Libya: From Revolutionary Legitimacy to Constitutional Legitimacy

Libya – From Revolutionary Legitimacy to Constitutional Legitimacy

This monograph is based on a lecture by Dr Aref Ali Nayed, founder and director of Kalam Research & Media and currently Ambassador of Libya to the UAE, delivered at Georgetown University on 4th November 2013. Dr Nayed discusses the importance of moving to a constitutional framework as the basis for legitimacy and inclusiveness for a post-revolution Libya.

Excerpt:

“…Revolutions, according to Arendt, present us with just this plurality of openings, and of possibilities, in the people’s attempt to birth their country anew and to found a new political world. And although the revolutions offer the feeling of excitement and opening, they also present us with challenges and difficulties. For Arendt: “revolutions are the only political events which confront us directly and inevitably with the problem of beginning”. So when we say the Arab Spring, we can really only appreciate the idea of spring if we see it as an open-ended process that is in itself problematic—that is instable, ongoing, and that is not yet completed…“