We cannot fathom the real results of Libya's July 7 election until the elected independents form a governing coalition with party members in the coming weeks (120 seats were reserved for independents, 80 for party members). But the nearly universal surprise amongst the commentariat at the resounding success of the most moderate, Western-friendly parties in Libya's first free nationwide election invites a reconsideration of how we think successful democracies come about.
Despite much courage and sacrifice, our efforts to plant liberal institutions in the Near East have often been frustrated by a lack of democratic mores. A culture is not changed overnight.
If Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America is to be believed, the hopeful prospects for democracy in Libya go well beyond the success of this election. Justly famous for predicting the dominance of the United States, Tocqueville's analysis reveals a startling pattern that should make us pay very close attention to what is now occurring in the wake of Libya's homegrown revolution.
Tocqueville's 700 pages can be distilled into eight elements he saw working together to make America something altogether new in world history. America had:
• Social equality
• The confluence rather than the opposition of liberty and religion
• Nationalism tempered by the pull of administrative decentralization
• A dynamic propensity for civic (sub-political) association
• A privileged role for women in family and civic life
• Respect for law; strong judges and lawyers
• Widespread education
• A rich geography unharried by neighbors
Libya, unique among countries of the Arab Spring, appears to have all these elements. It may well be far along the path to a flourishing democracy.
Equality: Aristotle recalls the tyrant's advice: Always cut off the tallest stalks. Tyrants maintain their power by making the people equal. Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year reign marked an absurd devotion to this rule. Fearing any who might become prominent in their own right, he commanded that influential citizens - ministers of state, representatives in the People's Union, even athletes - be referred to by numbers rather than by name! By enforcing so much equality, the tyrant Gaddafi unwittingly improved the local soil for the seeds of democracy.
Liberty and Religion: Like 18th Century Americans, Libyans are a deeply religious people. Unfortunately, news coverage that fits a precast narrative of religious fanaticism has left the wrong impression. Witness coverage of the June 7 demonstration in Benghazi's Freedom Square (where the revolution began). We saw pictures of 300 Kalashnikov-toting young men gathered from all corners of Libya waving the black flags of jihad, claiming that democracy is atheistic, insisting that only a government that enforces religion is legitimate. Check. It fits the narrative; end of coverage.
What wasn't widely reported was the locals' reaction to this demonstration: A spontaneous, social media-driven counter-demonstration that made the hard-liners go home. Freedom Square was flooded by thousands of Benghazis - many of them women in veils - who were horrified at this attempt to redefine their revolution and their religion. The counter-demonstrators were Muslims, too; they see Islam as compatible with free democracy. They appear to sense - like Tocqueville - that religion is ultimately more persuasive when it is not entwined with the power of the state.
Imagine the spectacle of hundreds of armed young militiamen turned away by the unarmed women and men of Benghazi! This was a teachable moment. It reveals the Libyan character in the wake of the revolution. Indeed, days before the election, Libya's top cleric went on TV to issue a fatwa instructing citizens not to vote for what he called "secular" parties. The overwhelming majority of Libyans promptly went out and ignored this advice.
Federalism: Commentators are making much of the pull between those who want central control and those who want local control, as if the latter is somehow a danger to Libya's future. But Tocqueville says that very tension caused Americans to hit upon a compromise that allowed the nationalization of many political questions but kept a vibrant local political participation - which in turn became the very school of democracy that sustained public spiritedness against the tendency of over-centralization to corrode civic association. The political situation suggests that Libyans may hit upon a similar compromise.
Civic Association: The most remarkable thing about the Libyan revolution is how decentralized it was. In the sudden absence of the state, Libyans spontaneously made things work. And not just militarily. They kept a complex water system pumping from the Sahara; they hacked into Gaddafi's cell network in the East to keep phone communications working; they created TV and other news outlets; they organized food distribution to the hungry. The list goes on.
Today's Libyans have a can-do, do-it-ourselves, pioneer culture that contrasts strongly with other places we could have hoped to find it. Maybe it emerges from the very character of their revolution, or maybe it allowed that revolution to happen. But in Baghdad and Kabul the attitude in the presence of a crumbled state was very different. In Tripoli they simply came together and made things work. Last year, political parties were illegal in Libya. This year, there were 142 parties standing candidates for the July 7 election, and 62 percent of registered voters turned out to vote - in spite of what turned out to be mostly empty threats of violence.
Women: The presence of women in Libyan public life is advancing at breakneck pace. Of 3,702 candidates who stood for election to the 200-member legislature, 625 are women - and 33 of them won. So Libya's new legislature is 17 perecent women - the same percentage as the U.S. Congress! Moreover, in the recent city council elections of Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city, the candidate who received the very most votes is a woman. This is a telling development, and I think it's fair to say that Tocqueville would be even more impressed with the dramatic influence of Libyan women in civic associations.
Law: Pure democracies have a bad habit of oppressing minorities; Tocqueville says that a robust legal community and respect for law are essential for protecting individual rights. The Libyan revolution grew out of a lawyers' protest; the transitional government was heavily influenced by those lawyers; and Libya's supreme court recently struck down a law made by that transitional government that would have jailed people for glorifying Gaddafi. And while much needs to be done to improve the rule of law, there are good signs that lawyers will be ready for their role in the new Libya.
Tocqueville makes much of America's private citizens' surprising tendency to come to the aid of the law. One of the most striking of many examples of Libyan courage - and lawfulness - occurred on election day in Benghazi, where there were some violent attempts to thwart the election. A group of unarmed men rushed in between the armed attackers and the polling center, linked arms, and created a human shield to protect the integrity of the electoral process from violent attack. Would you have been so quick to defend the rule of law?
Education: While 42 years of Gaddafi have certainly not been a boon for education in Libya, there is significant infrastructure in place. In fact, about 9 percent of the adult population attends university or technical college - slightly more than in the United States.
Geographic Wealth and Security: In addition to $160 billion in foreign assets frozen by international banks during the revolution, Libya holds 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, with a population of six million. Oil production is nearly back to pre-revolution levels, bringing in about $5 billion every month. And the countries around Libya are sufficiently occupied with their own problems that foreign aggression is unlikely, especially given the regional growth of NATO and the U.S. Africa Command, whose first kinetic operation was air and naval support for the Libyan revolution.
Thus, if Tocqueville were with us today, it seems he would be bullish on Libya for the same reasons that he correctly predicted the coming dominance of the United States. The signs are promising, but the question is whether they will turn out to be the dominant reality as Libya's newborn government struggles to its feet.
Of course there are great challenges for Libya: 200,000 armed, unemployed former revolutionaries desperately need to be given productive employment. The blessing of oil wealth tends to bring also a curse - welfare dependency and a lack of the economic diversification necessary to a vibrant society are very real obstacles that need to be overcome. The transitional government's decree lowering trade barriers is some evidence that Libya understands this.
What should the U.S. do? The first thing we should do is pay attention. The argument above is not a prediction - it's a hypothesis that needs testing. And it depends, of course, on what the Libyans ultimately choose to do to shape their future. Ultimately, American business can do more than American diplomacy to improve Libya's prospects for democracy.
But diplomacy can smooth the way: We should use diplomatic means to lower trade barriers and help Libya continue to recover its frozen assets. We can show ourselves faithful friends by helping them improve their medical capabilities in the wake of a bloody revolution, and by encouraging their growing civic association. And we can continue to improve the broad regional security that helps foster the stability needed for trade.
Continued U.S. military and NATO presence will help Africa's one billion people become a thriving market. Libya is particularly well poised to serve as a pan-Arab commercial hub, a gateway between Africa and Europe. That trade will help spread peace and prosperity not only throughout Libya, but throughout the whole Middle East-North Africa region.
If American business and diplomacy do their part, Libya may well become our best ally in the region. Libya may prosper without us; better yet if it prospers with us.