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11 ministers designation who resisted to appoint S. a;'-Khariri as a prime minister and insisted on a resignation of ex-prime minister N. Mikati.
Though Lebanon didn't turn out to be involved in the events of the "Arabian political spring" as a whole nevertheless it had experienced many specific events. Firstly, the refugees from the adjacent countries, first of all, from Syria rushed in Lebanon trying to leave a terrain of attack. By that a level of a migration of Syria exceeds 3 millions of people and negatively impacted on economic, social and political situation of the neighbors of Syria, especially Lebanon, Turkey and Kingdom of Jordan. Secondly, the existing official democratic institutions don't work in Lebanon. The parliament hasn't been elected since 2009 because of impossibility to provide the corresponding procedures. A new electoral law was never adopted. The presidential elections are turned into endless marathon for candidate revision.
Author of the abstract - V. Schensnovich
2017.02.015. KONSTANTIN TRUEVTSEV. DISINTEGRATION OF LIBYA AS A FACTOR OF TENSION IN AFRICA AND MEDITERRANEAN // "Azia i Afrika segodnya", Moscow, 2016, № 10, P. 12-20.
Keywords: Libya, terrorist danger, political instability, radical Islamists, ethnic separatism, jihadism, illegal migration.
Konstantin Truevtsev,
PhD (Phil.),
Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS
The author notes that the events unfolding on the African continent are in the shadow of the world attention on the background of the Middle East war. However, the whole vast
region of North Africa, the Sahel countries and the countries south of the Sahara turns into a zone of increasing terrorist threats and political instability, risking to become a zone of a permanent regional conflict.
The author believes that the manifestation of these events is traced directly in the Mediterranean region also, primarily as a growing illegal migration from Africa to Europe, which is already the second most important source of mass resettlement of people to the EU countries. The epicenter of all these threats is Libya. It is impossible to prevent their further distribution without eliminating or stopping the Libyan source of tension.
The author writes that the task of implementation of the international efforts to solve the Libyan problem is even more complicated in comparison with the task of confrontation with the jihadist forces in Syria and Iraq. The problem is that there are practically no internal actors in Libya that would have a clear prospect of becoming a consolidating national force, unlike the two above-mentioned Middle Eastern states. Today Libya is a collapsed state in the full sense: the connections between the historical regions of Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica have been disintegrated, and these territories appeared to be disunited into smaller fragments, many of which have neither a stable government nor a particular political system.
The General National Congress (GNC) and its government, located in the capital Tripoli, on the one hand, and the other government formed on the basis of the parliament that moved to Tobruk in 2014, on the other hand, have been political poles for a long time.
In 2014, secular forces, represented at the political level, after the prevalence of the pro-Islamist forces in Tripoli, decided to create a separate center of power in Tobruk, transferring there legally elected and internationally recognized parliament. The government in Tobruk relies on this elected parliament, expressing the interests of the modernized population of cities,
representatives of large and medium-sized businesses, the secular part of the army, tribal elites.
However, one of the central problems was that both governments could control only small parts of the territory, mainly in its coastal zone. Strengthening the position of ISIS in Libya has led to the fact that its leadership began to consider that country the second most important geopolitical foothold after the Syrian-Iraqi area. There were reports that the head of ISIS, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi considered the possibility of moving to Libya in the case of defeat in Syria and Iraq.
The processes related to the ethno-tribal component add an additional complexity to the internal political situation in Libya. The author notes that the Arab nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes as well as ethnic groups have played a significant role in the development of the situation, and the most important of them are the Berbers, Tuaregs and Negroid tribes of the Tuba. All three non-Arab ethnic groups have projects for the creation of their national states that only exacerbate the disintegration of the Libyan state. And since their interests are often overlapped in territorial claims, the interethnic conflicts, arising on this ground, increase the effect of the war of all against all.
The situation has changed little after the appearance in Tripoli of the Government of National Accord (GNA), established under the auspices of the UN in 2016, and the formal resignation of the leadership of the GNC and the heads of the government formed by it. Since the power of GNA in Tripoli remains illusive, and the government in Tobruk continues to operate independently from it, territorial and political bipolarity of power persists. The repeated attempts of F.Faraj, the head of the GNA, permanently residing in Tunisia, to settle in Libyan territory have ended in failure.
Thus, the reconciliation project has resulted in the fact that a triple power was formed instead of dual power, and the third power has turned into an instrument which influence is no more than imagined one in the country.
A resource factor was one of the most important aspects of the intra-Libyan confrontation. It should be divided into three main components: 1. Finance; 2. Oil and other hydrocarbons; 3. Weapons.
The plundering of public finances and the wealth, belonging to the families of M. Gaddafi and his closest associates, was one of the foundations for the existence of numerous Islamist, criminal and tribal structures. Some part of the state assets became available to the Tripoli and Tobruk governments and is still an important factor in maintaining their functioning.
However, this is not enough to expand the zone of their territorial control, and necessary agreements with local armed political and tribal forces. Therefore, the oil factor acquires a special, if not paramount importance. The struggle for control over oil fields, transportation and export of oil is more important than just control over the territories.
The author notes that the plundering of one of the largest arsenals of armaments in Africa has and continues to have an impact not only on the whole course of internal confrontation and the level and scale of power of these or those groups depend on the number of weapons and the ability to use it. Libya has become the epicenter of the spread of Islamist terrorism to the vast expanses of the African continent. The proliferation of weapons through the Sahel countries feeds the terrorists of Boko Haram in Nigeria and other terrorist groups in neighboring countries - from Cameroon to the Central African Republic. Thus, a wide zone of terrorist activity has been created in the region, covering a range of countries and threatening neighboring States.
The events in Mali in the spring of 2012, which led to the split of the country, became the most vivid manifestation of these consequences of the disintegration of the Libyan state. The disintegration of Mali has created a breeding ground for the spread of terrorism to other countries south of the Sahara.
During the Malian events of 2012, the terrorists raided Algeria. The internal danger of terrorism in Algeria today is
minimized, but terrorist attacks have occurred repeatedly on the part of the Libyan and Tunisian borders in recent years. However, if Algeria is sufficiently well protected against massive terrorist attacks, and they are of a local nature there, as a rule, they are considered as a threat of a national scale in Tunisia.
The most immediate threat is for the European continent from the territory of Libya. Libya is the second largest source of illegal migration to Europe after Turkey. Although the scale of migration from here is less on the order today, but the uncontrolled flow of immigrants from Africa has a clear tendency to increase. And since this flow from Libya is under the direct control of Islamists, and above all under the control of ISIS, the sending of terrorists into the ranks of migrants is more than a realistic prospect, if not a fait accompli. It follows that the Libyan situation, which is already in the focus of attention of the EU countries, should lead to appropriate decisions on the part of the EU, taking into account the potentially growing of the Islamist threat.
The situation in Libya is a constant concern for neighboring Arab countries. Formally, all the Arab countries of North Africa have the same positions, concludes in the necessity of ending the internal confrontation, peaceful solution to the internal problems through dialogue between the warring parties, the creation of a national unity government. At the same time, a detailing of their actual positions in relation to the Libyan situation reveals quite substantial differences.
Western policy towards Libya began to change in the direction of revitalization in 2014-2015 after a period of relative inactivity, after the political chaos in the country, the dominance of Islamist and criminal groups. NATO and the EU began to hatch plans for a direct armed participation of these structures, as well as a number of leading Western countries, primarily the United States, Britain, France and Italy in the Libyan events -from contacts with the Libyan security forces to direct armed invasion of Libyan territory. The presence of armed units of
Western countries in Libya indicates that the political authorities in both Tobruk and Tripoli, do not refuse coordination of activities, including the armed ones with representatives of the world powers. At the same time, they resolutely oppose the armed invasion of these forces on the territory of the country. This position is shared by the neighboring Arab countries, including Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia.
The author notes that one can not fail to mention a number of publications in Western press that talk about the desire of a number of European leaders to involve Russia in participating in an armed operation in Libya. The author points out that the Russian experience in counter-terrorism operations in the North Caucasus, where an integrated approach to eliminate the hotbed of terrorism and the restoration of state authority was productive, and could be useful, but Russian participation in any military operations in Libya totally excluded. Unlike Syria, the Libyan situation does not directly threaten Russia, and any military involvement would only distract the Russian forces from other much more urgent potential threats.
Author of the abstract - N. Ginesina
2017.02.016. LARISA EFIMOVA. MUSLIM EDUCATION IN MODERN INDONESIA // "Islam v sovremennom mire". Moscow, 2016, №1 (12), P. 221-235.
Keywords: Islam, Muslims, Indonesia, Muslim education, pesantren, madrasah, Islamic University.
Larisa Efimova
Dr.Sc.(Hist.), professor;
Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia
The Republic of Indonesia is a multi-confessional state. The overwhelming majority of Indonesians consider themselves
