Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Zawiya and Benghazi, Hero Cities

The people of Libya are so brave, so incredibly brave. They are facing not just point-blank fire by tanks, APCs, artillery and air strikes, but also the more subtle but no less dangerous enemies of fatigue, despair, reactionary identity-politics, and regime propaganda.

Alex Crawford filed this stunning report from Zawiya, a small city just twenty minutes away from the outskirts of Tripoli. It shows how the regime's thugs murdered unarmed, peaceful demonstrators -- and only then did the people pick up weapons to defend themselves. And defend themselves they have. They fought off literally weeks of attacks by the crack brigades of the dictator. They fought against the best the regime had -- and they are winning. Time and again they have driven out incursions by the dictator's forces, and continue to control their city.

On Libya Alhurra, the Revolution's web-streamed TV channel, another band of heroes had gathered: a meeting of the women of the revolution in Benghazi, organizing themselves and their city to consolidate and support the revolution. They are no less brave, casting off centuries of patriarchal oppression as well as decades of regime propaganda, and their struggles are no less important to the foundation of Libya's democracy.

Two bands of heroes, covering themselves and their nation in glory.

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