Benghazi diary

Benghazi, March 27: Democracy, drag racing, and a decent cup of espresso

"Qaddafi had a hold on Benghazi like this," a 30-year-old butcher-shop employee in the city told me on March 26, clenching his fist. "But no longer. Now, we’re free."

These political motivations for rebellion are the ones that tend to filter out of Benghazi through the news media to the outside world. In part, it’s because people here — official and otherwise — do frame their fight in those terms: In my three weeks in the city, I’ve found that anyone in a position of formal authority in the interim government — from national-level leaders to staff at the rebel-run media center in Benghazi to town-level representatives of the interim government — is aware that "democracy" and "freedom" are bywords that will portray the "new Libya" in the right international light. (They’re also careful to argue that there will be no partisanship (hizbiyyah) and no tribalism (qaba’iliyah) in the new Libya.) This is one of many ways in which the eyes of the outside world are shaping this uprising, and all of the 2011 Arab uprisings: Liberal-democratic discourse has gone utterly and completely global and is now reflecting back upon itself.

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