The asymmetry, disparity, inconsistency, and double standards of global coloniality : the case of Libya in 2011

Abstract

The article analyses the Arab Spring protests that started in Tunisia in 2010 and spread into more than thirteen other countries across two continents. Of the more than thirteen countries affected by the Arab Spring, only four countries are analysed: Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, and Libya. The principal objectives of this article are threefold. Firstly, the article critically explores the reasons for the uprisings in the four countries that form part of this analysis. Secondly, the article analyses the respective governments’ responses to the protests in their domains. Thirdly, the article analyses the so-called international community's responses to the cases discussed. Qualitative methodology, which seeks to interpret the reasons behind the actions and responses by the respective actors during the Libyan invasion, is used. A decolonial interpretation of the events in Libya suggests a global coloniality that sought to entrap Libya and, indeed, all of the Global South. The findings are that the Libyan invasion was a targeted and selective application of legal instruments such as the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, quasi-insulated from legal reproach because the so- called intervention was a UN-gazetted operation. As such, the UN continues to be used as a vehicle for the powerful located in the Global North to punish the weak in the Global South.