Benghazi: A huge sense of optimism for the future

Everyone here has told me how united Libya society is. That is true. But from what I have seen, it is also very tolerant. I have visited few places where I have been made to feel more welcome, perhaps because people here have felt so isolated from the outside world. But I have also met Europeans who have been here for generations and visited a church built in the Ottoman period.

I have been chastised for what the western media are reporting about links between the revolution and AQ. The Libyan people are devout Muslims but nobody here wants extremists. They have had enough of that over the past four decades. One guy I met made me laugh as he pulled on his beard and explained that it did not mean that he was an extremist, it was just because he was too busy supporting the revolution to go for a shave. 

I was out and about in the city today gauging reactions to the Doha meeting. I stumbled across a demonstration. The first banner said “thank you Contact Group” and that really summed up on the mood on the streets. The banner was surrounded by a sea of free Libyan flags, peppered with Union Jacks, Stars and Stripes and Tricoleur. Not to mention praise of the Qataris. It’s a great feeling to have people come up and thank me for UK foreign policy, which does not happen all that often in this part of the world.

But then in the midst of all of this, there is the fear that Qadhafi might return one day. It is unimaginable. Not only because these people fear the brutality that would come with this (and it would be grim). But these people have tasted freedom, they now know what it is to express themselves without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night.  Things could never go back to how they were before. 

A final thought for this blog, the people of Misurata and other towns under Qadhafi’s occupation and bombardment are never far from everyone’s minds here. I am not sure that I can imagine what they are going through.  But I hope that it will be over soon and that I will be there to witness the birth of a new and better Libya.

Barrie Peach is a British diplomat working alongside the U.K.’s Special Envoy, Christopher Prentice, in Benghazi.