Chaos in the Heart of The Mediterranean: The Libyan Crisis After the Fall of Al-Qadhafi’s Jamāhīriyya (2011–2021)

Geographically located at the centre of the Mediterranean and shaken by years of civil war, the history of contemporary Libya is inevitably connected with the current regional and international geopolitical tensions that are emerging within the Mare Nostrum. After the ouster and death of Muʿammar al-Qadhafi (Muʿammar al-Qadhdhāfī) in 2011, the country passed through different stages in which various actors, moved by conflicting interests, tried to solve or inflamed the conflict with disastrous results for the country and, above all, for all Libyan citizens. Although today the country appears ready to open a new chapter of its recent history following the ceasefire agreement signed in October 2020 by the warring parties, the 'frozen' conflict could still degenerate into a critical military escalation that will spread to the entire Middle Eastern region involving, inevitably, the Mediterranean area. The aim of this paper is to analyse the different phases that led to such a conundrum with still unpredictable results, starting from the political, economic, social and cultural failures of four decades of al-Qadhafi’s rule that led to the 2011 uprising until the present possible outcomes.