Ex-pats, Mahmoud Traina, son Idrees Traina and wife Sumiah Aduib (seen here at the Misrata Revolution Museum) stand at the foot of ‘The Fist’ statue once only seen in TV footage of the previous dictator addressing citizens from his compound, Bab al-Aziziyah.
witness with my own eyes a Free Libya. For months, my husband and I would talk about the types of changes we would see on the streets and amongst the people.
Great Expectations and Somber Reality
What once was the central fruit market in Misrata, became the government stronghold for Gaddafi’s men throughout the fight for the third largest city in Libya. NATO delivered exact missiles that destroyed the tanks, changing the course of the war in favor of the opposition. Islamic Horizons November/December 2012
As with anything that one has hyped up, dreamt of, and anticipated for a whole lifetime (literally), it is only right that I be disappointed and letdown. Not completely, but almost. What I witnessed on my 14-day trip to Tripoli and Misrata was depressing and saddening. And this sentiment all rooted from the strong sense of depression I felt amongst the people. It is similar to the delayed mourning that happens to a family who lost someone and hasn’t felt the pain and true reality of it until all the guests stop coming and the phones stop ringing and the reality of what is left becomes vivid and too clear. The immediate post-war vigor and excitement had waned and the truth of the situation had settled in. The truth of the absence of power, order and control became a daily reality. Since Gaddafi’s reign was almost omniscient in its presence throughout the citizens’ lives, there remained a large void upon the collapse of his regime that has been naturally filling itself since his demise. Gaddafi was sure to never allow anything—not a university, medical program, civil union or even thriving market place—to live long. He wanted so badly to have the Libyan identity and national sense of self to be entangled in his existence that once he was gone, an empty space of nothingness and mourning for the dead lost in the revolution was all that seemed to be left. Visiting the homes of as many people as possible, I was stricken by the number of family members lost or seriously injured during the revolution. The somber, nonemotional manner in which people describe the missing or killed family member(s) is indicative of a nation hit so hard by so many obstacles, deaths, tragedies and a looming unknown future that emotion is either impossible or pointless. Or both. Every single street wall is graced by the names of the fallen accompanied by a date and maybe a prayer; war slogans as well as curses and mocking caricatures of the exdictator in compromising poses and forms (the most popular is Gaddafi in the form of a rat since this is what he called the freedom fighters); and more and more graffiti blasting 43