Reply #6: ANALYSIS-In Libya's new politics, localism may trump tribes

[pinboy3niner]

Fri Sep 23, 2011 1:12pm GMT

• Tribes loom large in society, but not politics

• Gaddafi manipulated tribes, magnifying rifts

• Tribes growing weaker as Libyans flock to towns


By William Maclean


TRIPOLI, Sept 23 (Reuters) - "No To Tribalism," declare the now tattered posters put up by rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi, a defiant riposte to an Arab autocrat who magnified tribal cleavages with a policy of divide and rule.

But rebels also daubed walls with the place names "Misrata" "Zintan" and "Zawiya", suggesting that loyalty to hometown will be a far more potent force than kinship in post-Gaddafi Libya.

Nursing bitter memories of tribal manipulation, Gaddafi's immediate successors are working to give a technocratic gloss to their caretaker administration and minimise the influence of ancient kinship ties in the emerging political landscape.

Libyans, diplomats and political analysts say this effort may be pushing at an open door. The country's scores of tribes carry weight in Libyan society, but less so in its politics, an activity dominated by an urban elite more attuned to provincial roots than blood relations.

Unlike in Yemen or Iraq, tribal leaders in Libya tend not to be household names, in part because Gaddafi worked assiduously over decades, like the Italian colonialists of the early 20th century, to sap their power by playing off one against the other.

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http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFL5E7KN2DI20...