Thanks to our friends at Industry Arabic, we're pleased to bring you another translation from the Libyan press.
Mohammed Ali al-Mabrouk: Monopolizing Libya’s Wealth and a Dangerous Change in Living StandardsSource: Libya Al-MostakbalThere is one type of primitive governance in Libya’s new era, and this is monopolizing the Libyan people’s money through legislating use of public funds while depriving the Libyan people itself of such money. This is a collective monopoly practiced by opportunistic groups both in eastern and western Libya that have exploited legislative and executive offices – among others – for this purpose.In eastern and western Libya, members of the House of Representatives and General National Congress and the governments formed thereby have arrogated monthly stipends and various lifestyle benefits that resemble or even exceed the perks that some heads of state enjoy elsewhere in the world (see the article, “Anecdotes of Libya’s Greedy Rulers”). It is not part of our nation’s, religion’s or even human ethics for an official to allocate such wealth for himself while the people of the nation are starting to starve, go barefoot and unclothed because previous governments have abused the people’s wealth through embezzlement and fraud, the leaders of armed gangs have ransacked public entities, and previous governments have bribed them to put up with their wicked acts.As a result of these abuses, a dangerous change in living standards is taking place, a transformation that is undermining the standard of living of the majority of the Libyan people, which until recently has been between middle and lower class. Now it is trending more to lower class on its way to settling at the absolute bottom, due to the removal of protections, such as interruption of the salaries of certain Libyans all across Libya, and the removal of subsidies. One clear sign of this is the spike in the cost of bread, which is rising along with all other living costs, such as food, medicine, and clothing – for which the salaries of some Libyans are insufficient even in cases where they have not been cut off. If we look at the recent rise in living standards among groups that practice this financial monopoly, who are becoming a new upper class, I don’t think this is a coincidence. The House of Representatives and the General National Congress, their cabinets, and the National Contracting Committee have allocated themselves monthly salaries and the leaders of armed gangs, as well as some revolutionaries in current and past governments have plundered great sums of money that they have tucked away in foreign companies or have invested in started airlines, real estate companies, trading ventures, restaurants, hotels, farms, etc. both in Libya and abroad, and their greed and brutality have only increased the more they have preyed on the wealth of the Libyan people.It is no secret to Libyans that what both the eastern and western governments in Libya are now doing is to extravagantly disburse to the point of ridiculousness money that is allocated as benefits for the House of Representatives and the General People’s Congress. Meanwhile, the armed gangs have no purpose other than to support, train, and prepare this rising class of rulers until it becomes the sole upper class, endowed with Libya’s public wealth, and to deprive the Libyan people of any sustenance until it falls into indigence. This decline in living standards has in fact begun and is accelerating. The only thing that can be done now is to seek out a landing pad to ensure a soft landing at the bottom and enable the Libyan people to deal with this new level of poverty so long as it remains hushed up. Thus, the economic developments in Libya have seen a divergence into two classes – the rich and the poor – without anything in between. The rich are the rulers and the leaders of armed gangs, along with certain revolutionaries, and they have achieved this status through their monopoly on public funds through allocations or through looting, embezzlement, and theft. Meanwhile, the poor are the majority of Libyans, and there is no longer a middle class due to the collapse of the Libyan economy.This transformation in the standard of living is very dangerous for the Libyan people, which is sinking below the poverty line on its way to rock bottom. The evidence for this is clear for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. Travel around Libya and you will see and hear about people unable to buy bread, medicine, food, and clothing. You will see, just as a friend of mine did, the father of a family going around the trash bins at night out of shame as he sorted through them to find food for his family. Another friend of mine saw a Libyan family displaced from Benghazi living in housing for African workers – and every Libyan knows the state of such housing. These are just a few stories of the misery that the lower class is going through – the class of most Libyans who heeded the call of the February 17th Revolution. Due to the difficult circumstances this revolution has had for Libyans, I say that the February 17th Revolution is in desperate straits as are those who came in its wake and flaunted its slogans at the expense of the Libyan people. They bound the Libyan people to idle talk that was followed by more idle talk, and in this they managed to forge oppression out of ignorance. They sanctified a temporal event called the February 17th Revolution and through that sanctification they lost a nation and a people. The February 17th Revolution came around and its exploiters said, “Do it, we will make Libya fertile and prosperous,” but instead they reduced it to rubble and shame. They said, “We came for the sake of liberation, so liberate us” and instead they enslaved us. They said, “We have come to bring about a decent life,” but they made life nasty and brutish. They said many things, but the fact is that they deceived us.What happened is due to our silence, withdrawal and retreat. All the Libyan people need to do is escape from this national disorientation, come together and embrace a Libya beyond the slogans dependent on a particular temporal event – whether the February 17th Revolution or the September 1st coup d’etat that brought Gaddafi to power in 1969 – as well as deviant ideologies, and the ignorant depravity that has divided Libya between supporters of the February 17th Revolution, supporters of the September 1st coup d’etat, and supporters of deviant religious ideologies. They need to fuse into a single nation, the Libyan nation, and consider one another as Libyans rather than enter into a new era of slavery, a February 17th Revolution era where a minority monopolizes publics funds and monopolizes its rule over Libyans by extending its term when its mandate expires. The conflict is not between Libyans themselves, but between Libyans and those who exploit their rule over Libya to form a corrupt upper class and place the Libyan people into the lower class. The shocking thing that Libya should know is that the children of Libya will not have a decent life when they grow up because the country’s savings have been depleted and because – as a petroleum expert told me: “The closure of oil fields that is now occurring in Libya will lead to the oil being suctioned off across geographical strata in other countries, and this will dry up the oil fields until Libya’s oil is gone.” Oh God, please deliver our people from this calamity. Make our home safe and prosperous, and preserve our people from the evil of our enemies. There is nothing left for us to do but pray.