Ci Devant Encore: Revolutionary Language for Remnants

First off, a thanks and a tip of the hat to Juan Cole. I have been reading a lot of Chicken Little reportage regarding Libya. The Libyans couldn't handle the truth, or freedom, or some such. It would balkanize into pre-1934 regions (not that I necessarily think that a bad thing, with my moniker and all). But I never heard that from Mr. Cole. No pie-in-the-sky, but his recent reports since the fall of the old regime have been consistently convincing, suggesting that one could walk the streets, do business, etc. ("Despite Airport Incident, Henry Kissinger is Wrong about Libya," by Juan Cole, Informed Comment, 6/05/2012). To be fair Zintan doesn't trust Tripoli and wants to keep their guns.  But I live in the Midwest, so what is new? Well, the reports so far suggest that these recent elections have been relatively peaceful. Relative to whom? Well a lot of places. Jamaica in the 1970s and 1980s comes to mind.

In any case, I return to my interest in the Ci devants, the remnants, the feloul, of the old regime after a revolution. Since everyone did something to survive under the old regime, all revolutions could use a little Truth and Reconciliation. What did you do in the Resistance, Daddy? That was a difficult question in France in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  So, via Cole's Informed Comment we learn the following:

• In Libya, the remnants of the old regime are called ‘seaweed’ or ‘algae’ (tahallub), i.e. the flotsam left behind when the tide recedes. As in Tunisia and Egypt, there has been a lot of debate around what to do with them. They often have a lot of money, and are regrouping to succeed in the new system. Since a lot of prominent Libyan technocrats had been lured back to the country in the past decade..., leaders like Mahmoud Jibril (al-Warfalli) are considered by some to be leftovers, while others see him as someone who went over to the revolution and served as its first transitional prime minister. ("Top Ten Surprises on Libya’s Election Day," by Juan Cole, Informed Comment, 7/08/2012)

So now we have Ci devants, feloul, and tahallub. As the films of Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène - Xala, Mandabi - showed us, the new boss can look decidedly like the old boss post-colonial or post-revolution. But the Kampuchean Revolution shows what a "pure" changeover looks like with no use of the technocrats, etc. from the old regime. In Libya, as in Egypt it is a question of using those without too much of Les Mains Sales, not to say blood on their hands.