The new “government” has raised it to 750 dinars per month and it is not enough, given approximately 18 per cent rise in prices since this summer when the Gadhafi government enforced anti-gouging rules. Those rules are no longer being enforced and prices continue to rise.
So if I understand this correctly, the dictator who was hoarding money for himself had imposed anti-gouging rules. No doubt this was done so that more riches could flow to him.
Further:
the receipt of payments for Libya oil shipments, even though oil is being shipped today as well as the pay[sic] few months, zero payments have been received at the CB. The reason is said to be that NATO countries are being shipped oil, (also to gas and oil rich Qatar) free of charge under a payback arrangement with NATO for its regime change services.
Paying back? So was this a humanitarian mission or a NATO for hire? I never knew one had to "pay back" a UN humanitarian intervention.
On a different note there is the issue of war and manhood. I have often discussed the problems with warfare in colonial and post colonial countries. It is particularly dangerous when there are large numbers of young unemployed, marginally educated and unattached males wandering around. Due to the aggressive nature of masculinity (that testosterone thing), weapons and males do not make for a good mix. In the Congo, Liberia and other countries where there have been high unemployment and a weak state apparatus young men seeking to validate themselves (and entertain themselves) gravitate to warfare (Not really all that different than the popularity of FPS in so called "first world" countries). So we find in Libya:
A few young men I chatted with during a demonstration at Green Square yesterday actually said they miss the fighting and want to fight some more. “It was really exciting and fun most of the time and I made some great friends!” one kid from Benghazi told me. He plans to stay in Tripoli with his militia buddies.
Whoever comes to power will have to deal with this issue before cliques form up to wreak havoc on the population by being convinced by someone what whomever wins the election really ought not to and....well you know the rest.
The last mistake that the NTC is making is as follows:
It bars, with loosely all-embracing language, “former members of Gadhafi’s regime” from being candidates in the election. Among the judges I spoke with at the Ministry of Justice some expressed dismay because they said that 80 per cent of the current staff at their Ministry, and most other Ministries, worked there, lawyers and judges included, under the Gadhafi regime and were patriotic Libyans. There is going to be lots of confusion concerning the scope of the new law and its application. The new election law also bans anyone who got a degree based on academic research on the Green Book — Gadhafi’s political manifesto that laid out his theory of government and society declaring Libya a “republic of the masses.”
This reminds me of the "de-baathigication" of Iraq. We see how that's going. It would be a huge mistake for the new government to bar those most qualified to run the various arms of government from serving. It is one thing if they are seeking to be seditious, but Ghadaffi is dead and his sons are either dead or about to be imprisoned. There is no "going back" to Ghadaffi. There are only those seeking their own new legacy.
Here's to hoping that some influential people have read Fanon's Pitfalls of National Consciousness.
