Najla Mangoush has departed from adversarial law. (Photo by Kara Lofton)
In Benghazi, residents have become used to falling asleep to the sound of bombs playing their deadly lullaby. This is the daily reality Najla Mangoush’s mother describes to her from the family’s home in Libya. And it is the reality Mangoush will face as she considers bringing her two school-aged daughters back to Libya when her Fulbright Scholarship ends in September.
Mangoush, a 2015 graduate of EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP), was trained as a criminal lawyer and practiced for many years in Libya under the 42-year dictatorship of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. In some ways her life under Gaddafi was good. She was able to practice in her own firm, seek a divorce after an unhappy marriage, enjoy supportive parents, and send her daughters to good schools.
Mangoush knew, though, that the freedom she experienced was an illusion. Under Gaddafi, Libyans were harshly censored, human rights activists brutally suppressed, and much of the population (more than half under 18) faced malnutrition.
Many lawyers, including Mangoush, supported the 2011 Libyan revolution that ultimately overthrew Gaddafi. “People had very high expectations about how things would change after the revolution. I was one of them. But when you don’t have capable institutions to step in after a revolution, then you create the perfect environment for extremists,” she says.
Mangoush served as the head of the public engagement unit following the 2011 revolution. “The first year after the revolution was great,” she says.
But now various extremists’ militias are vying for control. Murders and abductions have become a common occurrence. One such murder was the June 2014 killing of Mangoush’s mentor, Salwa Bugaighis, who was a fellow female lawyer and human rights activist. Her death affected Mangoush deeply and served to strengthen Mangoush’s resolve to continue on a path of peace. When feeling troubled, she remembers Bugaighis’ vision: “Regardless of all the disappointments and failures, we have to continue to hope for a better Libya.”
If Mangoush returns to Libya, “I would be targeted,” she says matter-of-factly. “I am one of the voices asking for rule of law, justice and human rights all the time. Practicing the skills I am learning at CJP would be dangerous – not only to me, but to my daughters.”
As a single mother, Mangoush’s desire to return to Libya and work for peace weighs heavily against the knowledge that she is solely responsible for the safety of her children. Both of her daughters, aged 9 and 14, are enrolled in schools in Virginia, are socially well adjusted, and like their classes.
During her interview with a Crossroads reporter on a Sunday evening, the voices of neighborhood children and traffic could just be heard outside her Harrisonburg townhouse. Asked what she would do when her scholarship is up, she was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I’m worried about them even more than me. What will life be like with no school and no security?”
Mangoush will spend the summer finishing the research she started at CJP on how to integrate restorative justice principles within customary law in Libya, while pondering her next step.
In the last year, she’s been tapped in Washington D.C. policy circles as an expert on Libya, and this will no doubt continue. In March 2015, for example, she was one of three panelists (and the only woman) at an event convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies to discuss “Libya in turmoil.”
Mangoush says she doubts she will continue to practice law when she returns to Libya. “I’m still passionate about justice,” she said, “but now I’m more passionate about restorative justice. Libya doesn’t have local experts on peace, but there is an urgent need for them. Libya doesn’t need more lawyers, it needs more peacebuilders.”
Ultimately she thinks that peace will come from the Libyan women, because women and children are the ones most affected by conflict. She said she understands that each woman has a different experience and story, but that for her, the stories of others’ resilience gives her strength. She said she hopes that one day her example will inspire others, just as Bugaighi inspired her.
“I have a message for every woman,” she said. “My message is that there is nothing that is impossible. Whatever the challenge may be, empower yourself to take the risk to make a change. Life is very short. We must ask ourselves, how do I create a better situation? We must learn how to listen to the voices within ourselves and fight for a better world.”