By Nasr H. Anaizi
On the eve of the general elections the mood in Benghazi is decidedly subdued in contrast to the . . .[restrict]election euphoria in Tripoli.
One outstanding issue at the basis of this contrast is the unequal distribution of seats in the National Assembly, which is an elected legislative body with well defined agenda but with a limited range of authorities.
In order to overcome this issue without actually starting from square one and perhaps to drown the discordant notes played all over the cities of Cyrenaica many in Western Libya are singing conciliatory tunes to the effect that they really don’t care about having more seats in the N. Assembly or dominating its agenda.
They say what they really want is for Benghazi and the rest of Cyrenaica to be happily part of one unified Libya. In other words, instead of equality and fairness, Cyrenaica should be content with expressions of good will and national love on the part of the people of Tripolitania.
Libyans in Benghazi and the rest of Cyrenaica, once again, are in effect being asked to settle for second class status.
What people in Western Libya should realize and fully comprehend is that after the dust has partially settled in the wake of the Feb 17th revolution their fellow Libyans in the East were shocked to the core by the discriminatory behavior of the members of the transitional government as expressed by various decisions dealing with allocationn of budgets and opportunities of manpower development such training and higher education.
For instance, the minister of higher education (al Gheriani) had no qualms nor pangs of conscious allocating only 11% of higher education scholarships to the young Cyrenaicans.
Similar disregard for regional fairness was shown even more starkly by the minister of interior who will forever be remembered for threatening the people of Cyrenaica with “the force of arms and bloodshed”.
Such highly unexpected behavior led the people of Cyrenaica to realize that what they have been subjected to during the past 42 years was not solely the policy of Ghaddafi, his clan, and their allies (in Sirte, BaniWalid, Tawargha, Tarhuna, etc.), but was a discriminatory attitude deeply established in the Tripoli-based (centralized) government offices and beyond.
Rhetoric and slogans alone will not solve the problem of regional disparity and unfair practices at all levels of the government administration. People who are truly concerned about national unity should concentrate their efforts on combating injustice and regional discrimination and shaming those in position of power who continue to practice discrimination and pretend they don’t know about it.
Keeping a blind eye and maintaining silence about this critical issue is in my estimation a moral failure that will not go unnoticed and will certainly lead to a widening East-West divide and major upheavals for year to come.
Dr. Nasr Anaizi is a Libyan expatriate living in exile in the US ‘since being driven out of Libya by Gaddafi’s Revolutionary Committees & more directly by Ahmad Ibrahim’.
He was the chairman of the Physiology Department at al Arab Medical University (Benghazi School of Medicine). He is currently a pharmacist and an adj. associate professor of Pharmacology & Physiology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry in the USA. [/restrict]
