أنا الليبي متصل النشيد

When Libya Grew Wings By KHALED DARWISH AUG. 24, 2011 Tripoli, Libya ON Monday, we heard rumors that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam, who we thought had been captured, was on the loose. This news about Seif — the would-be heir who had the gall to gloat at the murder of Libyans trying to strike the diamond crown off his bald, smooth head — shocked all of us. But the young rebels, who had no option left but to advance, shouted: “So what? God is on our side!” The shock dissipated and a quickening excitement took over, along with an intense desire to end our country’s chronic pain, once and for all. I could hear the cries and cheers of women as they welcomed the young men who had settled in the neighborhood and camped out in some of its school buildings. At night, another rumor spread, that Qaddafi loyalists in the southern district of Abu Salim were moving toward Zanata, near downtown, to attack. My friend, the Benghazi opposition writer Mohamed Sohaim, wh...