Violence in Libya is Africa’s future; Protests in Egypt and Tunisia its past

We need to take a new hard look at the “Arab Revolt” in North Africa, and what it says about what is coming in Africa.

Pro-democracy demonstrators ended Tunisian dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali’s 23-year rule with about 10 days of protests.

They inspired the Egyptians, who took to the streets to end Hosni Mubarak’s 32-year stint at the top. The Egyptian dictator lasted longer than Ben Ali, about three weeks.

Then it was Libya’s turn. The nearly-deranged Col Muammar Gaddafi has proved that when a man has been an absolute ruler for 42 years, it takes some doing to run him out of town.

According to some estimates, Gaddafi’s supporters and army loyalists have murdered up to 3,000 opponents.

He has opened his armoury, and unleashed all the brutal force he can against the protesters’ machine-guns, grenades, tanks, naval ships, air force jets, name it.

Now the country is divided, with the dissidents holding the east and parts of the west, and Gaddafi fighting to take them back.

The viciousness of the regime means that the rebels will fight to the death to hold the territories under their control, because they know what will happen to them if Gaddafi defeats them. His regime will simply slaughter them.

Unlike Tunisia and Egypt, Gaddafi will take longer to uproot. Secondly, and more importantly, if he survives for long, Libya will end up a divided country.

There is sweet irony here, because last year, Gaddafi enraged Nigerians by saying that the solution to the country’s periodic bouts of killings between the largely Muslim north and Christian south was to divide the country.

What we are witnessing in Libya is the more natural outcome of Africa’s sectarian, violent and corrupt politics. What happened in Tunisia and Egyptian now seems to have been a fluke.

Why do we say that? If you look around you, the main grievances of political groups in Africa are mainly three:

First, that their regions (or tribes) are marginalised or neglected by the central government.

Secondly, that they are brutalised, raped and killed with impunity by security forces. Therefore, they don’t receive justice.

Thirdly, that they face discrimination in government jobs and tenders.

Whenever groups organise around these issues and it becomes their main consciousness, they are usually likely to push for separation or autonomy as a solution.

We have just seen that with the separation and independence of South Sudan from the bigger Sudan.

In Kenya, you find the same tensions between the Coastal and Northeast provinces and Nairobi.

In Zimbabwe, the Robert Mugabe regime has arrested Ndebele secessionists.

In Cameroon, the southern English-speaking bit wants out. In DR Congo, the divide between the east and west is sharp.

In South Africa, the differences between Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and Western Cape Province are enough for them to be different countries.

Somalia has broken up into Puntland, Somaliland, and the far more chaotic south.

Therefore, the Libyan divide that is partly based on ethnicity and regions is more “natural”.

Which raises the question: Is what happened in Tunisia and Egypt the beginning or the end?

Many commentators have argued that Egypt and Tunisia are coming to the rest of Africa. Maybe not.

Both countries are on the way to having relatively more democratic governments, without a centre in Tunis and Cairo that had the power of the old dictatorships.

It is possible, then, that the next round of protests in Tunisia and Egypt could be based around regional agitation because a less tyrannical regime allows that kind of contest.

In that sense, Tunisia and Egypt are the beginning, not the end. Libya, on the other hand, is the end. It could be the future of the African countries that will fail to reform and democratise enough in the coming years, and discourage the growth of entrenched regional and tribal grievances that will result in separation.

Indeed, if Libya is to split, then the brutality of Gaddafi is a historical necessity, because it leaves a divided Libya as the only solution to the country’s crisis.

cobbo@ke.nationmedia.com