Meet the idealists trying to build a new society in eastern Libya.

The border crossing from Egypt into rebel-controlled eastern Libya offers few clues that the country is at war. The Libyan immigration officers wear ragged uniforms and carry on the routine of stamping passports, though with a friendliness and ease that is undoubtedly new. The eight-hour drive to the rebels’ de facto capital of Benghazi is dramatic only for its scenery—a rugged coastline with wide open beaches, then, surprisingly, green hills, crossed by deep gorges and adorned with beautifully preserved Greek ruins, visited by no one. Some day this place will be crawling with tourists; let’s pray the developers don’t destroy it, I thought. This was not the threat I expected to be dwelling on in my first moments in Libya.

In Benghazi itself, the evidence of upheaval becomes more apparent. Each day, the streets roar with the sounds of pep rallies staged by fighters heading for the front; they fire guns in the air and occasionally set off dynamite to prove their devotion to their cause. But then the rallies give way to traffic jams and the rhythms of normal life. There are no lines for gas or food. Everyone says crime is down since the rebels took over. At Friday prayers, the imam tells the kids in the audience to cut out the celebratory gunfire: It rattles people’s nerves, he says, and besides, “we need the ammunition” in the besieged town of Misrata.

The most visible sign of the revolution is its iconography. In every city and town, the red, black, and green rebel flag, resurrected from pre-Qaddafi Libya, hangs everywhere, sometimes alongside the flags of the rebels’ foreign allies, most handmade in people’s homes—which is one reason the simple-to-stitch French and Italian tricolors are more common than the American Stars and Stripes or the British Union Jack. Even more striking is the graffiti. On my first day in Libya, in the town of Derna, one meticulously drawn panel caught my eye: “WE WANT A COUNTRY OF INSTITUTIONS,” it read. In how many revolutions have people marched to such a slogan?

From the cable talk shows to congressional hearings, every American discussion about Libya still seems to come around to a single question: Who are these Libyan rebels? One evening in Benghazi, I mentioned this, somewhat apologetically, to Professor Zahi Mogherbi, one of the country’s most eminent political scientists. He laughed and said, “Don’t worry—we ask ourselves the same thing! Who are we?”

For 40 years, under Muammar Qaddafi’s dictatorship, it was dangerous for Libyans even to have a conversation about what kind of country they wanted to live in. Now, in the eastern cities that have freed themselves from Qaddafi’s grip, something important is happening. An entire society is trying to define its political identity. This process could still end tragically. But it has begun mostly well. And it deserves greater attention.