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Twentieth century Libyan history can be divided into four major periods: Italian colonization from 1911-1943, a British caretaker government from 1943-1951, independent constitutional monarchical rule under King Sayyid Idris I from 1951-1969, and the current military dictatorship of Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi from 1969 to the present. Such clearly-defined eras allow us to analyze the state of Libyan affairs in any given time period, which provides us with the opportunity to assess the extent to which colonialism is responsible for Libya’s current political, economic, and social ills.

Blaming colonialism directly for causing Libya’s current political, economic, and social ills would be to misplace culpability. Despite the damage that Italy inflicted on Libya during her 30 year presence there, Western powers held Libya’s hand with foreign aid and guidance during her path to independence, resulting in the creation of an independent state. Colonialism’s only enduring fault is providing a justification for Qaddafi to sustain a successful anti-colonialist coup and use that ideology to subject his citizens to economic and political isolation for much of his reign.

Libya’s current political, economic, and social ills pale in relation to those of other African countries. Compared to other African countries, Libya has the fifth highest gross domestic product and the highest gross domestic product per capita due to bountiful oil and natural gas reserves.[1] Libya is even in the process of transforming its socialist economy to a market-based one, which could improve the economy further.[2] Despite the relative prosperity of Libya in comparison to the rest of Africa, Libyan citizens still live under an authoritarian ruler whose anti-colonial political philosophy and international diplomatic initiatives leave his people without basic civil liberties and with the economic repercussions of his decisions.[3]

On September 1, 1969, then-army Captain Qaddafi staged a successful military coup overthrowing King Idris I. The military officers who led the coup established a 12-member “Revolutionary Command Council” (RCC) to oversee the formation of Qaddafi’s government. To establish his legitimacy as a ruler, Qaddafi stressed an anti-imperialist agenda that one historian described as “an anti-imperialist challenge to the dominant world order.”[4] One need only read Qaddafi’s political manifesto to understand how he views colonialism’s legacy in Africa and why he has actively opposed the West: “The last period in history that has known slavery was that which witnessed the white man enslaving the black race.”[5] Qaddafi, like the other RCC members, had been raised in a lower-class family and used the military as a means to advance his social status and ultimately seize control of Libya.[6] Believing that it spoke for the Libyan people, the RCC, which was composed of junior army officers, led a coup that even the CIA did not anticipate.[7] Anti-colonial measures were taken immediately: one of the first anti-colonial acts by the RCC was to close American and British military bases in Libya.[8]

As Qaddafi gained power and continued his anti-colonial foreign policy, decisions he made ultimately had a detrimental effect on Libyan citizens’ well-being. While Qaddafi was involved in countless anti-Western foreign policy decisions, I will discuss his relationship with the United States and his actions that led to international economic sanctions against Libya as one key example of this phenomenon. The United States and Libya had enjoyed an “ambivalent” relationship when Qaddafi first took over, but the U.S. ended up strongly opposing Libya’s terrorist ties.[9] Qaddafi, a staunch opponent of Israel, a U.S. ally, first irked the U.S. in 1972 by claiming the bodies of Palestinian terrorists who murdered the Israeli Olympic team and giving them a hero’s funeral.[10] Libya also permitted the U.S. Embassy to be attacked in 1979. Once the U.S. elected President Ronald Reagan in 1981, the U.S. officially regarded Libya as an “enemy,” banned Libyan imports, froze Libyan assets in the U.S., and even bombed Libyan military targets in 1986.[11] Libya’s economic isolation due to her terrorist ties extended beyond her relationship with the U.S. The United Nations issued sanctions against Libya in 1993 after she failed to extradite suspects who bombed airplanes in Scotland and France.[12]

Colonel Qaddafi’s desire to oppose states he deemed imperialist compelled him to support groups that the West classified as terrorist because these terrorists, like Qaddafi, often worked to counter Western encroachment on their lands and cultures. But as Qaddafi continued his anti-imperialist foreign policy agenda, his own people suffered because of international sanctions. Qaddafi had sought to build a strong socialist state to support the basic needs of his citizens, but as oil prices declined in the 1980s, sanctions exacerbated the declining economy.[13] The result of the lagging economy was a period of civil unrest in the late 1980s and 1990s, which included riots and a crowd shooting in 1996.[14]

Qaddafi later took a warmer position towards the United States, with positive economic results. After Libya decided to aid the Bush Administration with the War on Terror and also take responsibility for the Scottish airline bombing, the U.S. lifted sanctions against Libya, helping Libya advance toward the robust economy she enjoys today.[15] Although Libya has recovered considerably on both economic and political fronts, Qaddafi’s beliefs and actions directly caused the Libyan people to face economic sanctions and political isolation during the 1980s and 1990s. To understand how colonialism is only indirectly responsible for Libya’s current state of affairs, we will now explore Libya’s history before 1969 to ascertain the colonial roots that helped spawn Qaddafi’s anti-colonial rule. In this next section, I will discuss European influences in Libya from 1911-1969, how Italy damaged Libya, how the Allied Powers (mostly Britain) helped rebuild Libya to offset Italian damages, and how Qaddafi used this history to legitimize his anti-colonial rule.

Italy invaded Libya in 1911 with two motives: establish a strategic base in Africa, and provide a colony to spread and maintain Italian civilization.[16] After Italy would finish conquering Libya, Italy would plan to use the fertile Libyan farmland for Italian settlers to grow food to help sustain the Italian mainland population.[17] Despite these visions of grandeur, Italy needed twenty years to conquer Libya, in part due to a resistance movement in Libya’s eastern region of Cyrenaica led by Omar Mukhtar, who would become an official national hero once Qaddafi assumed control of the country. To quash Mukhtar’s rebellion, Italian forces herded Cyrenaican nomads into camps to prevent movement in the region.[18] Historian John Wright commented on the horrid conditions that nomads faced in these concentration camps, noting that the victims were reduced to “caved beggars, living at bare subsistence level….”[19] Once Italy successfully ended the rebellion and executed Mukhtar, Italy did bring some temporary positive developments to Libya, helping to rebuild Cyrenaica by digging wells, raising livestock, and improving health standards.[20] Italy even built 183 schools that served over 20,000 students.[21] However, Libyans were treated as second-class citizens in countless ways, including earning lower wages for performing the same work as Italians.[22] Unfortunately, any ways in which the Italians helped their Libyan subjects were offset by battles between Italy and Great Britain fought in Libya during World War II, battles which ravaged Libya and its very basic infrastructure.[23]

Considering the concentration camps, relegation of Libyans to second-class citizenship, and World War II, nobody can doubt that Italian colonialism was devastating for Libya. However, the Allied Powers helped rebuild Libya and guide it toward independence. Damage Italy caused is too far-removed from Qaddafi’s reign to blame Italy directly for Libya’s current ills. But even Italian influence, like that of the Allied Powers in between 1943 and 1969, helped form Qaddafi’s anti-colonial and populist ideology – Omar Mukhtar, who fought Italian colonizers for 20 years, is considered a national hero in Libya; his face is even shown on Libyan currency. Italy’s conquest turned Mukhtar into an anti-colonialist martyr and a figure that Qaddafi has exploited as an anti-colonialist hero.

Because Libya has improved considerably since World War II thanks to both foreign aid an oil boom, damages that the Italians inflicted have been offset. Likewise, Allied Powers cannot be directly blamed for Libya’s ills since they helped rebuild Libya and did not exploit it like Italy attempted to do. But in between the Allied occupation in 1943 and the coup in 1969, foreign influence in Libya persisted, which ultimately helped legitimize Qaddafi’s anti-colonialist coup and rule.

In the eight years that Allied Powers (mostly Britain but also France) occupied Libya, they redeveloped a basic civil infrastructure, built schools, and gave clerical work to Libyan citizens.[24] Libya also received millions in economic aid from the United States, Great Britain, Turkey, and Italy.[25] Even the United Nations played an advisor-role in transitioning Libya from a colony to an independent state.[26]

The Libyan independent state progressed and grew considerably wealthier due to an oil boom, which even eradicated any need for foreign aid by 1964.[27] However, during this period of rebuilding, foreign influence in Libya was pervasive and wealth was unequally distributed to the point where Qaddafi could reasonably justify his coup and ideology. This influence can be seen by examining the example of King Idris I, who ruled Libya from 1951-1969, who can be viewed as too loyal to the British. In 1922, as Italy fought in Cyrenacia, Idris (the de-facto leader of Cyrenacia) fled to the former British protectorate of Egypt only to return to Libya after Great Britain defeated Italy in Libya.[28] Upon his return to Libya in 1944 after Great Britain controlled Libya, he urged Cyrenacians to follow British rule.[29] Even after independence, the British maintained strong ties with King Idris, whose government permitted British Petroleum and a host of American companies to drill for oil.[30] A problem that would later help justify Qaddafi’s socialist economy, these oil profits were, according to historian Carole Collins, “not being used to diversify the economy or increase employment opportunities.”[31]

With the strong ties between Idris and the colonial British, as well as a government that did not distribute oil profits justly, one can understand how Qaddafi could use anti-colonialist propaganda to stage his coup and create a socialist state. This sentiment was reflected in his early acts as a leader toward both King Idris and the British: the former he sentenced to death in absentia, the latter lost her base deals and witnessed the nationalization of British Petroleum oilfields.[32]

Libya is directly responsible for her political isolation, economic isolation, and lack of civil liberties. Although Libya is one of Africa’s wealthiest countries and its tensions with the West have cooled, its previous economic isolation, political isolation, and current dearth of civil liberties are the fault of Colonel Qaddafi’s military dictatorship. While colonialism under Italy was devastating for Libya, it is not directly responsible for the problems Libya has faced. Colonialism and Western influence in Libya are only indirectly responsible for its current ills because Western influence provided justification and legitimacy for Qaddafi’s 1969 anti-imperialist coup, a mindset that Qaddafi embraced that led him to implement policies that directly caused Libya’s, political, economic, and social ills.

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[1] International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database, October 2007.

[2] The World Factbook 2009, Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009.

[3] Civil liberties cannot be discussed at length here. However, a Human Rights Watch report indicates that Libyans do not enjoy free speech or due process, and that they face prospect of torture and a “security apparatus” that monitors citizens. Libyan citizens have never had basic civil liberties under Qaddafi; he is directly responsible for these political and social ills. The information in this footnote came from Human Rights Watch, “Libya, Words to Deeds: The Urgent Need for Human Rights Reform,” vol. 18, no. 1, January, 2006, p.2, http://hrw.org, accessed 25 June 2007., as cited in Ronald Bruce St. John, Colony to Independence, (Minneapolis: Oneworld Publications, 2008), 256.

[4] Raymond A. Hinnebusch, “Charisma, Revolution, and State Formation: Qaddafi and Libya,” Third World Quarterly 6.1 (1984): 59-73, JSTOR, Web. 6 Nov. 2009. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3991227, 60. The regime of King Idris I and its ties to colonial powers will be discussed later in this paper.

[5] M. Al. Qathafi, The Green Book: The Solution to the Problem of Democracy, The Solution to the Economic Problem, The Social Basis of the Third Universal Theory (New York: Ithaca, 2005), 74.

[6] St. John, 139.

[7] Ibid., 139-140.

[8] Ibid., 142-143.

[9] Ibid., 177-178.

[10] Ibid., 178.

[11] Ibid. 178-179.

[12] Ibid., 205.

[13] Ibid., 195.

[14] Ibid., 223.

[15] Ibid., 245.

[16] John Wright, Libya (London: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969), 121 and 169.

[17] Ibid., 170.

[18] Ibid., 164.

[19] Ibid., 165.

[20] Ibid., 177.

[21] Ibid., 183.

[22] Ibid., 182.

[23] Ibid., 185.

[24] Wright, 193.

[25] Carole Collins, “Imperialism and Revolution in Libya.” Middle East Research and Information Project 27 (1974): 3-22, JSTOR, Web. 6 Nov. 2009 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3011335, 12.

[26] Wright, 208.

[27] Collins, 14.

[28] Wright, 146. English influence in Egypt has been historically strong.

[29] Ibid., 195.

[30] Ibid., 250.

[31] Collins, 15.

[32] St. John, 141 and 147.