A Light Rising in the East

Not What We Meant, At All

We fear the inane ignorance of the Western Commentariat is about to be exposed once again.  The prevailing narrative in the West is that a tyrant has been defeated in Libya.  The people of Libya will now speak up and a true democracy will emerge.  The sub-text--hinted at, but never quite stated overtly--is that Libya will now become a secular state, with a separation of church and state, a non-religious public square, and a deep devotion to Western conceptions of human rights. 

Let's grant for the moment that Libya will become democratic in the sense that the people will ultimately control the government.
  Let's assume that the tribalism which has riven the "country" for centuries uncounted will somehow fade away, to be replaced by a one man-one vote principle that it regarded as more foundational, more axiomatic to national life than tribal loyalties.  Let's assume that the people will truly rule.  That's the best that the Commentariat long for and assume will come to pass.  Hence their jubilation at the expiration of the Ghaddafi regime. 

What they have conveniently forgotten is that Libya is an Islamic society.  Ghaddafi maintained his authoritarian control as an Islamic leader via his tribally loyal secret police.  The new government will endeavour to exert authoritarian control--for Islam is always authoritarian in all its societal forms--via the "will of the people".  What this almost certainly means (assuming the country does not break up into a state of internecine tribal warfare) is an establishment of Sharia law. 

Christians and Jews will be subjugated and persecuted.  Christian converts will be killed.  Honour killings will become accepted practice.  Hatred of the West will be manifest. 

The Commentariat will either feel betrayed, or they will pass by in embarrassed silence.  But they will never learn.  They will continue to cling to their pathetic household gods of spurious human rights no matter what--for without them, the entire Western edifice comes crumbling down. 

Libyan transitional leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil   has already told us what the "new Libya" will be like. 

The transitional government leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil set out a vision for the post-Gadhafi future with an Islamist tint, saying that Islamic Sharia law would be the “basic source” of legislation in the country and that existing laws that contradict the teachings of Islam would be nullified.  In a gesture that showed his own piety, he urged Libyans not to express their joy by firing in the air, but rather to chant “Allahu Akbar,“ or ”God is Great.” He then stepped aside and knelt to offer a brief prayer of thanks.

An "Islamist tint".   Just the odd bit of terrorism, honour killing, and Jew-hating.  Nothing serious.

Meanwhile, the West resembles more and more the sterile, effete, incompetent, inert, indecisive Prufrock: "That is not what I meant at all.  That is not it, at all."