If what I am reading at Al Jazeera and the February 17th weblog of Libyan rebels is true, it appears the people of Libya have done something amazing and truly heroic — they have broken the back of the regime of Colonel Muammar Qaddafī and forced him to flee (though no one is for certain whether the Brother Leader has fled or not). It is true that protests and fighting have spread to the capital Tripoli, Libyans are chanting “There is no God but God and Qaddafī is the enemy of God,” and soldiers and army units are mutinying.
Libyan diplomats are resigning (one publicly during an interview) and the country’s top Islamic scholar has proclaimed publicly it is a religious duty to resist the regime.
It is one thing for Tunisians to topple a government with not much of an army, and another for Egyptians to take on a state where the loyalty of the army was uncertain (and largely pro-people). But the Libyans have taken on a state that was willing and able to shoot back (much like the shia of Bahrain), even to the point of using anti-aircraft guns and artillery against demonstrators, and it appears the people are succeeding. If they haven’t rid themselves of the odious Qaddafī tonight (this morning in Libya), it is very likely they will soon.
The implications of this are staggering. No regime in the region is now safe. No regime in the world is now safe. We live in a moment when “the people, united, cannot be defeated.” At least not when fighting for their dignity and their right to rule themselves. (It’s just pathetic when people chant that when fighting for “health care” or higher wages.) No state in the world is safe. People have shown that it is possible to face down the guns and prove the pointlessness of state power — of the kind of violence the state can bring to bear — when they are unafraid of that violence.
This is not the ushering in of libertarian paradise by any means. But it is the end of the kind of state that thought it could forever bully human beings into submission. Such states are brittle, and appear to break quickly. Not easily, but relatively quickly.
Finally, I am reminded of a quote from the TV series Firefly: “We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.”
5:00 pm on February 20, 2011
