A new nation was born this week.
In Tripoli and Benghazi, where proconsuls of the Phoenicians, the Caesars and the Ottomans once reigned, and the shards of Mussolini's latter-day empire molder mockingly in the African sun, bright new flags proclaimed the birth of the United Kingdom of Libya. A sage old Moslem spiritual leader became the world's newest King, Idris I of Libya. Three territories, separated by wide deserts and mutual distrust—Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan —were united under a Western-style parliament and a constitution scissored and pasted together from the laws of twelve other countries.
A Word for It. The birth is a unique attempt at planned parenthood. Libya, a country of a few backward cities and oasis-speckled sand wilderness about three times the size of Texas, is the first nation brought into being solely by the United Nations. But it is a typical newborn of the sickly Arab world—born into poverty, cursed with ignorance, endowed with only a fighting chance to grow to maturity. The 1,050,000 Arabs of Libya have a word for independence—istiqlal—but little of the heritage to make it work.
The country has no colleges, and only 16 college graduates. It has only three lawyers. There is not a single Libyan physician, engineer, surveyor or pharmacist in the land. No more than 250,000 Libyans can write their own names; the rest use thumbprints as signatures. Eye diseases, especially trachoma, are so widespread that 10% of the population is blind.
The national per capita income is $35 a year—lowest of all Arab countries, with the possible exception of Yemen. Italians. of whom there are still 47,000 out of the thousands who immigrated to Libya when it was to become Mussolini's model col ony, still hold many of the best jobs, own the best farms, run the best businesses. Eight-tenths of the people are farmers or nomadic herdsmen, yet a U.N. survey team reports discouragedly that the country "is hardly able to afford an adequate diet for its own people."
200 Miles of Track. Importing twice what it exports, the country must write its budget in red. The kingdom's rail transport consists of one steam engine, two diesels, a few ramshackle freight cars, and only 200 miles of track to run them on. Between Tripoli, which is the country's largest city, and Fezzan, its largest province, there are no telephone, telegraph or radio connections. Nor is there much homogeneity between the three provinces. Except for the late years of Italian rule (1935 until World War II), Tripolitania (pop. 800,000), Cyrenaica (pop. 300,000) and Fezzan (pop. 40,000) have never been jointly administered.
Even the U.N. is not sure that such an anemic child can survive. Because the big powers could not agree among themselves on the future of the former Italian colony, the U.N.'s little nations, led by impatient Arabs and the Latin Americans, in 1949 slipped through a resolution which decreed independence no later than Jan. 1, 1952.