OnIslam.net

TRIPOLI – Repressed for years under Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s Islamists are carving out a place in politics in the post-revolution era more rapidly than other political groups.

"I believe that we are the biggest organized group in Libya,” Mohamed Abdul Malek, a senior official of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood, told Reuters.

“But we are not very large (in membership). We do have a larger following within the Libyan people who are not members."

Islamists were aggressively repressed under Gaddafi’s 42-year rule.

The fallen leader called Islamists "heretics" and worked energetically to silence them.

Hundreds, if not thousands, were jailed, and an unknown number were executed.

In 1987, Gaddafi authorized state television to broadcast the hanging of six suspected Islamists in front of a crowd at a sports stadium.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a variety of armed Islamist groups tried and failed to topple Gaddafi.

And in the 2011 war that finally ousted the strongman, Islamist fighters fought in guerrilla groups that played important roles in the taking of Tripoli and other major towns.

After Gaddafi’s ouster, time is ripe now for long-repressed Islamists to play a role in post-revolution politics.

Away from the headlines, Islamists are now working on forming alliances, discussing manifestos and priorities and learning the art of writing press releases.

Other secularist parties outside of the interim administration appear to be much less skilled in these political arts because Gaddafi banned both political parties and elections, and so there is a void of experience.

"Islamists will be a very important factor in a post-Gaddafi Libya because they have support on the ground and a long history in opposing the old regime," said Omar Ashour, a lecturer in North African politics at Britain's Exeter University.

He said the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been active in Libya at least since the 1950s and Libyans affiliated to the now defunct Islamic Martyrs Movement of Benghazi, and to a leading family in its leadership, the el-Hami, remained respected and influential.

Exclusion

But Islamists are complaining that they are being sidelined by the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC).

"The Libyan people have been underground. No Libyan had the chance of exposure,” said Abdul Malek.

“Now we see the NTC come and take the spotlight."

Islamists say that the NTC is keeping Islamic groups at arm's length and dominating the political stage to please Western powers worried about the rise of Islamists in post-Gaddafi Libya.

Abdul Malek said that from the outset of the NTC's existence in February and March, it "had excluded the Muslim Brotherhood, even through the Brotherhood members were in every local council of the major cities of Libya."

The Brotherhood official, who is in charge of ties with the West, suggested that NTC leaders had been high-handed in their dealings with his colleagues and forgotten that they were only a temporary administration pending democratic elections.

"Islamists, liberals, socialists, communists, whoever, as long as they are Libyans, they have the right to act for the future of Libya through a democratic process,” he said.

“But they have been trying to keep us away. They have been using a policy of exclusion just like Gaddafi.

"We would like to sit down with them and with anyone and try to work out a program where we can all participate but within an atmosphere of democracy and inclusion."

Asked to give an example of the NTC exceeding its mandate, Abdul Malek noted that the de facto president, NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil, said in a speech in Tripoli this month that Islamic Shari`ah should be the main basis of legislation in post-Gaddafi Libya.

"I agree with him wholeheartedly, There is nothing dearer to me than to see Shari`ah law implemented in Libya," said Abdul Malek, adding he respected Abdel Jalil and believed he was honest and sincere.

But, he said, "Even though I agree with him, I think it is not up to him to say that. I think he should have said that he would like to see Shari`ah law being implemented.

"Why I want that is because I don't want anyone coming and saying Shari`ah law has been imposed upon us. I think it should be chosen by the people."

Mohamed Salem al-Omaish, a co-founder of the February 17 Movement that helped foment the uprising against Gaddafi and also an activist in the affiliated al-Etilaf movement in Tripoli, said the NTC should be "inclusive" and refrain from dictating the output of its official media.

The February 17 members have criticized the presence in the NTC of secularists and technocrats and former Gaddafi officials, suggesting they are Libya's old guard.

The Brotherhood's Malek said that there was "a debate within our ranks at the moment about how to compete in the future."

The movement might become a political party or might create an affiliated party outside its own ranks, he said.

But, Abdul Malek said, it was important to note that the Brotherhood had practiced internal democratic elections for many years.