Memories of a Libyan Child

Written by my sister:

Born to parents who left Libya in the late seventies and couldn’t return due to my uncle’s involvement in the 1984 Libyan opposition movement, I spent my childhood years not knowing the country I was originally from. In fear that their children would grow up not knowing their country, my parents made sure that they brought us up to love Libya.

Instead of reading bedtime stories to us, my parents would tell us happy stories about their childhood and about the Libyan people and how generous and kind they were. They told us stories about our relatives and how they loved us so much and were always waiting for us to return to Libya. They told us about the Eid celebrations and the festive family iftar meals in Ramadan. They even told us that the food in Libya tasted different and was much more delicious than anywhere else in the world (particularly the meat and bread for some reason). In fact, my parents made Libya sound like heaven. In our eyes, Libya was paradise. It was the most beautiful place on earth that had everything our hearts desired.

Because I thought Libya was such an amazing place, I remember feeling sorry for people who weren’t Libyan. I truly believed that Libya was the best country in the world and that people who weren’t from that country were very unlucky. I was proud to be Libyan and made it very clear to my American friends at school that that was where I was from (even though most of them hadn’t heard of it before).

I recall looking through a magazine one afternoon when I was very young and seeing a picture of ‘the bedroom of my dreams’. I ran to my mother and told her that I wanted a bedroom that looked exactly like the one in the picture, and she just smiled and gave me the usual response: “Insha’Allah when we move back to Libya, you’ll have a bedroom just like that’.  Clutching the magazine to my chest, I turned away with a huge smile across my face fantasizing about my dream bedroom in the enchanting land called Libya.

However, despite thinking Libya was the best country in the world, I knew there was one problem about it: Gaddaffi - the evil Shaytan that lived there. My parents called him a Shaytan and, hence, being young as we were, my siblings and I couldn’t differentiate between the real Shaytan (Iblees) and Gaddaffi. In fact, we thought they were the same person. I remember a time when my family was eating dinner and my mother was reminding us to say bismillah before we eat. She told us that if we don’t say bismillah, the Shaytan would then eat with us. My younger brother looked at my mother with a confused look on his face and innocently said: “but how can the Shaytan eat with us if he’s in Libya?’

As we got older (and realized that Gaddaffi and the Shaytan were not the same person), an intense hatred began to grow inside my siblings and I towards Gaddaffi - as it did with most Libyan children who lived in the U.S. and were also deprived of returning to their country or were affected by Gaddafi in other ways. When the Libyan children got together at the Libyan picnics, we talked about how we were going to be the ones who would kill Gaddaffi when we grew up and then become the new leaders of the country. We discussed the different ways we would torture him before we would kill him (sounds brutal I know!). We even taught each other songs about Gaddaffi and sang them together. One specific song that I will never forget is: wa7ed etnan tlata, Gaddaffi beshnabata, yakil fil-makroona, wa hikki kubra 3youna; always making sure that we drew circles with our hands around our eyes when we sang the last part.

The hatred my siblings and I felt for Gaddaffi was so intense that on the occasions when someone in the community would go for Hajj or Omrah and bring us back some zamzam water, we always made sure that the du’aa we made while drinking it was: ‘Ya Allah please let Gaddaffi die’. Holding our half-filled tea-cups, we would repeat the du’aa over and over again with each tiny sip we took. It was as if the mere purpose of drinking zamzam water was to make that du’aa.

When I was 12 years old, my family moved from the United States to the United Arab Emirates. My relatives from Libya then began to visit us and always had many disturbing stories to share about Gaddaffi and what he had done to the people and the country. It was then when I slowly began to understand the reality of Libya and the picture-perfect idea I had about it shattered. I was still proud to be Libyan but I didn’t feel it was the best country in the world anymore. I didn’t think that people who weren’t Libyan were unlucky anymore. On the contrary, I thought my family and I were unlucky for having a brutal dictator as a leader and for being deprived of visiting our country. Every summer all my Syrian, Egyptian, Kuwaiti etc. classmates would visit their country while my family and I were stuck in the extremely hot summers of the U.A.E. 

Alhamdillah, in my early twenties I was finally blessed with the opportunity to visit Libya and even had the chance to live and teach English there. The time I spent in Libya was an eye-opening experience for me and gave me a very good feel on how Gaddaffi’s brutality and tyranny affected the Libyans emotionally, spiritually and psychologically. One thing that struck me most about the Libyans (especially the Libyan men) was their lack of patriotism. Most Libyans hated Libya and everything about it. They were always trying to figure out a way to move to America or Europe and would jump at any opportunity to do so. Whenever I asked my students what their dreams or ambitions were, their response was always the same: ‘get married and move to America’.

To be frank, you couldn’t blame the Libyans for feeling that way. There was not much to be proud of. Gaddaffi didn’t develop the country in any way since he held power in the late sixties and any attempt to develop the country by the people was immediately stepped on. He killed the people’s ambitions, skills and talents. He made life difficult for everyone and any dream was almost impossible to achieve if you lived in Libya. Certain rights, such as getting married or going for Hajj, were extremely difficult for the average Libyan to attain. This naturally caused many Libyans to give up hope on Libya entirely. In other words, Gaddaffi made sure he killed any sense of pride that the Libyans may have felt towards their country.

Although I had seen the reality of Libya and could completely understand why most Libyans weren’t very patriotic, the little girl that thought Libya was the best country in the world still lived inside me; and I always hoped and prayed that one day Libya would prove to be a first world country.

Subhan’Allah, post February 17, 2011, it looked like my prayers (and the prayers of the millions of Libyans) were finally going to be answered. The fight against Gaddafi began and alhamdillah was looking promising - despite the high price the Libyans had to pay. Watching the freedom fighters on television liberating one city at a time, I couldn’t believe that they were the same men who only months earlier had no hope for Libya and used to waste their days hanging around the corners of streets chatting away and smoking. The Libyans were already changing and Libya was finally moving towards a new horizon.

Not only did the Libyan revolution give hope to the Libyans, but it also inspired the world. A country that was barely ever spoken of and many had never even heard of prior to February 17th, became top news on almost every news station. Suddenly, the Libyans all felt much more Libyan and were proud of their country in a way that they had never felt before. The chant ‘arfa3 rasik foug, enta leeby 7ur’ (hold your head up high, you are a free Libyan) could be heard in almost every corner of Libya.  As I got the chance to visit Tripoli less than two weeks after its liberation, I was able to witness the pride in people’s faces and hear it in their voices.

Speaking partly from a personal point of view, partly from the good that I saw during the three weeks I spent in Tripoli after its liberation, and partly from the voice of the little girl inside me, I believe with all my heart that Libya will have a flourishing future and insha’Allah will one day become one of the most prosperous countries in the world. It may take a lot of time, and it may not even happen in our lifetime; but it will happen insha’Allah. Allah (swt) says ‘Verily with hardship there is ease’ (94:5). The death of Gaddaffi and the liberation of Libya is just the beginning of the ease that the Libyans will experience after 42 years of hardship - and the magnitude of the ease is usually in proportion to the severity and intensity of the hardship. Imagine the ease and reward Allah (swt) has in store for Libya and the Libyan people (insha’Allah)!

On a final note, this year, I was alhamdillah blessed with the opportunity to perform Hajj. After walking into the haram and making du’aa in front of the ka’bah, I went towards the zamzam water coolers. As I picked up a cup of zamzam water and brought it to my lips, I remembered the du’aa for Gaddaffi’s death that I used to make when I was a little girl every time I had the opportunity to drink from zamzam water. I couldn’t help but smile when I realized my du’aa was finally answered and that I won’t need to make that prayer anymore. Instead, I made a silent prayer for the future of Libya and took a sip of the holy water.

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