Whichever way one looks at things in the countries that have experienced the Arab Spring to varying degrees, there seems to be no looking back.
And in their majority, the people do not only clamour for more stability but also for more democracy rather than less. On the economic front, it is positive indeed that Western countries like Britain and the USA are doing their best to strengthen their ties with these countries.
Recently, we saw how the UK has been striving to build a strong relationship with Libya across the board, even from a security perspective. Particularly given the security of its own diplomats which was recently at stake following the attack of yesterday week in Benghazi. Coupled with this is the push for greater stability in Eastern Libya.
On the US front, apart from various other initiatives underway, it was welcome news that Maltese and US companies interested in setting up business in Libya will be doing teleconferencing spade work towards this aim.
We have always argued for and supported the idea that companies located in Malta are well placed to act as a logistical base and support base for outreaches that may be underway towards new and emerging markets nearby, be they Libyan or else to be found in other parts of North Africa.
But in saying so, one cannot afford to gloss over the emergent instability that has been surfacing in countries that actually need more stability in this difficult transition period.
If we take Libya, even countries like Israel are expressing concern because they tend to argue, rightly or wrongly – as their own leading think tanks have been doing – that Libya could be sinking into a state of ongoing turmoil.
Formally, the country is governed by the NTC, a body established during the war, but one should always bear in mind the transitional nature of this entity.
As the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies recently stated – in simple terms, the dominant dynamic in Libya is a de facto negotiation between the NTC and the militias.
Without in any way hinting that one should even consider the strong arm tactics of the former merciless regime, the point that is being repeatedly made is that Libya lacks, at least in the short term, a recognized political leadership that also controls the country’s territory.
That inherently implies that all the characteristics of a failed state could be in the making. Although I believe that the internal dynamics of the country, its generous reserves and its oil industry will ensure that this deterioration will not happen or come about.
Whether we are talking of militias or local forces, the bigger the conflict between them and the central government, the weaker the state at the end of it.
Israelis I met during conferences and reports that recently came my way reached the same conclusion. That was also evident during the conflict period.
Primarily, while the West has supported the NTC and the forces of centralisation, some other friendly states have found that their fastest route to help and influence Libya could be through the periphery, not the center.
This obviously will bode ill for the NTC’s prospects.
While on the home front the incident involving the Maltese Central Bank governor in Tripoli cannot be erased easily from our memory, even though certain media did their best to kill the story, other stories that have been surfacing show how deeply complex the evolving situation happens to be. And highly fluid and volatile too.
Apart from the Libyan refusal to release Hague Court workers which include lawyers from the International Criminal Court, the American press has suddenly developed a new aura of concern and perplexity too.
So much so that in a freshly-minted review by Nicolas Pelham, The New York Review Of Books actually popped the question as to whether Libya might be cracking up.
There seems to be general agreement that the turbulent south is proving to be the most unnerving.
It claims, rightly or wrongly, that since the civil war ended last October, the violence in the south is even worse than it was during the struggle to oust Gaddafi. It adds that hundreds have been killed, thousands injured, and according to UN figures, tens of thousands displaced in ethnic feuding.
Just as close to our shores, we recently had reports from Tunisia of Salafists and old regime loyalists causing some of the worst unrest that the country has experienced in years. Even though the Tunisian government seems to have dismissed suggestions that al-Qaeda initiated the violence.
Last week, not only were a number of people arrested by the authorities in this country while a curfew was slapped on several regions, but we even had cases where the ultra conservative Salafists who advocate practicing Islam as it was by Mohammed, were blamed for destroying art works that they deemed as being blasphemous.
Ironically, fingers have been pointed at former members of the Ben Ali regime, who have been accused of instrumentalising Salafist groups to stoke tensions between islamists and secularists.
The worst is when such incidents in any Maghreb country or beyond end up destabilising the country concerned.
If Libya and Tunisia are understandably experiencing the birth pangs of countries that have just won their new-found freedom, the goings on in Egypt are equally disquieting.
Last Friday, Mohamed el Baradei actually stated that his country is suffering under worse conditions now than under the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, particularly since in his own words – the country is on the brink of allowing a new emperor to establish total domination over the country.
The biggest mistake is that the Islamists were being accused of trying to adopt a winner takes all attitude.
Even worse, the hasty constitutional court decisions which paved the way for the coup engineered by the generals, was the result of sentences appointed by Mubarak era judges who evidently set out to strike a hammer blow at the revolution itself.
The easiest thing to do is to pontificate on such matters from a distance, without fully gauging the hopes, aspirations, frustrations and anxieties of the people on the ground.
But even in this case, some are inclined to put part of the blame on the lack of a centralised form of leadership. Particularly since the revolution which was truly inspirational, indeed fostered a movement that was based on so-called horizontal and leaderless political change.
I fear that these friendly countries who deserve all the support, solidarity and encouragement they need – particularly at a people’s level – will have to make do with an extended period of political and perhaps even economic limbo, until real security, stability and peace of mind can surface and prevail.
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Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change