Ryan Calder, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, is traveling in rebel-held eastern Libya this month, interviewing the revolution's participants and witnesses. You can read earlier installments in this series here.
BENGHAZI, Libya — Lately I've been trying to work in Benghazi's press center, set up by the opposition for foreign press in the building that -- until the revolution -- housed Benghazi's high court. It's a dank building with crumbling walls, but it's now covered in bright hand-drawn posters, most of them mocking Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi in one language or another. It has Internet -- slow and sporadic, like all telecommunications in Libya at the moment, but a crucial service nonetheless. But it turns out to be a pretty difficult place to get any work done. Free Benghazi has become a raucous place, one with its own loud rhythms.
When I was here the afternoon of April 8, a rally passed by, chanting slogans. This is pretty standard -- rallies pass by every day, starting in other parts of the city and ending at the courthouse square, which, like Cairo's Tahrir Square, was the opposition protesters' base when the revolution got under way in mid-February. These days, many of the rally signs are in English, to get the world's attention -- everyone is well aware of the international reach of photographs taken here.
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In late March, in the early days of coalition bombing, the signs at rallies largely expressed gratitude toward those countries leading the campaign of airstrikes. But in recent days, as the war's end no longer seems imminent, the rallies have taken on a more imploring tone. Yesterday, the demonstrators -- who by my count were about 60 percent women -- were holding signs that read:
SARKOZY, CAMERON: PLEASE SAVE MISRATA LIKE YOU SAVED BENGHAZI
NATO: HELP ZINTAN, HELP MISRATA, HELP ZAWEYA
NATO: HELP TRIPOLI & SAVE OUR OIL FIELDS
The red-black-green opposition flag is ubiquitous at these rallies, though a few demonstrators wave the French tricolor or the Qatari flag. (The Qatari government has contributed planes to the no-fly zone, sold oil to the opposition, contributed extensive humanitarian aid, and recognized the opposition government as the legitimate government of Libya.) Those are the "big three," though you occasionally see others: EU flags, American flags, Italian flags, Spanish flags, British flags, and Egyptian flags. The flag-waving rallies have become a regular enough feature of life in free Benghazi that they have given rise to a booming flag-selling business in the square. Small ones cost $3, big ones $5. Vendors sell mostly the red-black-green opposition flag, but you can buy French and Qatari flags too. Last week I asked a couple of teenage flag vendors where they got them. "We make them at home," one of them told me, explaining that there's a tailor in the family.
The stalls selling flags sell revolutionary memorabilia as well: pins, keychains, CDs. Also for sale is a faux one-dinar note that substitutes Omar al-Mukhtar's figure for Qaddafi's: al-Mukhtar, the hero of the anti-colonial resistance whom Libyans called "the Lion of the Desert," was hanged by Italian forces in 1931. Al-Mukhtar was a native son of eastern Libya, and his image is ubiquitous here in Benghazi. Qaddafi rolled al-Mukhtar's memory into the symbolism of his regime, though the appropriation was an awkward one -- wary of threats to his own personality cult, Qaddafi removed a shrine to al-Mukhtar from Benghazi early in his rule, infuriating people there.
Now the opposition has taken al-Mukhtar back, and his image is plastered on cars and buildings everywhere, usually with the red-black-green flag in the background. (Al-Mukhtar's grandson lent his family name to the anti-Qaddafi uprising in March.) I've interviewed countless rebels who recite to me al-Mukhtar's famous phrase: "La nastaslim -- nantasir aw namoot." "We don't surrender -- we win or we die." The al-Mukhtar faux one-dinar note sells for half a dinar -- about 30 cents. It has convenient peel-away adhesive backing, so you can stick it on anything you want. And people here do.
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