Libya
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Libya is a country in north Africa. Its official name is The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
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[edit] Geography
Libya is in between the countries of Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Algeria, Niger, and Tunisia. To its north is the Mediterranean Sea. The capital of Libya is Tripoli, which is a port on the sea.
The population of Libya is about 5.5 million. This is not a large number for a country that has a large area, so the population density of Libya is low. This is because much of Libya is in the Sahara Desert. People from Libya are called Libyans. Most of them live near the coast.
[edit] Economy
Libya gets nearly all of its money from producing oil. Its economy is growing fast.
The money of Libya is called the dinar.
[edit] Culture
Libyans are mostly Arabs, though many are of a people called Berbers. Most Libyans are Muslims.
[edit] Politics and History
The full official name of Libya is "Al Jumahiriyah al Arabiyah al Libiyah ash Shabiyah al Ishtirakiyah al Uzma".
The Italians supplanted the Ottoman Turks from the region around Tripoli in 1911 and did not reliquish their hold until Italy's defeat in World War II. Rule over Libya then passed to UN administration until it was granted independence in 1951.
Following a 1969 military coup, Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi began to espouse his political system named, "The Third Universal Theory". The system is a combination of socialism and Islam derived in part from tribal practices and is supposed to be implemented by the Libyan people themselves in a unique form of "direct democracy." (See details below.)
Qadhafi used oil funds during the 1970s and 1980s to promote his ideology outside Libya, supporting subversives and terrorists abroad to hasten the end of Marxism and capitalism. Beginning in 1973, he also engaged in military operations in northern Chad's Aozou Strip to gain access to minerals and to create a base of influence in Chadian politics; he was forced to retreat in 1987.
UN sanctions in 1992 isolated Qadhafi politically following his downing of Pan AM Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Libyan support for terrorism decreased after the sanctions. During the 1990s, Qadhafi began to rebuild his relationships with Europe. UN sanctions were suspended in April 1999 and permanently lifted in September 2003 after Libya resolved the Lockerbie matter.
In December 2003, Qadhafi announced that he had agreed to reveal and end its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, and has made thereafter significant strides in normalizing relations with western nations. He has received various Western European leaders as well as many working-level and commercial delegations, and made his first trip to Western Europe in 15 years when he traveled to Brussels in April 2004. In 2004 Qadhafi resolved several outstanding cases against his government for terrorist activities in the 1980s by compensating the families of victims of the UTA and La Belle disco bombings.
[edit] Qadhafi's "Third Universal Theory"
In the early 1970s, Qadhafi began to synthesize and expand his ideas of Arab unity, independence, economic egalitarianism, and cultural authenticity into the Third Universal Theory. The importance of this new theory to the regime was shown by the creation of the Higher Council for National Guidance on September 10, 1972. The council comprised the RCC chairman; the ASU secretary general; the minister of education; the minister of information and culture; the minister of youth and social affairs; the minister of planning, the University of Libya's president; the administrative chairmen of religious endowments; the Muslim Call Society chairman, and the ASU secretary of thought and culture.
The Higher Council for National Guidance was created to disseminate and implement Qadhafi's Third Universal Theory (also seen as the Third International Theory or simply the Third Theory). The Third Universal Theory was predicated on the belief that the two dominant socio-politico-economic ideologies--capitalism and communism--had been proved invalid. According to the theory, capitalism placed the good of a few individuals ahead of that of the community as a whole; communism so emphasized the community that individual development was stifled. Nations constituting what is commonly referred to as the Third World were caught between proponents of the two ideologies: the United States and the Soviet Union, both of which, according to Qadhafi, were "imperialist states which seek to achieve their ambitions by extending their zones of influence."
Qadhafi proclaimed that the Third Universal Theory, because it was based on the Quran, predated capitalism and communism. Furthermore, it offered an alternative. It rejected the class exploitation of capitalism and the class warfare of communism, finding that, in practice at least, systems based on both ideologies were dominated by a small elite. According to the Third Universal Theory, classes were an artificial colonial import. Far from building a system that rested on some form of class relations, the theory sought to eliminate class differences. It embodied the Islamic principle of consultation (shura), by which community or even national affairs would be conducted through mutual consultation in which the views of all citizens were exchanged. This principle was manifested later in Libya in the creation of people's committees and popular congresses.
The Third Universal Theory was an attempt to establish a philosophical grounding, based on Islam, for positive neutrality on the part of Third World nations. Under the theory, Third World states could coexist with the United States and the Soviet Union, and they could enter into agreements with them for their own purposes. But Third World states in general and Arab states in particular should not fall under the dominance of either of the two ideological, imperialist superpowers. In dividing the world between the two superpowers and their supposed prey, the Third Universaal Theory anticipated much of what has come to be called the North-South interpretation of international relations, whereby the world is divided into natural-resource-consuming nations (the industrialized North) and the natural-resource-producing nations (the underdeveloped South). Indeed, Qadhafi has championed this interpretation of international relations. Guided by this viewpoint, Libya has been a strong supporter of national liberation movements against colonial regimes, even though the terrorist tactics used by some groups have tarnished Libya's international reputation and led to economic sanctions and to military attacks in mid-1986.
Central to the Third Universal Theory are the concepts of religion and nationalism as embodied in Islam. Qadhafi believes that religion and nationalism have been the "two paramount drives that moved forward the evolutionary process. They constitute man's history as they have formed nations, peoples, wars." In short, Qadhafi believes that religion determines human actions and interactions.
The atheism of the communists is another reason Qadhafi finds their ideology invalid. According to Qadhafi, communists cannot be trusted because they fear no ultimate judgment and thus may break their word if they consider it beneficial in any particular case. Islam, as the essence of monotheism, is the true religion that encompasses Jews, Christians, and Muslims, all of whom followed God's prophets. The differences among these religions exist not because of the prophets' teachings but because of differences among their followers.
According to Qadhafi, if religion is basic to the individual, nationalism is basic to the society. The Quran refers to tribes and nations that are inherent in the universe. A person belongs to a nationality upon birth. Only later does he or she become a conscious member of a religion. Thus, Qadhafi faults those who deny the validity of nationality. His concept of nationality, therefore, relates to his concept of Arab unity.
In this regard, Qadhafi adheres to the traditional, secularly based view of Arab nationalism propounded by such thinkers as Michel Aflaq, a founder and key political philosopher of the Baath Party, and Nasser. For Qadhafi, nationalism takes precedence over religion. In a wide-ranging speech before the GPC meeting in Sabha on March 2, 1987, Qadhafi denounced Islamic fundamentalism as "nonsense" and stated that "no banner should be hoisted over the Arab homeland except the banner of pan-Arabism."
[edit] Suffrage
Voting is universal and compulsory for those over 18 years in age.
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