Libya: Frontline folklore keeps Misrata rebels going By Gabriel Gatehouse

BBC News, Misrata Published duration 11 July 2011

image caption The men of Misrata are improvising

After weeks of stalemate, Libyan rebels in the town of Misrata are once again fighting their way westwards. But progress is slow. The city itself is still surrounded, and the only way in or out is by sea.

There seems no imminent prospect of an end to the fighting. Yet inside Misrata itself, morale is high as the people of the city construct an image of themselves as the invincible underdogs of the Libyan revolution.

On a recent weekday evening, thousands of Misratans took to the streets of their city. "Free Libya," they chanted, as they waved their revolutionary flags of red, black and green.

media caption Gabriel Gatehouse "The city of Misrata may still be surrounded but people will not give up the fight"

Men fired their guns from the back of pick-up trucks. They were shooting not in anger, but in defiance.

Their message to Col Muammar Gaddafi and the world was this: Their city may still be surrounded, but Misratans will not give up the fight.

"This is something we can tell our children, our grandchildren," said Ali Fergani, a well-spoken local engineer who joined the demonstration.

"[It is] the day freedom came to the people. You can see people are happy, people are excited. Even though there is lack of food, but people are happy because they have their freedom back."

But that freedom came at a high price.

Tripoli Street is Misrata's central artery. These days, you will find children playing on an abandoned tank, turning its turret to right and left, to squeals of delight.

But Tripoli Street has to be seen to be believed. Every single building is riddled with bullet holes and shrapnel wounds.

The road is littered with the shells of burned out cars and the twisted remains of shipping containers.

In April, the rebels had filled these containers with sand and rubble. They used them as cover, using bulldozers to push them forward, as they slowly edged Col Gaddafi's forces out of town, day by day, house by house.

Power of legend

For the people of Misrata, the battle for Tripoli Street is the most vivid event in living memory.

image caption Estimates of the dead in Misrata vary from 300 to 700, with hundreds more wounded

A shrine has been built in its honour. Local residents come to pay their respects at a "martyrs' wall". Large quantities of spent and unspent ordinance lie piled up in the street, testament to the intensity of the battle.

What happened here just a few short months ago is already being written into the history books, attaining almost the status of folklore.

But meanwhile, other battles are still raging just a few kilometres away.

On the front line, during a lull in the fighting, a young fighter stood atop a protective sand bank and performed the call to prayer. Young fighters turn to God for courage as they wait their turn to go into battle.

"I'm seeing it myself every day," says Dr Ahmed Sweihli, a psychiatrist who says he believes Col Gaddafi suffers from "narcissistic personality disorder".

"You see the people dying and being injured on the front line. Yet at the same time the front line is moving further and further away from Misrata."

In these uncertain times, Dr Sweihli says, a sense of history is becoming crucial to the city's survival.

"I don't think people will forget Tripoli Street for centuries. When I came and saw Tripoli Street, I thought, 'My God, what has happened here? And how did the people of Misrata, who didn't have any weapons, get Gaddafi's forces out?'

"I think that's the folklore part of it. There's going to be a bit of history, a bit of legend, many myths as well, about how this actually happened."

Mural message

The end of Gaddafi's rule in Misrata has turned every wall into a potential canvas.

Rabiyah al-Abidi can regularly be found on the city's newly renamed Freedom Square, hard at work with brushes and pots of paint.

image caption Rabiyah al-Abidi has swapped his gun for a paintbrush

In one mural, a caricature of Col Gaddafi lies sprawled on the ground, a rebel fighter's boot in his back.

But there's more to this display of artistry than the flowering of long-suppressed satirical instinct.

"Until the liberation of Tripoli Street, I carried a gun," says Abidi. "You had to then. But after the battle, we set up a painters' workshop. We're trying to use the walls of the city to convey our message."

Now that he had swapped his gun for a paintbrush, I asked him, did he think his murals would one day become a part of history?

"Maybe," he said, a little uncertainly. "I hope so."

The painter's words betray a nervousness that few here will admit to: that the regime could yet make a comeback.