Hobbes’s Leviathan: Leviathanic Elements in The Rule of Qaddafi of Libya

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Introduction:

This essay talks about the Leviathan elements in the rule of Qaddafi of Libya, this essay divide into several parts first part talks about what is Libya country, and Qaddafi in power in 42 years, and third part talks about leviathan, Thomas Hobbes view on Libya, and in another part talks about the Arab spring in Libya when and how started and in other part talks about Libya after Qaddafi because after Qaddafi the civil war began in Libya, which dividing Libya into two government and in the last part talks about critical of Leviathan in Libya because Leviathan said the government and forces should protect the people and protesters.

Body:

1-Libya country:

For centuries, Libya had been under foreign rule until it gained independence in 1951 soon after the discovery of oil, the country gained enormous wealth, colonel Gaddafi seized power in 1969 and ruled for forty-two years (BBC, 2019). he adopted his own political system a combination of capitalism and Islam which he called the Third International Theory. To see himself as a member of the movement in 1970s for ten years, he used oil funds to spread his agenda beyond Libya, including helping subversives and extremists abroad to accelerate Communism and capitalism’s end after Libyan military adventures collapsed and Libyan support for terrorism deteriorated following the implementation of UN sanctions in 1992 in April 1999, these sanctions were suspended, ( One World Nations Online, n.d. ) until he was overthrown in 2011 after an armed rebellion backed by Western military action ( BBC, 2019).

2-Qaddafis 42 years in power:

Qaddafi’s first business order was to shut down Libya’s American and British military bases, he also demanded that Libya’s foreign oil companies share a larger share of the country’s revenue. Qaddafi replaced the Gregorian with the Islamic calendar and banned the sale of alcohol and power was shared by himself and a small group of associates, Qaddafi’s inner circle of trusted people became smaller and smaller and his intelligence agents were traveling around the world in order to intimidate and assassinate exiled Libyans, Qaddafi sought to orient Libya away from the West and toward the Middle East and Africa during these early days, in several foreign conflicts including in Egypt and Sudan, he involved the Libyan military, and the bloody civil war in Chad In the mid-1970s, Qaddafi released the first volume of the Green Book, an outline of his political philosophy, having appointed himself or his close family and friends to all positions of power, and their repression and crackdown on any kind of public activity meant that a large part of the population lived in poverty, also Qaddafis notoriety having ruling style was not only oppressive, it was eccentric, he had a frame of female bodyguards in his heels, considered himself the king of Africa, built a tent to stay when he was traveling abroad, and dressed in strange costume-like outfits, his bizarre antics often distracted him from his aggression, earning him the Middle East mad dog’s nickname. In contrast to his oppressive domestic rule, much of the international community hated Gaddafi, his government has been involved in funding numerous anti-Western groups around the world, including some plots of terror and This is alleged that the Irish Republican Army had ties with Gaddafi and the United Kingdom has cut off diplomatic relations with Libya for more than a decade because of the regime’s links to Irish terrorism (Biography, 2017).

3-Hobbes’s Leviathan:

Leviathan’s thinking about politics and society Hobbes suggested that one of anarchy is the natural basic state of humanity, with the strong dominating the weak. He said that life was lonely, poor, nasty, brutal and short for most people, our only natural right, therefore, is self-preservation. Hobbes suggested that people should ‘ contract ‘ with a guardian as their sovereign to eliminate the essential fear between individuals or groups, Individuals give up all rights under this social contract, while those of the protector are absolute. However, he did not believe in God’s right. The key point of Hobbes was that by specific agreement with their subjects there was any protector and he had already developed many of the ideas in Leviathan when Hobbes fled to Paris at the beginning of the conflict in 1642, reflections on a structured constitution raised questions about individual rights, originally, they concentrated on who was allowed to vote, but the People’s Agreement of 1649 also raised issues such as freedom of worship, fair trials, and law-abiding punishment and justice, also according to impact of Leviathan Hobbes concept of a social contract was taken up by others who established it in different directions And is now recognized as a cornerstone of Western political philosophy particularly in his ideas of a ruler and ruled’ social contract (Thomas Hobbes, 1651).

4-Libyas Thomas Hobbes:

Libya descends into anarchy, once again the importance of the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes comes to the fore, Hobbes portrays the state as a giant monster holding a sword and scepter a symbol of central government authority in his book, The Leviathan, This Leviathan representing the prestige of the state was Gen, and Gaddafi in the case of Libya, where he was made the de facto government and parliament respectively by his absolute authority, after the overthrow of Gaddafi, Libya gradually became an ungoverned country, an inevitable result of 42 years of authoritarian rule, also Due to the lack of strong institutions and the emergence of multiple armed non-state actors with intertwined interests, filling the vacuum would seem obvious after his death, nonetheless, for somewhat similar reasons, neither the local nor the foreign investors are able to resume such a major role, and NATO’s 2011 air campaign was a clear indication of the reluctance of the international community to intervene in Libya ( Berriwen, 2015).

5-Leviathan and Libya:

Just now, Thomas Hobbes would have liked to be in Libya, but for a while hes been dead, indeed, since 1679, Hobbes published Leviathan in 1651, one of the most important and influential books in political philosophy ever published, almost everyone at least knows something about Leviathans central idea: the social contract through which individuals in a (state of nature) negotiate political establishment and governance for the individual, under unrest that have become effectively a civil war, the Libyan state and Muammar Gaddafi’s government are disintegrating, and the anti-Gaddafi rebels are trying to set up an alternative government in the areas they control and then, if they succeed in moving Gaddafi out, ultimately for the whole country, so the king was executed and the republic was established under the rule of Oliver Cromwell, the same Cromwell who made Jamaica an English colony by sending Admiral Penn and General Venables to conquer West Indies territory, and according to Hobbes, the hypothetical state of nature would be a state of continuous war hereby it is clear that during the time when men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in a condition called war; and a war like that of every man against every man (Henry and Writer, 2019).

6- Gaddafis legacy plagues chaotic Libya:

Exactly four years after the capture and killing of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown, his legacy of misrule continues in his unruly nation, only now, with apparently no political solution in sight, it is worse, as well as ignoring the exhortations, the parliament based in Tobruk, eastern Libya, refused to sign the treaty, adding that the UN had refused to exclude amendments proposed by the Tripoli-based Islamist authorities, The Islamist-led government in Libya’s capital issued a statement on the western side of Libya’s coastal highway stating that the deal (would lead to further complications), under the peculiar and quixotic form of governance of Gaddafi, the North African country was a Jamahiriya a decentralized state in which traditional governments were abolished and replaced by so-called local self-governance committees, in reality, however, all power rested with the autocrat of Libya, who declared himself the Guide to the Revolution (JACINTO, 2015).

7_Revolution in Libya 2011:

On 15 February 2011, demonstrators angry at the detention of a human rights lawyer, Fethi Tarbel, organized anti-government protests in Banghz+. The people who participated in protests wanted to step down Qaddafi and freedom for political prisoners, Libyan security forces used water cannons against the protesters and rubber bullets, involved in an amount of injuries, a pro-government rally sponsored by the Libyan authorities was broadcast on state television to address the demonstrations, as the demonstrations escalated, with protesters taking control of Banghz+ and violence spreading to Tripoli, the Libyan government started to use lethal force against protesters, security forces and paramilitary teams fired live ammunition on protest crowds. Demonstrators were also targeted by tanks and artillery and warplanes and helicopter gunships from the air, the regime has limited communications, blocked the Internet, and disrupted telephone service across the country. One of Qaddafis sons, Sayf al-Islam, gave a defiant address on state television on February 21, blaming the unrest on outside agitators and warning that further protests could lead to the country’s civil war, he vowed to fight ‘to the last bullet’ by the military. Qaddafi provided a furious, rambling speech on state media on February 22, condemning the demonstrators as traitors and calling on his followers to fight against them (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2011).

8_ critical of Leviathan:

In Libya, as in Rwanda, Biafra and the Congo, as well as other examples outside Africa, the question of humanitarian intervention has been liked to civil wars almost always, The advocates for involvement and the responsibility to protect claim that it is the international community’s duty to protect minorities from the abuse of those who control the state and its military power in conflicts, is it appropriate to mobilize Libyan and Iraqi troops to protect them from police and military response? When we believe that the Lincoln and Cameron administrations had a common man-date to maintain the nation’s territorial integrity and the rule of law, then it is up to us to decide when there is a civil war in which a weaker party needs to be protected from warring states (Everill and Kaplan, 2013).

9_Libya after Gaddafi:

NATO and a number of Arab and other countries backed a rebel overthrow of Libya’s long-standing dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the intervening powers abruptly wrapped up military operations when Qaddafi was killed in October, responsibility for coordinating post-conflict stabilization support has been given to a small UN mission, the essential tasks of building security, building political and administrative institutions, and restarting the economy were left to Libya’s new leaders almost entirely, at best, the outcome of this very limited international approach was lackluster. Libya has fallen back on a number of critical post-conflict fronts, jihadist groups have made inroads, and there is still room for this newly liberated nation to collapse into a civil war once again, while Libyas fate is largely in Libyans own hands, foreign players could have done more to help and could still take steps to prevent further degradation of Libya itself and the wider region (Chivvis and Martini, 2014)

Conclusion:

This essay talked about the Leviathan elements in the rule of Qaddafi of Libya, this essay divide into several parts first part talks about what is Libya country , Libya gained independence in 1951 soon after the discovery of oil, the country gained enormous wealth, colonel Gaddafi seized power in 1969, and Qaddafi in power in 42 years most people called dictator, and third part talks about leviathan Leviathan’s thinking about politics and society Hobbes suggested that one of anarchy is the natural basic state of humanity, Thomas Hobbes view on Libya gradually became an ungoverned country, an inevitable result of 42 years of authoritarian rule, and in another part talks about the Arab spring in Libya when and how started and in other part talks about Libya after Qaddafi because after Qaddafi the civil war began in Libya, which dividing Libya into two government and in the last part talks about critical of Leviathan in Libya because Leviathan said the government and forces should protect the people and protesters.

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