Last week I gave a talk for the Council for the Advancement of Arab British Understanding at the House of Commons on the topic of the struggle for the post-Qadhafi future. Also present in the panel were former Libyan Islamic Fighting Group commander Noman Benotman, now with the Quilliam Foundation, and Nicholas Pelham, correspondent for The Economist. Noman Benotman also authored one of the chapters in the book I edited The 2011 Libyan Uprisings and the Struggle for the Post-Qadhafi Future from where I drew a number of themes for last week's talk.As I described the development of the increasing power struggles and social and political fragmentation after Qadhafi:
“Developments since 2011 have re-created those power relationships that prevailed for more than a century, as in the process of defeating Gaddafi Libyan society was mobilised along local/regional/tribal/and religious cleavages and the militias that came into being were united only for the purpose of ousting the dictator. “When he was gone the possibility for a transformative discourse that would unite Libyans and help them exit the centre/periphery trap existed but it was not sufficiently seized upon by the new leadership.”
While transcripts or video of the event is not yet available, an event summary with many quotes from the proceedings is available here from the Tripoli Post.