Libya: The Liberation of Tripoli
This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.
On August 20, 2011, Operation Mermaid Dawn for the liberation of Tripoli started with calls of Allahu Akbar (God is Great!) from the hundreds of mosques scattered around the city. This was the agreed signal that the residents of Tripoli were waiting for to rise as one person in the face of evil. From that call, the events precipitated so fast it was breathtaking.
The ensuing epic turmoil has been well covered by international media, especially when they entered Tripoli the following day.
Libyans fight to free Tripoli. Image by Patriots of Misrata, copyright Demotix (23/04/11).
But the most striking turning point in the battle for Tripoli for a blogger is seeing my Twitter timeline lighting up on the evening of August 21 with a tweet from A.Adam (Flyingbirdies). A.Adam used to have a blog called Flying Birds, this has now unfortunately disappeared but his user account is still online.
Seeing his message up meant that the Internet was back in Tripoli, and rightly so as Al Jazeera was prompt to announce it as breaking news.
A.Adam's first tweets from Tripoli
This was an incredible feeling that Tripoli residents were once again connected to the world after so many months and could voice their emotions, thoughts and also their opinions. That is what I think the world is waiting for; to hear from the Tripolitanians.
Amazingly soon after, the bloggers started to come out with Highlander publishing the first post after a long silence.
Totally bewildered and happy that the nightmare is ending but sad at the loss of life in Libya and among family members.
Blogger Ema could only muster:
No words are enough No words can describe what we feel
FREEDOM
Khadijateri was incredulous :
It's been a long hard six months but I made it. The internet has been turned on and I'm slowly sifting through over 2000 emails.
Blogger Pudding of Kilmanibbbi [ar]:
In his/her first post after the fall of Tripoli, Pudding is discussing a previous post regarding a Quranic verse which basically his readers were assuming that it was posted because the blogger was against foreign intervention in Libya.
This could be something we could see more and more of once we start hearing Libyan opinions and depending on what NATOs plans are in Libya.
It is good to see the Libyans talking freely.
And to conclude, we wrap up this quick tour of the Libyan blogs with Libyan Violet saying:
It is not all over yet, some parts of our Great country ( and the adjective here is absolutely fitting still need help to be liberated, where complete safety still needs to be restored, where martyrs still need to be buried, prisoners released, injured treated and children reassured! But for sure the hardest part in the fight is over I hope.
The kaleidoscope of emotions was fantastic and we expect more as people to start blogging after taking stock of what had just unfolded.
This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.
Written by Fozia Mohamed · comments (0)
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on Global Voices » Feature: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/08/27/libya-the-liberation-of-tripoli/