2006, with American participation at the Tripoli
International Fair, a sprawling commercial trade show in the center of town, which had been heldâeven during the sanctionsâevery year since the 1970s. While the Libyan administrators were not very cooperative, at one point selling the US space to another country, the USLO was able to rent a modest two-story structure to host exhibitions from twenty or so US companies and their newly appointed agents. As part of the exhibits, the public affairs officer and I collaborated to import an American band, for a concert to be given at the US national day (every country had its own day during the event).
When USA Day arrived, ten thousand Libyans showed up and treated Luna Angel like a rock star, rushing the stage during the hour-long show. While some in the crowd were reluctant to accept the small American flags that were being passed outâfor any number of reasonsâthe moment seemed cathartic in a way. Oddly, while the European press covered this event, there was not a single mention in the US papers. âIn how many other Middle Eastern countries at this time,â quipped one observer, âwould you see thousands of youth waving American flags and singing along with an American band? And yet, itâs as if this never happened.â
For someone not immersed in the West-Libya political dialogue, social and physical changes in Tripoli were quite visible. Internet cafés and Italian-style cafés were springing up. Downtown, fashionable districts like Ben Ashur and Gargaresh Street were jam-packed with joyriding young men and women, who passed recorded messages to one another on cassette tapes. Green Square sported a shiny new outdoor restaurant and café, Al Saraya, replete with shisha (hookah) stations and fancy-clad waiters. This was the place to see and be seen by the new Libyan elite, their protégés, Western suitors, an increasing number of Japanese touristsâand the Libyan government (given the expensive surveillance equipment mounted on the roofs of adjacent buildings).
This optimism and progress was matched by desperation of many informed Libyans. A group of a hundred eight Libyan dissident émigrés produced a white paper entitled, âA Vision of Libyaâs Future.â In it, they demanded a new regime committed to human rights and built upon democratic foundation. 34 The urgency these individuals felt reflected their fear that Gaddafi would actually succeed in reforming himself, at their collective expense. Longtime Libya watcher Luis Martinez characterized the situation: âFor those who opposed the Libyan regime, the rehabilitation of Libya seemed to sound the knell for the hopes of democratic change.â 35
In the first few years after the opening of Libya, there was also a modest literary renaissance. Some of this outburst manifested itself in journalistic pieces, but also in poetry and short stories. The newest literary products contained only lightly veiled criticisms of the regime, all the while respecting the red lines by only indirectly mentioning members of the Gaddafi family. Just as Sadiq Neihoum and others attempted to do during the monarchy and the early days of Gaddafiâs revolution, the new writers tried to expose the arbitrariness and absurdity of government, and the relative backwardness of some of Libyaâs traditions.
In one story, âAwdat Caesarâ (the Return of Caesar) by Meftah Genaw, a statue of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (which at one point during the Monarchy had been pilfered from Leptis Magna, and propped up in what became Green Square during the Gaddafi years) is mysteriously brought back to life to marvel at the physical decay that occurred under Gaddafiâs rule. Caesar commiserates with a bronze statue âNude woman with the Gazelleâ (an artistic vestige of Italian rule, that sat on a traffic roundabout just off the square), that might have been erotic
International Fair, a sprawling commercial trade show in the center of town, which had been heldâeven during the sanctionsâevery year since the 1970s. While the Libyan administrators were not very cooperative, at one point selling the US space to another country, the USLO was able to rent a modest two-story structure to host exhibitions from twenty or so US companies and their newly appointed agents. As part of the exhibits, the public affairs officer and I collaborated to import an American band, for a concert to be given at the US national day (every country had its own day during the event).
When USA Day arrived, ten thousand Libyans showed up and treated Luna Angel like a rock star, rushing the stage during the hour-long show. While some in the crowd were reluctant to accept the small American flags that were being passed outâfor any number of reasonsâthe moment seemed cathartic in a way. Oddly, while the European press covered this event, there was not a single mention in the US papers. âIn how many other Middle Eastern countries at this time,â quipped one observer, âwould you see thousands of youth waving American flags and singing along with an American band? And yet, itâs as if this never happened.â
For someone not immersed in the West-Libya political dialogue, social and physical changes in Tripoli were quite visible. Internet cafés and Italian-style cafés were springing up. Downtown, fashionable districts like Ben Ashur and Gargaresh Street were jam-packed with joyriding young men and women, who passed recorded messages to one another on cassette tapes. Green Square sported a shiny new outdoor restaurant and café, Al Saraya, replete with shisha (hookah) stations and fancy-clad waiters. This was the place to see and be seen by the new Libyan elite, their protégés, Western suitors, an increasing number of Japanese touristsâand the Libyan government (given the expensive surveillance equipment mounted on the roofs of adjacent buildings).
This optimism and progress was matched by desperation of many informed Libyans. A group of a hundred eight Libyan dissident émigrés produced a white paper entitled, âA Vision of Libyaâs Future.â In it, they demanded a new regime committed to human rights and built upon democratic foundation. 34 The urgency these individuals felt reflected their fear that Gaddafi would actually succeed in reforming himself, at their collective expense. Longtime Libya watcher Luis Martinez characterized the situation: âFor those who opposed the Libyan regime, the rehabilitation of Libya seemed to sound the knell for the hopes of democratic change.â 35
In the first few years after the opening of Libya, there was also a modest literary renaissance. Some of this outburst manifested itself in journalistic pieces, but also in poetry and short stories. The newest literary products contained only lightly veiled criticisms of the regime, all the while respecting the red lines by only indirectly mentioning members of the Gaddafi family. Just as Sadiq Neihoum and others attempted to do during the monarchy and the early days of Gaddafiâs revolution, the new writers tried to expose the arbitrariness and absurdity of government, and the relative backwardness of some of Libyaâs traditions.
In one story, âAwdat Caesarâ (the Return of Caesar) by Meftah Genaw, a statue of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (which at one point during the Monarchy had been pilfered from Leptis Magna, and propped up in what became Green Square during the Gaddafi years) is mysteriously brought back to life to marvel at the physical decay that occurred under Gaddafiâs rule. Caesar commiserates with a bronze statue âNude woman with the Gazelleâ (an artistic vestige of Italian rule, that sat on a traffic roundabout just off the square), that might have been erotic
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