Libya's Islamic Capitalists
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 26 September 2011
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Under Colonel Gaddafi, Libya was subject to the dictator's so-called Third Universal Theory. Hugh Miles asks what sort of ideology is likely to dominate in post-Gaddafi Libya.
Western media have been keeping a close eye on Libya's governing National Transitional Council, and there have been warnings about splits between Islamists and secularists, and about Libya's tribal society. But, as Hugh Miles discovers, amongst Libya's new ruling class there is broad consensus about support for one ideology: capitalism.
Gaddafi's idiosyncratic economic and political philosophy fused elements of socialism and Islam. The suppression of free markets was at times taken to bizarre extremes with, at one point, the banning of the entire retail sector. Support for capitalism is perhaps a reaction to the years in which entrepreneurship was suppressed.
Hugh Miles looks at the background of the new rulers and asks how Libyan Islamic capitalism might work.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
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| 0:35.4 | Sounds. |
| 0:36.4 | Thank you for listening to this podcast of Analysis. |
| 0:39.8 | In this edition, with Colonel Gaddafi gone, Hugh Miles asks if Libya could transform itself into an Islamic |
| 0:46.6 | capitalist model for the entire Middle East. |
| 0:50.6 | Imagine a country where the whole retail sector had been banned. |
| 0:55.0 | No shops or market stalls, no cafes or restaurants. |
| 1:00.0 | Well, that was Libya under Colonel Gaddafi in the 1980s. His policies forced the population |
| 1:08.1 | into a constant hunt for food. As the child of a British diplomat posted there at the time, I remember the family having |
| 1:16.5 | to import basic supermarket goods from England and growing mushrooms in a dark back bedroom. |
| 1:23.0 | But now the revolution is here, |
| 1:30.0 | and Gaddafi's bizarre ideology has been swept into the dustbin of history. |
| 1:36.5 | What will replace it? |
| 1:38.4 | Islamism or secularism, tribalism or nationalism. Those are the sort of divisions we're used to hearing Western commentators fret about. |
| 1:47.0 | Perhaps though, that's missing the point. |
| 1:50.0 | Islam may unite Libya's new leaders, and it turns out there's another ideology they're inspired |
| 1:57.1 | by two. |
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