wheels within wheels in a tribal society:
Libya crisis: what role do tribal loyalties play?
excerpt:
...During Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule, Libya has made great strides socially and economically thanks to its vast oil income, but tribes and clans continue to be part of the demographic landscape.
Women in Libya are free to work and to dress as they like, subject to family constraints. Life expectancy is in the seventies. And per capita income - while not as high as could be expected given Libya’s oil wealth and relatively small population of 6.5m - is estimated at $12,000 (£9,000), according to the World Bank.
Illiteracy has been almost wiped out, as has homelessness - a chronic problem in the pre-Gaddafi era, where corrugated iron shacks dotted many urban centres around the country.
Tribal identity
However, the tribalism which dogged Libyan society during the monarchy is still very much a reality.
While many see the continued existence of tribalism as an obstacle to social mobility, equal opportunity and the development of civil society, its significance politically is less clear-cut.
Many Libyans continue to identify themselves as belonging to a tribe.
Gaddafi conducts some business from his tent - as a way of showing he is in touch with his cultural roots However, in reality tribal kinship has been on the wane due to the growth in education and urbanisation, which separated people from their traditional tribal areas and contributed to weakening their tribal affinity.
Col Gaddafi and his colleagues in the Free Unionist Officers had pledged to eliminate tribalism upon seizing power in 1969.
For the first ten years or so of his rule, tribal identification was officially frowned upon. During this time, Col Gaddafi could count on the support of most of the population.
His political credit was still high and in general, he had the backing of the army.
However, as his popularity diminished and as he began to fall out with his colleagues in the Free Unionist Officers corps - all but a handful of whom have now disappeared from public view - he relied increasingly on tribalism and tribal rivalry in order to consolidate his grip on power.
Tribalism and the armed forces
This has been most pronounced in the armed forces where each of the main tribes is represented.
Fostering rivalries among the various tribes in the army through selective patronage has not only strengthened his control over the military, but has also worked to draw attention away from Col Gaddafi and his regime.
Nowadays, tribal rivalries are evident within the armed forces, where Mr Gaddafi’s own tribe, the Qadhadfa, are pitted against Magariha - the tribe of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi - which are close to the Warfalla tribe, said to number one million people.
In turn, the Warfalla are close to Al-Zintan who hail from the town of Zintan, 75 miles south of Tripoli - one of the first towns in western Libya to join the present revolt against Mr Gaddafi...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12528996
Thanks Fred Nerks. It ain’t too pretty right now in Libya.