A native of Benghazi and a prominent figure from the Libyan region of Cyrenaica, Mohamed Khalil bin Saoud was born into a well-established family in 1957. He graduated from the Department of History at Garyounis University (now the University of Benghazi) in 1987 and was appointed minister of information by Libyan prime minister Ali Zeidan in 2013, serving in that position until 2015. Mohamed Khalil bin Saoud was a prominent critic of the former Gaddafi regime in Libya and an energetic participant in the country's 17 February Revolution. He founded and headed the political bureau of the February Coalition and served as a member of its crisis committee. In April 2011, he founded the National Democratic Party, the first party created after the formation of the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC). In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, he discusses his experience as minister of information in Libya and his views on the current crisis in the country and the prospects for a solution.
You served as Libya's minister of information from 2013 to 2015, a critical period in the history of the country. What were the challenges you encountered and what were you able to accomplish? I was put in charge of an establishment that had totally collapsed after the February Revolution, as had the military and security establishments. This was my main challenge. There were no media or information agencies under the authority of the state. Everything had been occupied. We had to rebuild everything anew, from the television and broadcasting institutions to the press. We began to establish new television channels and a state-supervised national media that sought to promote a national discourse that was intended to reunify the Libyan people under the banner of diversity of opinion in a country where higher national interests prevail over all. The government's term came to an end before we could complete that project.
What do you think stands in the way of forming a stable government in Libya? Is the problem primarily political or social? I don't think the problem is social. All Libyans want to see the revival of their country as an independent sovereign nation. Ideology is what has divided the people. Libyan society has not grown accustomed to the diversity of opinion, especially of ideas imported from abroad that are fed by Arab and other regional powers that back this or that political faction inside Libya. Libya needs a chance for its people to pull together without outside intervention. Then a solution could be found quickly. There might be some social problems, especially in parts of the country that regard over-centralisation as an obstacle to the just distribution of wealth and adequate government attention to their needs. This is only natural for a country as large as Libya with its far-flung population. The former regime was never able to overcome this problem despite its long period of rule. It never brought to bear any of the contemporary means of local government, e-government, or modern communications networks.
Libya has been swept by an identity crisis since February 2011. What is the nature of this crisis, and how can it be resolved? Libya celebrated its independence on 24 December, and I draw inspiration from that. It was a time when there were statesmen who took it upon themselves to unite all Libyans in the name of a single identity and allegiance to a government for all. That concept and that vision were the most important reasons why Libya won its independence and why a single Libyan identity within a single Libyan nation could prevail. We are not suffering from an identity crisis today. All the rival factions in the country agree that Libya is one indivisible nation. The differences between them have to do with centralised government and the equitable distribution of government action within the country. It is a difference that requires a search for a type of system that will achieve the desired fairness. As I mentioned earlier, the application of modern technology and the expansion of transport and communications networks in Libya are crucial here. Such technologies will shrink the country's geographical expanse and shorten the distances between its people. That was never done under the former regime, which imposed a heavily centralised totalitarian order. With the fall of that regime, demands for the equitable distribution of government action have erupted from parts of the country that were harmed by that formerly centralised order.
As a former minister of information, how would you sum up the situation of the Libyan media? There are no problems with the Libyan media because as yet there is no Libyan media. Libya has no national radio or television stations, and it does not even have any national newspapers. As I said before, when I took office the old media establishment had totally collapsed. We tried to build a new national media. We drew up a bill for the media and designed a comprehensive plan that we submitted to the cabinet and to the General National Congress, the legislature at the time. But we were unable to follow through on this project because these bodies' terms and legitimacy had come to an end. What we find today in Libya are private TV channels, each speaking in the name of those who fund them. You could call them media “shops” or media “militias,” but you can't call them a national Libyan media. Our hope and plan had been to create a new national media that would be able to compete with the privately-owned media. We did not have enough time to see it through, however. The project now remains in the drawers of the executive and legislative authorities in the hope that it will be put into effect one day. There have been several attempts to draft a new Libyan constitution, but they have all ground to a halt. What kind of constitution could all Libyans agree to? I can't speak about the constitution from a legal standpoint because I'm not a legal scholar. However, from the perspective of a politician and an official who has been close to decision-making circles in the country, I am certain that a constitution is something that should not be written during periods of conflict, which is the current state in Libya. The process could be more divisive than cohesive right now when everyone has their own political, ideological and regional demands. Therefore, I side with the view that it is better to postpone drafting the constitution and to proceed to an interim period in which stability can be realised by rebuilding government services and giving the people the opportunity to relax again under a kind of temporary constitution-like document. When things are stable once again, we can draft a permanent new constitution.
You were an activist in Benghazi during the February 2011 Revolution. What were the revolution's successes and failures? The February Revolution succeeded in ending a totalitarian regime that had ruled Libya for 42 years and that had turned the country into an experimental laboratory throughout that period. This had prevented the formation of stable, institutionalised government. Two whole generations of Libyans were affected by the detriments of that experiment. It had to be brought to an end. It had gone on for far too long by any standards. But the February Revolution nevertheless also failed for many reasons. Above all, the Islamist movement attempted to seize control of the phenomena known as the Arab Spring Revolutions in order to install itself in power. Libya was no exception to this rule. Secondly, these revolutions or popular uprisings did not have a vision or a single leadership to steer them. Their aim was to bring down dictatorships in the certainty that these regimes stood in the way of a better life, especially for young people. But their lack of an overall vision of what would come next is what enabled the Islamist forces to exploit the grassroots movements and the young people's lack of political expertise in order to take power. In Libya, they introduced interim phases instead of proceeding to the establishment of the state directly after the first governing body was created after the revolution, namely the National Transitional Council. It was the Islamist movement that insisted on transitional phases before the establishment of a state. We've had several of these transitional phases since then. They offer fertile soil for feeding divisions, and in each of them new divisions have arisen.
The political scene in Libya continues to be dominated by militias. What has caused this and what can be done to end it? We helped to create and perpetuate these militias. By we, I mean we Libyans during the struggle to topple the former regime. The militias filled the void left by the collapse of the former security establishments, and then they acquired a measure of legitimacy over time. That acquired legitimacy is not easy to withdraw. It was for this reason that I submitted a proposal to restructure the Libyan armed forces and to assimilate the paramilitary formations, the ones that are not classed as terrorist at home or abroad, into the national army. That, to me, would be the best solution. Without it, we'll have to wait for a miracle before the militias go away, or to fight a war against them, which most Libyans oppose. The militias are made up of Libyan youths. They belong to the nation. We need to embrace them, and they are waiting for a hand to reach out to them.
What is your view of the regional and international efforts in handling the Libyan crisis? The fact that the Libyan dossier is on the negotiating tables of the regional and international powers is why there has been no solution to the Libyan crisis. The Libyan problem is very simple because it involves domestic disputes between the Libyans themselves. If it were left up to them, they would be able to solve these disputes quickly. But internationalising the problem has protracted the crisis because each foreign power has its own particular interests in Libya to protect and this conflict with the interests of the others. The problem could not be more obvious. Each foreign power is backing a faction on the ground in order to carry out its agenda in the country and to obstruct a solution to the crisis.
You have prepared a comprehensive project to submit to the Libyan Presidency Council calling for the creation of an executive cabinet, headed by yourself, to steer Libya and the Libyan people out of the current crisis within a specific timeframe. Could you tell us more about this? I have prepared a comprehensive project from the standpoint of a statesman, as opposed to a politician. It is based on an assessment of the current reality and seeks solutions accordingly. I've discussed its substance with members of the House of Representatives and the High Council of State, as well as with military leaders and other officials. I will submit it as a formal proposal to the Presidency Council soon. Basically, it aims to bring the Libyan public institutions together under a single government in order to address the difficult material and economic strains that people are facing across the country independently from the current political conflict. Once I have submitted it to the Presidency Council, the project will be made available to the media.
