Civil war in Libya

It would be fair to say that when it came to managing the affairs of state, Muammar Gaddafi has done it his way. Always surrounded by a phalanx of stunning female bodyguards - largely for show: the real bodyguards look more like Mafia hit men - attended to by Ukrainian nurses who apparently have had, shall we say, a practical education in the functions of the human body, he has not built institutions so much as networks.

Gaddafi developed a highly personalised style of rule, based largely on managing the various tribal divisions in Libyan society by the means of patronage. Needless to say, in the midst of revolt, the country has fragmented along the lines of these networks. Once the wave of protest swept on to Libyan shores, there were no real national institutions to manage a transition. The regime more or less fragmented, and various armed -force commanders took one side or the other. Now, the country has settled into a stalemate, with fairly clear front lines. This is not so much a national uprising, as a civil war.

Bloody conflict

The eventual victor is not yet clear. What does seem obvious is that the conflict will likely be protracted, and possibly quite bloody. And unlike in Tunisia or Egypt, where there was never a serious chance the country could break up, Libya could become ungovernable as a result of the unrest.

In that respect, the Libyan 'revolution', if such it can be called, will not follow in the footsteps of those in Tunisia and Egypt. There, more-developed civil societies have, through popular mobilisation, pressed for change on the part of well-developed political and military elite. Whether what will result in those countries is real transformation, or merely cosmetic change, remains the topic of some speculation.

In Egypt, although the military is clearly trying to maintain control of the transition, retaining its dominating influence on the country's politics in the process, there are some signs that popular pressure is having an effect. Yet, the cast of characters driving the change remain, like in Tunisia, largely the same. That is why protesters remain on the streets, because they know that if complacency settles over them, the odds are that the regimes that result from their uprisings will be little different than those they started with.

In Libya, a more likely outcome than regime change is regime collapse. Were Gaddafi and his family to go, there would be no apparent successors with a national base of support, and no institutions to manage the change. A more likely outcome would be the sort of ad hoc arrangements, based on factional and tribal alliances, of the sort we already see emerging in rebel-held areas. And any idea of a democratic Libya remains an even more distant dream than it is in Tunisia and Egypt.

The haste of former friends of Gaddafi to fall over themselves renouncing their ties is a little unseemly, just because it seems so hypocritical. Wasn't it just last month that Gaddafi was the former pariah who, having sown his wild oats and then asked for forgiveness, was welcomed back into the community of nations? With his billions of dollars in largesse and immense oil reserves, everyone wanted him at their party.

The bet that has been placed on the rebels may prove to be premature. Nonetheless, at the moment, it looks unlikely Gaddafi can emerge from this conflict as anything more than the leader of a rump country. And for as long as the stand-off continues, world oil markets - already strained by the rising demand in Asia - will remain volatile.

Libya may seem a long way away. But every time we stop to fill up our cars at the pumps, we are reminded how the actions of protesters in village squares affect our daily lives as well.

John Rapley is the Bradlow fellow at the South African Institute of International Affairs. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and rapley.john@gmail.com.