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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Libya
Index
In southernmost Libya live about 2,600 Tebu, part of a larger
grouping of around 215,000 Tebu in northern Chad, Niger, and Sudan.
Their ethnic identity and cohesion are defined by language, not
social organization or geography, although all Tebu share many
cultural traits. Their language, Tebu, is a member of the NiloSaharan language family, not all dialects being mutually
intelligible. The basic social unit is the nuclear family,
organized into patrilineal clans. The Tebu economy is a combination
of pastoralism, farming, and date cultivation. The Tebu are Muslim,
their Islam being strongly molded by Sanusi proselytizing in the
nineteenth century
(see The Sanusis
, this ch.). Neighboring peoples
view them as tough, solitary, desert and mountain people.
A significant number of sub-Saharan Africans live in desert and
coastal communities, mixed with Arabs and Berbers. Most of them are
descended from former slaves--the last slave caravan is said to
have reached Fezzan in 1929--but some immigrated to Tripoli during
World War II. In recent years, waves of migrant workers from Mali,
Niger, Sudan, and other Sahelian countries have arrived. A majority
work as farmers or sharecroppers in Fezzan, but some have migrated
to urban centers, where they are occupied in a variety of jobs
considered menial.
Another distinct but numerically small group of blacks, the
harathin (plowers, cultivators) have been in the Saharan
oases for millennia. Their origins are obscure, but they appear to
have been subservient to the Tuareg or other Libyan overlords for
at least the last millennium. As with other blacks, their status
has traditionally been quite low. In Libya as a whole, dark-skinned
people are looked down upon, the degree of discrimination
increasing with the darkness of the skin.
Data as of 1987
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