Libya - Tribes
A key factor in maintaining Muammar Qadhafi's regime has been his manipulation of Libya's tribal allegiances, much as Saddam Hussein did in Iraq. By Libyan standards, Qadhafi's own tribe, the Ghadafa [Qadhadhfah], is a small and insignificant tribe. The Qadhadhfah are an Arabised Berber tribe, traceing its roots to Sidi Qadhafaddam, a well-known wali (saint) buried in Al-Gharyan, south of Tripoli. The Qadhadhfah consider themselves murabitoun (saintly) and Ashraf (of the lineage of the Prophet). The Qadhadhfah were driven to the desert around Sirte by an alliance of tribes from the Sa'adi confederation, led by the Bara'sa (the tribe that Qadhafi's wife, Farkash al-Haddad al-Bara'sa, comes from) and the Maghara. Qadhafi’s Qadhdhadfa tribe relies on a confederation with other tribes to remain in power.Any loosening of Qadhafi's extensive patronage network would narrow the base of his regime and potentially undermine his ability to rule. By 20 February 2011 the Toureg, Warfalla and Hasawna tribes had defected to the anti-Gaddafi side. The Warfella tribe had traditionally provided many security force personnel. Akram al-Warfelli, a leading figure of the Warfella tribe, one of Libya's largest, called for Qadhafi to stand down. "We tell the brother (Ghadaffi), he's no longer a brother, we tell him to leave the country", he told Al-Jazeera. Sheikh Faraj al-Zuway from the Zuwayya tribe in the oil-rich south threatened to cut off Libyan oil exports unless the violence against the protesters is stopped.
From the earliest times the movement of the Libyan tribes toward the east is recorded in the annals of the Egyptian monarchy. In the third dynasty—according to the chronology of Mariette some 4200 years BC the incursions of the Temhu (the Touaregs ?) are mentioned. In the eighteenth dynasty (1703-1462 BC) the mother of Amenhotep IV. is represented as a blonde with blue eyes, and bore the name, at once Libyan and Etruscan, of " Taia." She was probably a Libyan by birth. The most important general migration of the Libyan tribes seems to have taken place about 1300 years BC. . At that time, an inscription of Meneptah II on the wall of the great temple of Ammon at Api, relates that the king of the land of Libit, by name Mar-ajui, a son of Did, led a great army composed of his own troops and mercenaries from other nations into Egypt, entering near the city of Prosopis. He was defeated with heavy loss, and many thousands of his soldiery were slain.
The whole region between the Carthaginian dominions and Egypt, including Cyrenaica, was called by the same name as the whole continent, Lybia. Herodotus enumerated the Libyan tribes of Cyrenaica from east to west, starting at the Egyptian border: the Adyrmachidæ, the Giligammæ, the Asbystæ, the Auschisæ, the Nasamonians, the Psylli, and then, to the south, the Garamantes (who later rose to prominence as trading partners with Rome). Tribal names and their incidence over a given area, cities and their sites, are historical facts of the objective order, sometimes, indeed, verifiable by material evidence open to inspection to-day, but often in the nature of the case only ascertainable by testimony. For this class of problems, in this kind of evidence, the work of Herodotus possesses great authority.
Italian hegemony altered the bases of social distinction somewhat, but the change was superficial and transitory; unlike the other Maghribi countries, Libya did not receive a heavy infusion of European culture. As a result, the Libyan urban elite did not suffer the same cultural estrangement from the mass of the people that occurred elsewhere in North Africa. At the end of the colonial period, vestiges of Italian influence dropped quickly, and Arab Muslim culture began to reassert itself.
Before independence rural Libyans looked upon their tribal, village, and family leaders as the true sources of authority, and, in this sense, as their social elite. Appointments to government positions were largely political matters, and most permanent government jobs were allocated through patronage. Local governments were controlled largely by traditional tribal leaders who were able to dispense patronage and thus to perpetuate their influence in the changing circumstances that attended the discovery of oil.
The basic social units were the extended family, clan, and tribe. All three were the primary economic, educational, and welfare-providing units of their members. Individuals were expected to subordinate themselves and their interests to those units and to obey the demands they made. The family was the most important focus of attention and loyalty and source of security, followed by the tribe. In most cases, the most powerful family of a clan provided tribal leadership and determined the reputation and power of the tribe.
Various criteria were used to evaluate individuals as well as families in the competition for preeminence. Lineage, wealth, and piety were among the most prominent. Throughout Libya's history, and especially during the period of the monarchy, family prominence and religious leadership became closely intertwined. Indeed, religious leadership tended to reside within selected family groupings throughout the country and to be passed successively from generation to generation. By the 1960s, local elites were still composed of individuals or families who owed their status to these same criteria. Local elites retained their position and legitimacy well into the mid-1970s, by which time the revolutionary government had attempted to dislodge them, often without success.
Rural social structures were tribally based, with the nomadic and seminomadic tribesmen organized into highly segmented units, as exemplified by the Sanusi of Cyrenaica (see The Sanusis , this ch.). Originally, tribe members had been nomads, some of the beduin tracing their origins to the Arabian Peninsula. Pride in tribal membership remained strong, despite the fact that many nomads had become sedentary. At the same time, tribally based social organization, values, and world view raised formidable obstacles to the creation of a modern nation-state, because there were virtually no integrative or unifying institutions or social customs on the national level.
In the mid-1970s, the nomads and seminomads who made up most of the effective tribal population were rapidly dwindling in numbers. Tent dwellers numbered an estimated 200,000 in 1973, less than 10 percent of the population, as compared with about 320,000 nomads in 1964. Most of them lived in the extreme north of the country.
By this time, the revolutionary government had come to look upon tribal organization and values as antithetical to its policies. Even Qadhafi, despite his beduin roots, viewed tribes as anachronistic and as obstacles to modernization. Consequently, the government sought to break the links between the rural population and its traditional leaders by focusing attention on a new elite--the modernizers who represented the new leadership. The countryside was divided into zones that crossed old tribal boundaries, combining different tribes in a common zone and splitting tribes in a manner that weakened traditional institutions and the force of local kinship. The ancient ascriptive qualifications for leadership--lineage, piety, wealth--gave way to competence and education as determined by formal examination.
Tribal leaders, however, scoffed at efforts encouraging members to drop tribal affiliations, and pride in tribal lineage remained strong. This was remarkable in light of the fact that many tribes had long ago shed their beduin trappings and had become agrarian villagers. In effect, the government had brought about the abolition of the tribal system but not the memories of tribal allegiance. According to a 1977 report, a survey of tribes had found that more than three-fourths of the members canvassed were still proud of their tribe and of their membership in it. Yet the attitude shown was a generally mild one; there was little opposition to the new programs and some recognition of the government's efforts on their behalf.
Individuals subordinated their personal interests to those of the family and considered themselves to be members of a group whose importance outweighed their own. Loyalty to family, clan, and tribe outweighed loyalty to a profession or class and inhibited the emergence of new leaders and a professional elite.
Marriage is more a family than a personal affair and a civil contract rather than a religious act. Because the sexes generally were unable to mix socially, young men and women enjoyed few acquaintances among the opposite sex. Parents arranged marriages for their children, finding a mate either through their own social contacts or through a professional matchmaker. Unions between the children of brothers were customarily preferred, or at least matches between close relatives or within the same tribe.
There are large numbers of Toubou tribesmen, many of whom are darker skinned than most Libyans, in and around Kufra. Many have lived in the area for decades and supported al-Qadhafi's regime during its periodic contretemps with Chad and Sudan. Some of the longer-term residents have obtained Libyan residency or citizenship; however, many have not and are considered Chadian by the GOL and other Libyan residents of Kufra. The number of Toubou and other Chadians in and around Kufra has increased markedly in recent years, prompted in part by violence in neighboring Darfur and Eastern Chad.
Mainstream and opposition media began reporting 04 November 2008 on clashes between Government of Libya (GOL) security forces and locals in and around the oasis town of Kufra, located in southeastern Libya near the borders with Egypt, Sudan and Chad. Business contacts with representative offices there confirmed that violent clashes had occurred, that large numbers of Government security forces were in and around the area, that significant damage was inflicted and that there were casualties. Opposition websites and media attributed this year's outbreak of violence (there were parallel clashes in 2006 and 2007) to efforts by the government to deny Toubou tribesmen identity and ration cards and access to schools and medical clinics. Alternatively, it was reported that clashes over disputed land on/about November 2 near Kufra between members of the Arab Zawiya tribe and the Toubou tribe (which includes Chadian and Libyan citizens) resulted in the death of several members of the Zawiya tribe, which subsequently retaliated, prompting GOL security forces to intervene.
Qadhafi prided himself on his initiatives with Tuareg tribes to persuade them to lay down arms and spurn cooperation with al-Qaeda elements in the border region.
