind of ‘one man show’-mentality, many of these independents have their own parties. A large factor in this is the prevailing unwillingness to compromise. There’s something of ‘my way or the highway’ over it. At the same time, you see young people, often masked, walking around acting as ‘guardians’ of the revolution. They are there to make sure that the politicians act honestly – which of course, is fine – but they do this because of the predominant view that politics is a decidedly dirty business, and one that they themselves would never willingly enter into. So basically, the ordinary person opts out of politics, and those who run mostly do so by themselves.
Johan: But then, what can be done to engage people more widely in politics? How can SILC help to change the common view on politics and what is means to be part of party? How can SILC make people want to take part more actively?
Martin: Having a lecture on the merits of democracy in action would probably be of very slight value. Rather, meeting people active in politics, and having people take part in such work and activities as politicians do, is what really changes people’s views and beliefs. It’s when you’re taking them to congresses held by Swedish parties, involving them in policy-making, having them join debates, helping them do research on what to base one’s politics and so forth that they gain the necessary insights about what politics really is about. And it’s when you take them to a debate- arguments are shared and emotions run high but everyone comes out as friends- that you show them that although there may indeed be confrontation in politics, it does not have to end in quarrels or violence. And by compromising, most, if not all, can come out sufficiently happy. In short, what you need is politics in action.
Johan: These activities will, it seems to me, have to be conducted in foreign countries for the most part. Is there a risk that those who attend these activities will be thought of as bought by the West when they return? Or that they would be accused of having been indoctrinated whilst they were away?
Martin: That they will be thought of as bought is not something I hold to be among the greater risks. Rather, the real risk is that the people we send become so engrossed in the international work and all the opportunities that naturally follow that they lose their focus on the mission at hand. The project becomes a way out for them personally and therefore does not have the empowering effect upon the local community that we seek. This is something which tends to happen – for example, in the aftermath of the Balkan wars there were all manner of projects wherein people would go all over the world and talk of what happened during the war and what to do about it now, but a lot of that didn’t result in very much in the Balkans due to the simple fact the people talking about these things simply weren’t there. This, in turn, led to the effect that various actors lost relevance back home. It wasn’t a matter of being discredited as much as not being there at all. This is a risk we must remain vigilant against and it is something we must take care to avoid when we shape our projects and pick our partners. We discuss this regularly within SILC – do these people before us genuinely share our values and goals, or are they primarily into this to get an inroad into the international aid community?
Johan: Do you have any partners in your current work in Libya, either on the ground or back here in Europe?
Martin: I think it’s going to take some time before we sign a contract with any organization down there, at the moment we try to spend time getting to know each other and determining whether we seek the same things and function well together. Formalizing our relationships is something we do when we think that we have a clear idea about our prospective partner(s) and vice versa. Here in Sweden we have a lot of joint projects with various elements from the liberal movement such as Liberal Women, the Liberal Youth of Sweden and the local division of the Swedish Liberal Party in Gothenburg.
Johan: We’ve spoken at length about what has been and what is, and thus what remains is what, hopefully, will be. Supposing you receive the grants, how will the project proceed?
Martin: We will be doing ‘political schooling’ in the sense we’ve already talked about, aiming particularly at the youth and at women for a period of three years.
Robert: With a great part consisting of visits to various places to learn about the different guises and forms that the everyday political work may come in.
Martin: The Libyans will, at the same time, be made a very important part of the, if you will, SILC family, which consists of people from different countries but who work in similar conditions, so that they may exchange experiences and learn from each other. That the Belorussians get to meet the Egyptians and that the Libyans get to meet the Serbians is seminal. Quite possibly Swedes and others from our very safe and stable societies can’t really relate on a deeper level like these people can to each other. We have a yearly activist seminar in which we gather all our partners for three days and really try to go in-depth with the issues they grapple with.
Johan: Speaking of our ability to relate, how does it work for a Swede to come to a country like Libya, having all the presuppositions one more or less consciously walks around with? Will there generally be things I simply cannot understand without having spent a rather long while there?
Martin: On the basis of what we at SILC do, I would say what really is important, what really matters, is whether you have a comprehensive insight into politics. People and politics really aren’t all that dissimilar. Politics, as an activity, is a very particular interaction centered around a given number of individuals who all have their own claims to power and who compete for this power using various means. The tactics and the dirty tricks employed exists in Swedish politics as well. True, exactly what and how you do the things you do to obtain that power may differ, but not by much. Most importantly though, why you do it, and how you think about what you do and need to do in order to achieve that power is very similar indeed. People who have been into Swedish politics for any longer duration will understand this game, they will know that you need to know and know about a great deal of people and that one must be sure to ask in abundance before one gives any diagnosis or decides upon a given strategy whether one is here or in Libya. But, it should be emphasized, you really do need to have been into this for a while – simply having been a member of a party and having attended a few seminars will not get you very far.
Photo: Johan Turell, SILC-activist, Head of Communications, the Swedish Liberal Party, Östermalm division. (Title: SILC, the NFB and various other organizations at a meeting in Benghazi, February 2011. The SILC-delegation, in the middle, front row, consisted in, from left to right, the Programme Officer Robert Hannah, the Chief Secretary of Reporter Without Borders Ulf Löfqvist, the SILC intern Jasmin Jaziri-Stenberg and the SILC Secretary General, Martin Ängeby.)
(The opinions presented in this article represent those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of UF in any way, nor are they intended to represent the views of any organisation or company which the author represents. UF is a politically and religiously independent organisation.)
