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US politicsMike Gravel obituaryUS senator for Alaska who read out the Pentagon Papers, an official study of the Vietnam war, to put them on the congressional record Michael CarlsonTue 6 Jul 2021 15.12 EDTLast modified on Tue 6 Jul 2021 15.13 EDTMike Gravel, the iconoclastic two-time Democratic US senator from Alaska, who has died aged 91, was best known for the day in 1971 when, in a meeting of the Senate subcommittee on building and grounds, he read for three hours from the Pentagon Papers, and put the entire document into the congressional record.The papers, a 7,000-page official study of the Vietnam war, which contradicted virtually everything the public had been told by successive governments, had been leaked to newspapers by one of its authors, Daniel Ellsberg, but the Nixon administration had won an injunction against their publication.The day after Gravel’s reading, the US supreme court, in New York Times Co v United States, quashed that prior restraint, and the papers were published, including Gravel’s own copy, by Beacon Press.Although he opposed much of US policy abroad, Gravel was also a business-oriented politician, whose major legislative accomplishment in the Senate may have been his exempting the trans-Alaska oil pipeline from the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 introduced by the powerful Democratic senator Henry Jackson.Gravel’s exemption of 1973 needed a casting vote by the Republican vice-president Spiro Agnew to pass. Gravel could be a divisive force in his own party, and after his Senate career ended was often dismissed in Washington as a gadfly, but his shifting positions on the left-right spectrum were not unusual in Alaskan politics, where he also needed to overcome the idea that he remained an outsider.Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, he was the son of French-Canadian immigrants, Alphonse Gravel, a builder, and Marie (nee Bourassa), and spoke French at home in his early years. He struggled at school – Assumption prep, in Worcester – and at 18 he decided to join the Israeli army fighting in Palestine.In New York, seeking advice on getting to Israel, he met Alexandra Tolstoy, daughter of the novelist, who was involved in helping Russian immigrants. She told him to finish school. He returned to Assumption, where an English teacher helped him cope with dyslexia and coached him to graduation.After a year at Assumption college, and two at American International college back in Springfield, he faced the Korean war draft, and enlisted in the army. He served in Germany and in France, where his knowledge of French saw him assigned to spy on the French Communist party.After his discharge, he gained an economics degree (1956) from the school of general studies at Columbia University, New York. Moving to Alaska, not yet a state, he worked on the railways, sold real estate and became active in the Democratic party. In 1958 he lost his first election campaign, for the territory’s house of representatives. The following year he married Rita Martin, and went into property development. That year, too, Alaska joined the union.In 1962, his firm went bust, but he was elected to the state house, serving as speaker in his second term. In 1968 he entered the US Senate primary against Ernest Gruening, one of only two senators (along with Oregon’s Wayne Morse) to have voted against the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that authorised President Lyndon Johnson to fully involve US forces in Vietnam. Gravel positioned himself as a supporter of the war effort. He won the primary, and despite Gruening running as an independent, then won a three-way race for the Senate.In Washington, Gravel established himself as a critic of the war, twice fighting extensions of the military draft, including once by filibuster. He worked against allowing nuclear testing in Alaska, but also opposed legislation to designate massive amounts of Alaskan land as national parks protected from development. As well as joining Republicans to pass the pipeline, he aligned with conservative southern Democrats to preserve the filibuster they cherished to protect “states’ rights”.In 1972, Gravel published Citizen Power: A People’s Platform, detailing his positions on all major issues. When the presidential candidate George McGovern wanted to have the Democratic convention select his vice-president by a vote, Gravel added to the chaos by nominating himself. McGovern eventually selected Senator Thomas Eagleton as his running-mate (although after revelations he had been treated with electric shock therapy for depression, Eagleton was forced to withdraw).After winning a second term in the Senate in 1974, Gravel faced scandals when a staff memo detailing plans to raise funds from oil companies was leaked, and when he was accused of having been set up in a “sex for votes” scandal (he admitted having the sex, but denied changing a vote), which also cost him his marriage. He was defeated in the 1980 Senate primary by Clark Gruening, Ernest’s grandson, with the help of Republican votes under Alaska’s open primary system. After the Senate, Gravel’s career as a property developer did not flourish; he lost his Senate pension in his 1981 divorce. In 1984 he married Whitney Stewart, an aide to the New York senator Jacob Javits, and her money helped support the couple. Gravel began a foundation to support direct democracy, through referendums, then became chair of the Alexis de Tocqueville Foundation, with similar aims.In 2006 Gravel announced his candidacy for the 2008 presidency, and in the early democratic primary debates stole the show, arguing that US foreign policy was neither altruistic nor defensive in nature. The attention did not translate into funding or votes. He switched to the Libertarian party, to which by now he seemed more naturally attuned, with what was becoming his increasingly populist position, but failed to win their nomination.Although he made gestures toward the 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential races, his efforts were hamstrung by his propensity to take the positions, on everything from relations with Iran to UFOs and 9/11 conspiracies, that pushed him into gadfly territory.He became chief executive of a company producing medical marijuana, and in 2018 published an updated edition of People’s Power. In 2020 he used his remaining campaign funds to found the Gravel Institute to promote progressive politics. He is survived by his wife and a son, Martin, and daughter, Lynne, from his first marriage.TopicsUS politicsUS SenateAlaskaobituariesReuse this content More
Within the global new right, Guillaume Faye is considered a genius and an intellectual prophet. After his death, the former figurehead of la nouvelle droite was praised as a visionary on social media by the former National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen; the co-founder of the Pro-Afrikaanse Aksiegroep Dan Roodt; Arktos publisher Daniel Friberg; Counter-Currents publisher Greg Johnson; the editor-in-chief of American Renaissance Jared Taylor; Martin Lichtmesz from Sezession; alt-right star Richard Spencer; the Dutch new-right movement Erkenbrand; several diverse Generation Identity accounts; and the de facto leader of the pan-European identitarian movement, Martin Sellner. They all commemorated his death, hailing him as a key intellectual of the “true right.”
Guillaume Faye, the “Golden One” and the Metapolitical Legion
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“The Golden One” was one of those key figures of the new right who had praised Faye. The Golden One, or Marcus Follin, is a bodybuilder, online fitness guru, entrepreneur and a far-right YouTube personality. He started his YouTube channel in 2012 and has now amassed over 110K subscribers and over 12 million views. He has become one of the far-right influencers operating on a global scale. He has been invited to give lectures in the Netherlands for Erkenbrand, for Reconquista in Ukraine, Sweden’s the Scandza Forum, and has given collabs with many key figures and online shows in the far-right alternative influence networks like Millennial Woes or Red Ice TV.
Why We Fight
The condolence tweet was not the first time the blond Swedish YouTuber praised Faye. In 2015, Follin made a (now blocked) YouTube video praising Faye’s “Why we fight. Manifesto for a European Renaissance” as “one of the best books I have read.” The Golden One was certainly not the first or the only far-right figure who was inspired by and had praised the work. In 2017, Sellner published five videos on YouTube dedicated to this very book. (All videos were set on private after Sellner’s channel was reinstated after his ban in 2018).
In those videos, he stressed the ideological and metapolitical importance of Faye. Metapolitics, Sellner argued, is a key concept for identitarians as they define themselves as a metapolitical movement. No wonder that Faye’s far-right publishing house Arktos pitches “Why We Fight” as “destined to become the key work for Twenty-first century identitarians.”
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The Golden One recommends “Why We Fight” especially if you “are a beginner in the political or philosophical world or need ammunition to fight off or debate the leftists.” Note how he adopts metaphors of war in relation to the idea of political debate or philosophy. That is not a coincidence — “debate,” “philosophy” or “metapolitics” are not only used as synonyms, but his whole message argues that metapolitics is crucial in the fight for the future of Europe and the European people.
These fighting metaphors also reflect the central motif in Faye’s book. Faye starts “Why We Fight” with the idea that “Europe today faces the greatest danger in her history, a danger threatening the very existence of her civilization. For she is at war and doesn’t know it.” Europe, and especially European culture, its people and identity are in danger of becoming extinct. This danger is brought upon us because our elites do not fight for their people and allow us to be colonized by migrants and, in particular, Muslims. The idea of the “great replacement” was already very much present in Faye’s earlier works.
Even more, according to Faye, we should fight “for the cause of our own people’s destiny.” Faye describes the world in Schmittian terms as a struggle between ethnic peoples and civilizations for survival and domination. “The base of everything is biocultural identity and demographic renewal,” says Faye. The Golden One completely agrees: “Culture stems out of blood,” he says in the video.
Biocultural Survival
This fight for the survival of the biocultural identity of Europe or, in less metapolitical discourse, the European race, is, according to Faye, not only metapolitical. It is very much about the will to power, the will to become culturally, morally, economically and politically superior as a people. Faye’s stress on this struggle for dominance and superiority between Europeans and the Islamic colonizers is exactly the message that The Golden One puts forward on his channel. This idea, he says “resonates very well with the kind of aesthetics that I’m trying to portray with this channel, about strength and such virtues.”
Just like Faye, Follin stresses the importance of the warrior virtues and halting what Faye calls “deviralization.” The Golden One sees himself as helping to construct a new legion of metapolitical warriors. In a lecture for the Ukrainian Azov movement and the ND-National Militia, The Golden One stressed the importance of combining real fighting and violence with the philosophical or the metapolitical. In essence, he calls for a fusion of metapolitics and the willingness to use violence in the idea of the “metapolitical soldier” or “metapolitical crusader.” In this lecture, he stressed that soldiers need to have a solid ideological worldview, while activists or politicians also need to be able to physically fight.
This notion of the metapolitical crusader is central in the social media communication of The Golden One. All his online activity has been dedicated to the creation and education of that legion of far-right metapolitical crusaders.
*[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns have brought economic activity to a standstill. As a result, the livelihoods of people around the world have been threatened. To respond to the crisis, some governments have considered how to expand their social safety net. This is particularly because many people who work in the informal economy or those without jobs have been left with no financial support. In this context, the idea of a universal basic income (UBI) has resurfaced.
Until recently, UBI was a utopian proposal relegated to academic discussions. But the pandemic has led to a debate about UBI as a potential tool of public policy. Now, several basic income programs are running around the world. Advocates see in UBI an instrument to build more resilient societies in the face of economic crises, income inequality and automation. Critics argue that governments should strengthen existing social programs instead.
Can a Presidential Candidate Convince America on Universal Basic Income?
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In June 2020, Spain offered monthly payments of up to €1,015 ($1,200) to the poorest families. Germany has implemented a small-scale pilot study to take place over three years. As part of the program, 120 Germans will receive monthly payments of €1,200. In the United Kingdom, a motion to introduce UBI was signed last year by more than 100 parliamentarians from across the political spectrum. At the start of the pandemic, the US government paid up to $1,200 to adults earning below $99,000 a year; a second stimulus package meant Americans received even more money. Thus, it seems that the crisis has shifted the UBI debate, at least in some European countries and in the US.
However, in South and Central America, the debate on the desirability of UBI could “not take off, given the very severe fiscal constraints in most countries,” says Oscar Ugarteche, a Peruvian professor of economics. This is despite the Bolsa Familia (Family Allowance) experiment of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the former Brazilian president. This indicates that the debate is partly country-specific and that the implementation of UBI may require “several national experiments, which are likely to influence corresponding variations in policy design,” according to counselor Andrew Cornford.
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Indeed, UBI is not a one-size-fits-all program. Many questions need to be considered. For example, should payments be issued per household or adult? Should everyone be eligible for UBI or only those receiving low salaries? Should a universal basic income be temporary or permanent? How will it affect the willingness of people to find a job or to continue working? How would UBI be financed?
The first step is to assess the feasibility and implications of UBI. To do so will require building on the experiences of small-scale studies, comparing their results and collecting further evidence. Thus, it could be a long time before governments and the wider population see such a program. That is unless the current health crisis can serve as a catalyst for socioeconomic change, contributing to make UBI part of the legacy of the pandemic.
By Virgile Perret and Paul Dembinski
Author’s note: From Virus to Vitamin invites experts to comment on issues relevant to finance and the economy in relation to society, ethics and the environment. Below, you will find views from a variety of perspectives, practical experiences and academic disciplines. The topic of this discussion is: Where does the debate over a universal basic income stand in your region? Has the pandemic had an impact on discussions about UBI?
“…ensure that everyone has a floor on which to build [their] life…”
“World GDP in 2020 reached $90 trillion. To bring this number down to earth, it means that what we presently produce is equivalent to $3,800 a month per four-member family, amply sufficient for everyone on earth to live a dignified and comfortable life. A modest reduction in inequality and a flat redistribution to adults is sufficient to ensure that everyone has a floor on which to build [their] life. Huge financial resources lay idle in the world, growing not through productive investment, but financial rent. Taxing them might make these resources useful, stimulating demand and production at the bottom while drastically reducing poverty. Those who do not need the support might just be taxed back for the amount.”
Ladislau Dowbor — economist, professor at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo, consultant many international agencies
“…a certain confusion reigns here around the notion…”
“In France, the debate concerning a universal basic income remains confined to academic spheres and to a few militant groups. The issue was, however, put in the political agenda by the socialist candidate in the last presidential elections (spring 2017), that is to say before the outbreak of COVID-19. This candidate achieved a very poor score. The crisis itself does not seem to have brought the problem to the fore. It is true that a certain confusion reigns here around the notion: Is it a real universal basic income, a negative tax, aid to citizens without resources or a subsidy to all residents? The imagination is lost, which does not help the political inscription of this notion, nor the serene economic discussion.”
Etienne Perrot — Jesuit, economist and editorial board member of the Choisir magazine (Geneva) and adviser to the journal Etudes (Paris)
“…with the COVID crisis, the idea is resurfacing…”
“In June 2016, a proposal to introduce a universal basic income was rejected by three-quarters of Swiss voters and all Cantons. With the COVID crisis, the idea is resurfacing, but to gain traction, it will need to address two issues. The first is how to finance it, especially if UBI should be enough to live on, without having adverse incentives for work and the tax base. The second is why provide support to everyone instead of those in need? Even with the pandemic, the vast majority of the population have kept their income and thus do not need support.”
Cedric Tille — professor of macroeconomics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva
“…dissatisfaction with existing social-security systems…”
“Dissatisfaction with existing social-security systems has recently led to greater attention to the universal basic income. Perhaps the best-known experiment is that carried out on a limited sample of recipients in Finland. In the recent municipal elections in the UK, almost 300 candidates of the Green Party were declared supporters of the UBI. Supporters stress the automaticity and universality of the UBI, which are believed to contribute to wellbeing and the ease with which beneficiaries are able to handle other problems of their lives. Critics stress the undesirability of the delinking of financial benefits from particular welfare services owing to its likely impact on popular support for these services. This is a debate that requires several national experiments, which are likely to influence corresponding variations in policy design, including other solutions such as negative income taxes or simply strengthened social security.”
Andrew Cornford — counselor at Observatoire de la Finance, former staff member of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), with special responsibility for financial regulation and international trade in financial services
“…the proposal could draw away people from the labor force…”
“During the pandemic, the Spanish left coalition government accelerated a plan called Ingreso Minimo Vital, expected to hand out between €462 and €1,015 per month according to the conditions of each household unit. This in part replaces or adds up to existing regional schemes. Until March 2021, 210,000 beneficiaries had their submission approved, of a total of 1.3 million requests. The unions and a few NGOs — some of them very efficient in relieving newly emergent poverty — denounced the slowness and administrative maze in the process. The Spanish unemployed still number 3.6 million (15.99%), plus about 750,000 in furlough schemes. The proposal, if successful, could draw away people from the labor force, whereas we need public-private policies aiming to the contrary.”
Domingo Sugranyes — director of a seminar on ethics and technology at Pablo VI Foundation, former executive vice-chairman of MAPFRE international insurance group
“…these measures would provide tangible help that women need right now…”
“For myriad women in economies of every size, along with trailing income, unpaid care and internal work burden have exploded. While all are facing unprecedented challenges, women continue bearing the brunt of the economic and social fallout of COVID-19. Pandemic-induced poverty flow will also widen the gender poverty gap, which means more women will be pushed into extreme poverty than men, thereby revealing women’s precarious economic security. Introducing direct income support to women would mean giving cash directly to women who are poor or lack income that can be a lifeline for those struggling to afford day-to-day necessities during the pandemic. Further, these measures would provide tangible help that women need right now.”
Archana Sinha — head of the Department of Women’s Studies at the Indian Social Institute in New Delhi, India
“In Central America, it has not even been considered…”
“In Mexico, the discussion went to Congress as a proposal in June 2020 and is unapproved with a cost of 1% of GDP. In Central America, it has not even been considered as it is too onerous for the limited public finances of those countries. In Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Argentina, among other countries in the region, there is public discussion on the desirability of UBI promoted by ECLAC and UNDP and has not taken off, given the very severe fiscal constraints in most countries. UBI would not reduce inequalities as people who do not need it would get it and families with many adults in one household would get a bigger share than those with children.”
Oscar Ugarteche — visiting professor of economics in various universities
“…at the center of the most dynamic debates…”
“The pandemic triggered a socioeconomic downturn — already sharpened by the 2008 debt crisis — that raised economic uncertainty and widened inequalities. Fundamental rights and basic life parameters are at risk, especially for the poorest of the poor. Scholars, experts and citizens feel that it’s surely the time to voice their support for a series of socioeconomic initiatives — the universal basic income being at the center of the most dynamic debates. The southern Mediterranean countries and Greece prioritized the pandemic effects and kept aside for a short period of time the austerity measures. However, Greece is expected to turn back to the economic stability narrative, as described during the debt crisis, a fact that disempowers a possible engagement to the UBI debate. If this becomes — as it should — an international matter, weaker economies will follow.”
Christos Tsironis — associate professor of social theory at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece
“…popularizing the idea of universal basic income in the US…”
“Thanks, Andrew Yang, for popularizing the idea of universal basic income in the US. Yang ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, offering the “Freedom Dividend,” a UBI of $1,000 a month to every American adult, as a solution to the eventual replacement of (nearly all) humans with automation. He scarcely answered how his UBI was to be funded, a significant, but not insurmountable, problem for UBI’s proponents. UBI skeptics were somewhat silenced when the former and current administrations sent out modest checks to those who lost jobs in the pandemic, in a series of massive economic rescue packages. Maybe the rescue plans are a nascent solution to UBI funding: higher taxes, deficit spending and pump priming.”
Kara Tan Bhala — president and founder of the Seven Pillars Institute for Global Finance and Ethics
“Italy introduced two years ago the Reddito di cittadinanza…”
“Italy introduced two years ago the Reddito di cittadinanza, with 1.2 million Italians receiving this first attempt of universal basic income (€560 on average), at the condition of refusing no more than two job offers. In two years, only a small number of citizens actually signed a contract, as most offers were short-term. On the other hand, Italy just presented its Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza )PNRR), consisting in €235.1 billion. Roughly 27% of the resources of the plan will be devoted to the digital agenda, 40% to investments to counteract climate change and 10% to social cohesion. Particular attention was paid to the historically disadvantaged Mezzogiorno of southern Italy (€82 billion, of which 36 in infrastructures), with projects involving young people and women, groups hit hard by the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic.
Valerio Bruno — researcher in politics and senior research fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR).
*[A version of this article was originally published by From Virus to Vitamin and Agefi.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
HackingRansomware hackers demand $70m after attack on US software firm KaseyaBetween 800 and 1,500 businesses around the world, including supermarkets and dentists’ offices, affected by attack R More
OpinionAfghanistanThe Guardian view on Afghanistan withdrawal: a retreat into uncertaintyEditorialJoe Biden’s actions will be felt most keenly in Kabul, but they pose a broader question for an army-dominated Pakistan Mon 5 Jul 2021 14.20 EDTLast modified on Mon 5 Jul 2021 16.10 EDTBy bringing home US troops from Afghanistan, and leading Nato and allied forces out of the country, the US president, Joe Biden, is acting on his campaign trail argument that American “forever wars” distract from more pressing issues at home. While the effect of the withdrawal will be felt most keenly in Afghanistan, where there are justifiable fears that the Taliban are poised to reclaim power, the broader question Mr Biden poses is for neighbouring nuclear-armed Pakistan and the role that it wants to play in the region.Bluntly, there is little trust between Washington and Islamabad despite Pakistan being a frontline state in America’s longest war. Mr Biden served as vice-president to Barack Obama, who in his memoir, A Promised Land, wrote that he had preferred not to involve Pakistan in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in 2011 because it was an “open secret” that elements inside Pakistan’s military, and especially its intelligence services, “maintained links to the Taliban and perhaps even al-Qaida, sometimes using them as strategic assets to ensure that the Afghan government remained weak and unable to align itself with Pakistan’s number one rival, India”.In Pakistan’s defence, it might be said that the past is another country. It says that it no longer provides any haven for terrorists or seeks to radicalise Muslim opinion with which it has influence. Pakistan has undoubtedly been the victim of terror attacks and shelters millions of refugees. Yet there was no disguising the anger of the Biden administration when, after eight days in office, Pakistan’s supreme court ordered the release of the man convicted in 2002 of orchestrating the abduction and killing of Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter.Pakistan is an army with a country attached. Imran Khan serves as prime minister. But it is the chief of army staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who calls most of the shots. The general has had a phone call from Mr Biden’s secretary of defence. After it, the army chief pledged to “bury the past” with India. Mr Khan has yet to be rung up by the White House. That may be because Washington had wanted to pressurise Pakistan into granting the CIA a base in the country to launch drone strikes against the Taliban. The US was kicked out of its last Pakistani facility in 2011. Last month, Mr Khan wrote an op-ed quashing the idea that the US could regain a military foothold in the country.The ever-growing risks of a Taliban takeover will shape the region’s dynamics. Not least because decades ago they subjected the country to a reign of pious Sunni terror. Adjoining Iran sponsored an armed resistance. A Taliban regime in Kabul gave Pakistan the idea that it could control Afghanistan and acquire the “strategic depth” needed to challenge India. Since then, China has drawn closer to Islamabad. New Delhi, faced with a hostile Beijing, has attempted to improve relations with Pakistan. Mr Biden knows that Afghanistan is known as a “graveyard of empires” for good reason. He wants his foreign policy to mark a break with the past and face the challenges of the future. But turning points only work out if one knows where to turn.TopicsAfghanistanOpinionJoe BidenAl-QaidaBarack ObamaUS foreign policyNatoPakistaneditorialsReuse this content More
On February 5, the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF), a 75-member body, supervised by the United Nations, approved Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh’s list of officials to temporarily run national affairs. Their mandate will last until presidential and parliamentary elections take place on December 24. The list includes Mohammed al-Manfi as chairman and Musa al-Koni and Abdullah Hussein al-Lafi as members of the Presidential Council. Dbeibeh became the prime minister of Libya.
How China’s Growing Dominance Will Impact Sino-Gulf Relations
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On March 10, Dbeibeh presented his cabinet to members of parliament and won the confidence of 132 deputies out of the 133 who attended the session in Sirte. The internationally recognized national unity government based in Tobruk was subsequently sworn in, but it faces many challenges. These include political, military, economic, and social and human rights issues.
Political Challenges
Dbeibeh is a businessman-turned-politician from Misrata, a port city that is around 200 kilometers to the east of Tripoli, the Libyan capital. During his time in business, he was involved in political circles as a trusted person of the ruling Arab Socialist Union. In 2007, Muammar Gaddafi, the ruler of Libya at the time, charged Dbeibeh with the task of running the state-owned Libyan Investment and Development Company (LIDCO). The firm was responsible for some of the country’s biggest public works projects. After the Libyan revolution of 2011, which led to the overthrow and subsequent death of Gaddafi, the Libya al-Mustakbal (Libya Future) movement was founded by Dbeibeh.
The prime minister has succeeded in forming a broad-based coalition government that has brought together representatives of most stakeholders from the political, regional and tribal scenes in Libya. Dbeibeh crystallized a state of relative consensus between the different parties that have lived during a state of dissonance and a raging power struggle. This culminated in Major General Khalifa Haftar’s declaration of war on Tripoli in April 2019. Haftar’s heavy losses, his failed coup against civilian rule, the suffering of Libyans from war and their forced displacement pushed the bickering parties to negotiate and reach a political agreement. This deal was endorsed by the United Nations mission, under the pressure of countries such as the United States, Germany, Britain and Italy. The formation of the new Libyan government is based on a fragile consensus dictated by necessity. The sustainability of this is a challenge in itself, requiring a high degree of governmental harmony and solidarity.
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Dbeibeh’s team now faces the challenge of bridging the gap between the various actors on Libya’s political scene and bringing them together under a single banner. This national project entails the extension of state sovereignty over the whole of Libyan territory and the consolidation of civil peace, taking into account public interest. The new government is also required to implement the roadmap drawn up by the LPDF. Most importantly, this includes the unification of sovereign institutions to elect new leaders to manage the transitional phase. It also involves creating conditions for organizing legislative and presidential elections at the end of the year.
The formation of the national unity government represented a historic moment that was the result of talks between the most prominent political actors in Libya. It served as a political solution to the Libyan crisis and a transition from a situation of war to one of peace.
Despite the peaceful transition of power from Fayez al-Sarraj, the prime minister under the Government of National Accord (GNA), to Dbeibeh, some political figures have not fully grasped the scope of change taking place in Libya. Instead, they have resisted the shifts in government to preserve their influence and personal and factional interests.
An example of this is the case of Aguila Saleh Issa, the speaker of parliament and president of the House of Representatives (HOR). Issa was expected to vacate his role, as decided by the forum, to allow a new figure from the south to be head of the legislative body. The aim is to create a balance between the different regions of Libya. Yet the speaker has clung on to his position.
Issa has a long history of obstructing the path for a peaceful settlement to the Libyan crisis. In 2016, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) adopted sanctions against him. He was accused of being “complicit in, actions or policies that obstruct, undermine, delay, or impede, or pose a significant risk of obstructing, undermining, delaying, or impeding, the adoption of or political transition to the GNA.” In addition to this, parliament remained divided and suspended during his term and only met on rare occasions.
Military Challenges
On the military front, the UN Security Council has called on all parties to abide by the ceasefire agreed in Geneva under the UN in October 2020. Yet in March this year, a UN report stated that the arms embargo in Libya is “totally ineffective.” The Geneva agreement issued a 90-day deadline for foreign mercenaries to leave the country. The stated period has since passed, but Libya is still teeming with local and international armed groups.
This complex situation poses a major challenge to the national unity government. Officials are primarily concerned with forcing all parties to respect the ceasefire and stop the imports of weapons by land, sea and air. In addition to this, millions of weapons — smuggled or stolen — are handled illegally in Libya.
The state needs to regain its authority and have a monopoly on the use of weapons. This requires forcing the armed brigades in the east and west to hand over their equipment to the Ministries of Defense and Interior. This approach calls for dissolving Libyan militias, draining their sources of funding, rehabilitating their members and reintegrating them into official security and defense structures. This includes institutions such as the police, army, civil protection or border control, which have specific laws and codes of conduct and a clear hierarchy subject to civilian leadership.
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The government will likely face resistance from armed groups. The brigades loyal to General Haftar, who considers himself above the state and does not accept the command of civilian leadership, will present a particular challenge.
Mercenaries also pose a risk. There are an estimated 20,000 foreign fighters in Libya, according to former UN Envoy Stephanie Williams. Most of them are stationed in the east of Libya and in the oil crescent, a coastal area that hosts most of the country’s oil export terminals. The fighters include Sudanese, Chadian, Syrian and Russian nationals earning high salaries.
Their deportation presents a further challenge because the groups are part of a network of power relations involving other countries. Russia, Turkey, Egypt and France have used fighters and technical experts as bargaining chips to ensure their share of reconstruction projects and natural resources in Libya. The Libyan government needs to create a situation where locals reject the presence of mercenaries and put pressure on them to leave.
The support of the European Union, the United States and Britain is also important. Such global powers must intensify diplomatic and field efforts on these armed groups to surrender their positions and weapons to the Libyan government. If this can be achieved in a manner that guarantees the sustainability of peace and stability, foreign investors might view Libya as a safe country for commercial and economic activity.
Economic, Social and Human Rights Challenges
The Dbeibeh government has inherited an economy that has been weakened by war and financial and administrative corruption. The economy has been severely affected by the deliberate halting of oil production and export by tribes and militias loyal to Haftar. It has also been impacted by depleted parallel institutions and informal trade as well as the smuggling of fuel and other basic materials. “Due to the closure of oil wells and restrictions put by pro-Haftar armed groups, the Libyan economy suffered a loss of $5 billion in January 2020,” Mucahit Aydemir reports. “From 2016-2019, the country has already lost more than $100 billion, as Ibrahim Cadran, an Haftar ally interrupted the oil excavation in the east of the country.”
It is assumed that the national unity government will set an audited public budget and liberate oil fields from foreign, tribal or militia domination. The interim leaders should also seek to restore the export of oil, the country’s primary source of income. Undertaking these urgent, necessary reforms will allow the provision of cash liquidity, secure salaries and help the Libyan dinar (LD) recover, if only relatively. According to the World Bank, the dinar “continues to suffer in the parallel market because of political uncertainties and macroeconomic instability. In the first two quarters of 2020, the LD in the parallel market lost 54 percent of its value.”
On the social and human rights front, it is imperative for the new government to provide citizens with essential services, such as clean water, electricity, gas, medicine and basic foodstuffs, and to fight the wastage of public money and increasing prices. In March, UN Special Envoy Jan Kubis said the “country is facing an acute electricity crisis this summer and there are risks to its water security as well.” He added that “UN agencies estimate that over 4 million people, including 1.5 million children, may face being denied access to clean water and sanitation if immediate solutions are not found and implemented.”
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In addition, the coronavirus was confirmed to have spread to Libya on March 24, 2020, when the first case was reported in Tripoli. Libya is vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic due to the impact of the last civil war, which led to a dire humanitarian situation and the destruction of the country’s health infrastructure. In April, Libya launched its vaccination program against COVID-19, but, as with most countries in Africa, the supplies of doses remain low. At the time of publishing, the country had recorded more than 195,000 infections and over 3,200 deaths.
In light of risks to the country’s health care, an effective strategy must be implemented to combat COVID-19. This must take into account sufficient steps to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, import the necessary number of vaccine doses and guarantee access to health services for those suffering from the COVID-19 disease.
It is also important for authorities to release political prisoners, deal with cases of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and end impunity for those committing crimes. Those forcibly displaced during the civil war must also be allowed to return to their homes and resume their professional lives in a safe environment. The building blocks for a project of transitional justice as a prelude to a practical, inclusive and fair system of reconciliation must also be pursued.
The time available to the Dbeibeh government is limited and the challenges it faces are plenty. But this should not prevent the interim administration from being able to introduce changes and pave the way for political, economic and human rights reform. However, this will be possible only if officials are united and cooperate to serve the public and if international support continues for the national unity government. Most importantly, to succeed, the government will need the support of Libyans themselves.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
