Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Mustafa Fetouri
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Remembering Bloody August of 2011
On the night of 4 August, 2011, Mustafa Naji Al-Morabit, his mother Fatima ‘Omar Mansur, wife, Ibtisam, and three children: Mo’taz three, Mohamed six and Naji nine years old, were all asleep in Mustafa’s house in the Western part of Zlitin, a coastal city some 180 km east of Tripoli.…
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Is Kais Saied a popular dictator or a misunderstood reformist?
It is not unusual for presidents in the third world to write their own constitutions, once in power. They commonly do so to extend their presidency or make way for their preferred successors to take over after they are gone. How do they do it? Simple – once in power,…
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‘Libyan leaders love to court external actors, but blame them for mostly Libyan failures,’ says UN advisor
Stephanie Williams left her position on the last day of July, eight months after being appointed as the UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor on Libya. In her final statement in the role she said that her top priority was to “listen to the millions of Libyans who registered to vote”…
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Libya is a game of guns and militias with no end in sight
This week is the eleventh anniversary of the date that Libyan rebels armed, trained and supplied by Western countries entered the capital Tripoli under NATO air cover. The fall of Tripoli was a turning point in the conflict which ended with the murder of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi…
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Social taboos, outdated laws and a paralysed Judiciary continue to fail Libyan women
According to a statement published on 13 July by Ministry of State for Women Affairs in Libya, seven women in seven different parts of the country were murdered between 4 July and 8 July. The victims, ranging in age from early twenties to late forties, have been killed as a…
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Biden’s Middle East visit: a failed lobbying trip for Israel, not the United States
Even before landing in Israel, the first leg of his Middle East tour, President Joe Biden was already preoccupied with three issues: integrating Israel into the wider region, rallying as many countries as possible against Iran and persuading the Saudis to pump more oil into the market to ease the…
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Why would Arabs want democracy if it means unemployment, poverty, insecurity and corruption?
A recent study by Princeton University’s Arab Barometer network finds that the majority of Arabs believe democracy, as a system of government, has failed to meet their expectations, leading many to think it is not the right formula for their social ills. The study, in which 23,000 individuals across ten…
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Is Iraq’s notorious ‘oil for food program’ to be repeated in Libya?
The United States Ambassador to Tripoli, Richard Norland, who is also his country’s Envoy to Libya, has been openly pushing forward a plan to deny the Libyan State the freedom of using the oil revenues in accordance with Libyan sovereignty over its resource. Oil makes roughly 98 per cent of…
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Algeria at 60: reflecting on history is good, but looking forward is better
This 5 July marks 60 years since Algeria got its independence from France, after an occupation that lasted over 13 decades, from 1830 until 1962, only to end with the French being defeated in a brutal liberation battle. When the Evian Accords were signed on 18 March 1962, in which…
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Why do Libyans keep failing to settle their differences?
In a statement issued in the earlier hours of 20 June, Stephanie Williams, the United Nations Special Advisor on Libya, drew the curtain on the Cairo talks between Libyan rivals as they failed to reach an agreement on the constitutional framework for any future elections. The statement said “differences persist…
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Why do Arab ‘normalisers’ never seek their people’s approval of ties with Israel?
What is behind the sudden rush by four Arab states to normalise relations with Israel after decades of animosity, and what do countries like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan hope to achieve from embracing the Zionist state? Indeed, what are Israel’s immediate and long-term objectives in seeking…
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The PLO at 58 and the ANC at 110: how they evolved and where do they stand today?
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) is 58 years old this June, while the African National Congress (ANC) celebrated its 110th birthday last January. They are two of the longest liberation movements so far. They are as comparable as apartheid South Africa is comparable to its once close friend, Israel—who became…
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Is Kais Saied’s incremental power grab failing to impress Tunisians?
President Kais Saied of Tunisia is still going, sometimes with an apparent strength, despite all the rejections and disdain he has received lately from different political quarters inside the country. His planned next step is to have Tunisians go to the polls for a referendum on a new constitution. On…
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Your Majesty: Say sorry to mark your Platinum Jubilee and help end that poisonous history
The British Empire once ruled over a quarter of the world’s population, from North America to India and from interior Africa to the Middle East. This June, the UK is lavishly celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years since she ascended the throne in 1952, after her father,…
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Libya in the prism of US’s Global Fragility Act
In the shadows of the war in Ukraine the Biden-Harris administration has released what amounts to a policy – but less than a detailed strategy – paper aimed at interrupting “potential pathways to conflict” around the world to keep such conflicts and their consequences from reaching the United States’ borders.…
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The colonial lie celebrating 74 years of forgery and land theft
The European colonisation rush of conquering other peoples across the world had its own narrative and justifications to make its case for itself, and for its own public opinion in explaining otherwise unexplainable sins of occupation. It had to make sense, too. Major former colonial powers like France, Great Britain…
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An anatomy of chaos in State destruction
According to the United Nations roadmap adopted in November 2020, Libyans should have cast their votes to elect a legislative and president on 24 December, 2021, but that did not happen. As a measure of precaution the roadmap mandated another attempt to be made no later than 23 June 2022,…
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What is behind Libya’s recent crackdown on human rights and activists?
Over the last few months, Libya’s Internal Security Agency (ISA) has rounded up seven young Libyans, accusing them of very serious crimes including that of apostasy, contempt of Islam and spreading of atheism. Such accusations in the predominantly Muslim and overwhelmingly conservative country could be a death sentence, even if…
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As France votes for president, its Algerian legacy lurks in the background
Whether France is voting, commemorating D-day or debating French identity in terms of Republic Values, Algeria is always present in some way. It is almost impossible to discuss anything of substance in France in which Algeria does not feature and, sometimes, dominates the debate. After all, Algeria was not just…
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NATO’s expansion strategy is helping to destroy de facto member Ukraine
NATO as an organisation and through its thirty individual members has been doing its utmost to help Ukraine against Russia’s invasion ever since Moscow launched its attack in February. Even before the war started, some NATO members were offering Kyiv all kinds of assistance, including what many western officials call…
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For how long can Saudi Arabia remain the virtual signatory of the Abraham Accords?
It is inconceivable that last week’s Negev Summit could have taken place without Saudi Arabia not only knowing about the meeting but also blessing it. Since the Abraham Accords were signed, in the name of peace between Arabs and Israel, Saudi Arabia has been the silent party and the virtual…
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A war, two prime ministers and two roadmaps clearly not enough to end Libya’s long transition
The current political impasse in Libya is unlikely to be solved over the next two months. By June, it is likely to become even more complicated because the United Nations’ sponsored roadmap that brought in Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh as Prime Minister will expire then. This has the potential to create…
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Some Africans have good reasons not to condemn Russia over Ukraine
On 2 March, 141 UN member states voted to “condemn” Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, calling it a serious violation of the UN Charter. Thirty-five countries abstained or did not vote at all, among them seventeen African nations, which is another indication of increasing Russian influence in the continent.…
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The Iron Lady is not giving up on Libya just yet
Over the last two weeks, the United Nations Special Advisor on Libya, Stephanie Williams, has been under sustained attacks across social media. Williams, who returned to Libya last December, is neither impressed nor responding. The current stalemate is, as usual, the outcome of disagreements between Libya’s House of Representatives (HoR)…