By Abdelkader Assad
Accord or Unity, UN Word Play
Going back in time to the ex-UN envoy to Libya and head of UNSMIL Bernardino Leon, yet having a closer look at what the current envoy, Martin Kobler is trying to do in the Libyan political arena, we can all notice the use of the word accord when talking about the new government in Libya.
No other words are heard but the shiny sweet-said word “accord” in all of the UN exchanges and press releases as well as resolutions. The UN and great powers as well as some Arab countries have ventured, though very naively, to convince the Libyans, both normal citizens and political stakeholders, that their choice for stability lies in their acceptance of becoming part of “accord” government, and not a “unity” government, as the latter has not been voiced by any of the UN officials.
All the efforts exerted by both Leon and Kobler were to bring together the Libyan conflicting political parties and seat them very fittingly on the table of the UNSMIL National Government of Accord, so why is it called a government of accord not a government of unity?
The answer comes as easy as the linguistic and semantic features of the two different words suggest:
Unity is defined as {the state of being united, or joined as a whole, or absence of diversity or unvaried}
While accord is usually defined as {an official agreement or treaty, or agreement or harmony}
So, the UN intentions have been clearly revealed, just by looking through the UN choice of words, it does not want the Libyan people to gather as one firm entity under one whole undivided government. The international community does not care about how much Libyans are inclined to see their country united as one complete whole from the east to the west and from the north to the south.
The international community and the great powers just want the Libyans to be ruled by “accord”, which means this accord or harmony between the conflicting parties is tremendously liable to change and is further liable to even termination upon the decision of the accord makers.
Ruling Libya through accord gives no identity to the Libyan society and gives no integration to the Libyan soil, as the accord government members will only respect their accord government for the sake of satisfying the “official” protocol and for the sake of international conventions.
Therefore, the international community and other stakeholders will be only looking away from the main reason why this government should take place, that is, of course, because it should have united all Libyans across the 1,759,540 square kilometers.
Would the cities that are located faraway from Tripoli be obliged to follow the accord? Would the cities that are located deep in the distant deserts around the country and those located in the mountains be obliged to be part of the accord?
These questions can only have “no” for an answer as the UN accord government fails to unite the Libyans across the country under a unanimous consensus, or, under a National Unity Government.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Libya Observer