The Libyan surprise.... How and why?

Events and developments in Libya usually take the form of a ‘surprise’... from the rise of Gaddafi to his fall, a history full of dramatic surprises, some which reached the heights of tragedy, while others plunged to the depths of comedy. The elections in Libya have been full of surprises in a country that was teetering on division, chaos and civil war. The Mother of all Surprises manifested itself in the unexpected results of the elections, when the National Alliance Forces which consists of a mixture of national, central and liberal parties overwhelmed the two Islamic competitors; the Islamic Justice and Development party of the Brotherhood and the Salafists. In Egypt and Tunisia, capitals of liberalism, secularism, leftist and nationalist, the Islamists won... and the Brotherhood and Salafis stole the march... while in Libya, which has been trapped in Gaddafi’s madness and oppression -- the tribal, regional country in which Islamists played a prominent role in its revolution --Islamists trailed in second and third place, with the first place leading by a wide margin in some constituencies. according to the preliminary results of the vote counting. A strange and astonishing paradox worthy of more in-depth study than the  media coverage we've been offered, which has closely followed the Libyan scene since it was thrust into the spotlight by the January 2011 revolution, to discover today that we know nothing about the ‘Republic of Darkness’, its people, their destinations and orientations ...we don’t even know much about its revolution despite the extensive coverage, especially in the international media since the revolution, and more specifically since NATO and some Arabs became internal ‘players’ deciding on the fate of Libya’s crises and anxieties. We discover that we are being fed a diet from a selective media that decides for us what we should see and know, and what we shouldn’t, according to political agendas strongly related to its financing sources, its owners and its shareholders.  We discover now, for the third or fourth time in less than a year, the ability of this media to shape our perceptions and control our thoughts and decisions.  We are the ones depending on it and drawing from it and its half-facts and torn information. We saw this media, particularly the ‘oil-financed' one, who presented us with turbaned and armed men, talking, threatening and deciding... so we thought all of Libya had become a refuge for Salafis and al-Qaeda, and that the Brotherhood, an Islamic organisation and political party, would gain the majority ... It didn’t cross our minds that in Libya there are other forces, we didn’t even dream or speculate about, who would achieve the first place, with a balanced difference between first and second place in the hierarchy of election winners. The same scene has been repeated in other Arab revolutions, and other Arab crises... we see ‘Abu El Ghadab’ (Mr Angry) and ‘Abu El Gamagem’ (Mr Skull) talk on air in live broadcasts... but we don’t see a lot Haitham Mannaa or Michel Kilo, we don’t see much of Fayez Sarah and Samir Aita... We see all kinds of opponents who are carefully chose to say what pleases these channels and what they want to hear... We have watched this movie before. Here we are testing the ‘intelligence’ of the satellite channels not confirmed by the  ballot boxes, as if we are in front of hypothetical virtual revolutions. We are carefully offered what serves its agenda, while the page is closed on anything which contradicts it, and at the same time, we speak about this media’s professionalism  and objectivity. We don’t really know what happened in Libya during the last 16 months... was there an exaggeration of the Islamists’ role despite their different schools of thought, or was it all about the media hunting an ‘exciting story’ and often the excitement is about the Islamists??? Has public opinion about Islamists changed in the last months? And if so, what changed it and who changed them?  Is it the chaos created by the weapons which have flooded Libya since the fall of the king of  kings of Africa?  Did the rise of Egypt’s Brotherhood and Salafis, the rise of Tunisia and its Salafis and Morocco’s Justice and Development party have an effect on the Libyan scene?  Can this effect be on this level of speed, attraction and impact? Questions and inquiries that we don't have the ability to answer as they are beyond our reach.... Questions and inquiries that we must leave to the researchers and specialists in Libyan affairs, which we are not... But, we are now sure that the ‘space’ doesn’t always bring the truth, or at least doesn’t bring complete truth. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.