In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Origins of the Libyan Nation: Colonial Legacy, Exile and the Emergence of a New Nation-State
  • Jacques Roumani (bio)
The Origins of the Libyan Nation: Colonial Legacy, Exile and the Emergence of a New Nation-State, by Anna Baldinetti. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. $130.

Situated in a strategic position on the Mediterranean between the Arab East and the Maghrib, Libya's small population has struggled for the past century to define itself as a nation and avoid being defined by others.

The first country in North Africa to achieve independence (in 1951), Libya muddled along as a federal system under a constitutional monarchy until it was overthrown in 1969 by the Qadhafi revolution. The fragile monarchical system, brokered through the United Nations, had survived serious challenges but ultimately failed to [End Page 339] transcend entrenched tribal loyalties and regional animosities between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, or to appease its restless young population — resentful of the monarchy's conservative Arab policies and its passivity in the face of increasing oil-induced socioeconomic disparities and corruption. The new Libyan state failed, according to Professor Anna Baldinetti, because it was an "artificial" (p. 6) construct — the product of disjointed internal political development under colonial rule (1911-1945) and postwar Western hegemony. She calls attention to an alternative and more coherent vision that was side stepped. Calling for a united Libyan nation with an authentic Libyan identity, this vision was nurtured externally by more modern-minded political activists who went in exile in Cairo and Damascus since the waning of local colonial resistance in the late 1920s. They became involved with pan-Arab nationalist activities, formed Libyan associations and literary circles, and published pamphlets throughout the 1930s and 1940s to advance their cause. On the eve of independence, they succeeded in forming political parties and participating in negotiations about Libya's future.

Baldinetti's important and well-documented book focuses on the role of these exiled nationalists in the emergence of modern Libya and fills a crucial gap in Western literature on the origins and formation of the Libyan nation-state. It should be noted though that in terms of traditional historiography, Arabic sources, cited extensively in the book, do provide detailed coverage of the subject. But Baldinetti offers a novel approach, applying a modernist perspective on these "diaspora" nationalists as preeminent promoters of "an imagined community," a concept articulated by Benedict Anderson (1983 and 2006) that emphasizes psychological transformations of individual and collective identities brought about by political and social change, the spread of literacy, and a new cultural discourse on the meaning and future of the "nation." Claiming to supersede older views of nation-building, this perspective has stimulated a rethinking of nationalism in recent research on the Middle East and North Africa.

In the case of Libya, Baldinetti's study places the "imagined community" as the main source and backbone of Libyan nationalism. It can be argued, however, that its basic components — the quest for unity, independence, pan-Islam, and pan-Arabism — had begun to develop after the first encounter with harsh colonial policies in 1911-1915. They became clearer after disengagement from the Ottomans in the aftermath of the Arab Revolt and World War I. Essentially reactive and undifferentiated, Libyan unity did materialize for a short historic moment in 1915, when Islamic solidarity and defense of homeland prompted key Tripolitanian leaders to join the Sanusi leader of Cyrenaica in repelling the Italian invaders to a few coastal areas. Then, between 1916 and 1922, the union splintered, as Sanusis and Tripolitanians parted ways, the latter creating, despite much factional conflict, the short-lived Tripolitanian Republic in 1918, and the former establishing a viable Arab emirate under young Idris. Besides the split, a structural imbalance between a big but fragmented Tripolitania and a smaller but cohesive Sanusi Cyrenaica emerged as a further barrier to unity, at times mitigated by overarching Islamic solidarity. A desperate push for independence spurred another attempt at unity in late 1922 at the behest of Tripolitanian leaders who sought the extension of Idris's emirate over all of Libya to better deal with deteriorating colonial conditions. A new fascist campaign of military pacification after...

pdf

Share