Opposition to Change In Rural Libya

In: International journal of Middle East studies: IJMES, Band 11, Heft 2, S. 247-261

Abstract

In the fall of 1969 the Libyan monarchy was overthrown by a group of young military officers headed by Mouamir Quadafi. In the months prior to the revolution the tribal-based Monarchy had found it difficult to cope with the stress of rapid social and economic change, and had found itself immobilized by the conflict between Libya's traditional tribal and religious elite and a small but influential modernizing elite composed of students, technocrats and younger military officers. This new elite, a byproduct of Libya's oil wealth, had become particularly distressed by the arbitrariness and inefficiency of the Monarchy, the severe maldistribution of the oil revenues, and the existence of what they felt to be a poorly planned and managed development program which had largely failed to penetrate Libya's predominatly rural areas.