Tripoli begins tense journey back to new everyday routine

Less than a month after Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi’s fall, Tripoli is bustling. With parts of the country still at war, the rapid spread of a semblance of normality is startling.

But for Tripoli, home to a third of Libya’s 6 million population, it’s a new kind of normal.

The welcome return to everyday routines after six months of turmoil has been accompanied by emerging signs of a country starkly unfamiliar to Libyans brought up under 42 years of Col Gaddafi’s rule.

One of the most telling novelties since the fall of Tripoli is free speech, and with it an early, and for some uncomfortable, dose of public political bickering.

Some figures within the anti-Gaddafi camp are airing their differences in public as they jockey for power ahead of the nomination of a new interim government, a move expected about a week from now.

For Libyans, forbidden by Col Gaddafi to form political parties, a bit of political openness is welcome – more the birth pangs of the world’s newest democracy than a harbinger of a fight over the revolution’s spoils.

For much of the past six months, after all, Libyans have argued at length on Arab satellite TV channels and social networking sites about what kind of country they want.

But now Tripoli is free, some citizens see a need to protect the revolution from talk that could stir up powerful rivalries.

The coalition of forces that came together in the National Transitional Council (NTC) can ill afford open divisions when much of the city remains heavily armed, tribal and regional rivalries are accentuated and emotions run high after the death of tens of thousands.

Withdrawing cash at a machine in a central Tripoli square, former airline pilot Mohammed Saadi said he was relieved to see NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil arrive in Tripoli on Saturday.

Some Libyans had said that as a man whose home region is Libya’s east, Mr Jalil would have to work hard to establish his political credibility in the west.

“Gaddafi wanted to split the country into eight pieces. So Jalil’s arrival helps to keep things together,” Mr Saadi said.

Drama professor Ibrahim Mohammed said Tripoli was “50 per cent back to normal”.

“People are going to the banks to get their salaries, people are going to hospital for treatment. And Jalil – yes he’s from the east, but first, he is from Libya. That’s the most important thing.”