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Above: Libya's Conflict Museum: photo from the Metropolitan Workshop (http://www.metwork.co.uk/) - 2009 - 2011?
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| Odysseus' eyes. | Cost: $33,761,666 Area: 15,000 sqm |
Construction Versus Destruction:
The construction of the Conflict Museum in Tripoli was envisaged to begin sometime before September 2009, and was hoped to be finished by the end of 2011 to house some of Libya's rich war heritage. Gaddafi however got far more than what he bargained for, for February 2011 did rapidly invite yet another conflict onto the history of Libya; total destruction of infrastructure and collateral damage of sincere premonitions; pulverising Gaddafi's regime and ending in his grotesque death. The stench of his rotting body left in a meat locker, with putrefied liquid trickling beneath, attracted onlookers to Mesratha queuing for 20 Libyan Dinars. In a secret grave in the desert he was deserted to disintegrate where sand purifies sin & all. The NTC says it fears not Gaddafi but his grave -- the contrasting conflict of his enemies' desecration & his loyalists' ghosts instigating a shrine for the world to see.
A frightening and limb-trembling 30,000 Libyans were slaughtered, and a staggering 50,000 were wounded, 20,000 of whom seriously injured. Roaming Libya's sovereign sky in hunt of "command & control centres" and "government targets", UN-mandated American & European forces, guided by special boots on the ground, blasted 26,000 sorties, 9,600 precise missile strikes, and 5,900 bombing missions. Bang: complete convoys pulverised, Khamis incinerated, government troops obliterated, military camps dilapidated, entire units eradicated, and women, children, rebels, loyalists, mercenaries, revolutionaries, and even a desolate camel caravan south of Sebha were no more, by all means.
The NTC says the extensive devastation of Libya's infrastructure will take at least ten years of intensive restructure to get back on its amputated feet; while bankers and financial gurus calculate the orchestrated damage will require no less than $400,000,000,000 to put back the way it was before.
Perplexed as it might seem, the hair-width twilight zone of tribal densities crossed against the fuzzy no-fly zone reflected one of the most disastrous conflicts Libya has ever seen. A conflict that came to have so many colours and so many names: Arab Spring, "Not Berber Spring", Uprising, Revolt, Ellamy, Harmattan, Mobile, Unified Protector, Protection of Civilians, Humanitarian Mission, Civil War, "Black Massacre", Qaida Flicker, Colonial Crusade, Odyssey Dawn, February Revolution, Liberation of Libya, Free Libya, and many more names yet to come from the "difficult times lurking ahead".
No wonder the ancient Berber Atarantes, the Atalantes of Herodotus, were said to have no names, and curse the red sun every sunrise of the year in a sacred ceremony by the Libyan Sea --- the anthropological saga many Libyans and perhaps others never knew, and never to see.
WWII Tobruk Vintage WMD*
* (wmd
= weapons of medium destruction)
By the time the February conflict was nearing its expected end, as the guests began to leave the show, and as war-torn Libyans were left to pick up the pieces and heal their deepest wounds, without any means, the scheduled deadline for the conflict museum to open was running short of time. Instead of leaving the online museum vacant, Temehu.com took a step to occupy the museum for the time being with factual conflict information, war imagery and damage inflicted for freedom; and chose 11/11/2011 the day to open its online war museum in remembrance of this historic year, the 11th year of the third millennium that dearly transformed Libya in so many ways.
Tripoli
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Gaddafi: born in 42 & ruled
for 42 years; installed in 69 &
removed at the age of 69 Gaddafi's house during its last days before it was bulldozed to rubble. Some Libyans speak of creating a Human Rights organisation on the site, to defend the Berbers' rights, of course; while others prefer to see a recreational park for children to play and adults to relax. A flea market has been set up before the house to revive the besieged economy! Libyans before were deprived of their confiscated wealth, the wealth squandered by Gaddafi on poor and terror groups from around the world, but now they are still fighting for their frozen funds to come home.
The graffiti mainly consists of names of militias, armed groups, brigades, names of individuals, towns and villages including but not limited to Jado, Zuwarah, Zintan, Zawiya, Mesratha, Yefren, Nalut, Gheryan and Benghazi. Plus the usual Libyan floor on top.
The NTC, the self-appointed sole representative of the aspirations
of the Libyan people, was made to "beg" the UN and its allies, repeatedly,
to unfreeze Libya's assets; but so far (October) only $2 billion out of googlish
$200 billion have been defrosted back into the besieged pot. The rest is accumulating
funds elsewhere when the world is desperately running short of "cash";
leading to global uprisings against economic inequality & police brutality "occupying" the
headlines from around the world.
Assuming demolishing the house is a symbolic gesture of destroying the old and ousted regime, the next question the Libyans need to answer is: who will lead the Libyans out of the quagmire?
A US presidential candidate once said:
The aluminium launcher (left) was originally attached to a military helicopter. The rebels dismantle it, take it to the workshop, weld a mounting base, attach an electronic control to program the number of rockets to fire, and presto: ready to go.
Here is another "do not try this at home" device, used by Zuwarah rebels to halt the advances of Libyan government doomed troops: six gas cylinders, with dynamite in between, placed on the road and ignited just before the tanks grind their way forward across the tarmac. Since Zuwarans are fisherman by nature and use dynamite as well as nets for fishing, it emerged later that some of the government soldiers were more bemused than afraid, as they sarcastically spoke of not being fish.
List of Zuwarah's February Martyrs.
( 2 ) Zawiya
Andulus Celebrations Hall Bombed
Zawiya
Many people accused both sides (of the war)
of attacking civilians, and the ICC recently said it will investigate both
NATO and the NTC. But then it is difficult to draw the line. For example, the
above place, in Zawiya, was a celebration hall (accessed through the gate on
the left), with some shops outside. So the place is indeed a civilian place.
But then Libyan government troops used it to hide
ammunition, weapons and themselves, and therefore armed with coordinates
from ground rebels NATO bombed the military target. End of story.
Some of the British bunker-buster bombs dropped in new Libya weighed 14 tonnes a piece. Many Libyans still fear to be dehumanised by the spectacular umbrella of international democracy, as the noose tightens: merciless fire from one side, mercenary fire from the other, and in between lies the master fire. "Dropping bombs is not an act of hostility"
Zawiya
Zawiya
The sign in the poster says: "Freedom is Our Demand". The black writing below the poster calls for: "Our Youth to Protect Libya"; in contrast to the background men built across the generations. Naser, the man carrying the slogan in the poster, has become a national symbol of the February Uprising, as the poster spread across Libya. Dressed in the manner shown in the poster, Naser joined the rebels of Zawiya in Martyrs Square on a horse. The horse fled back to his owner's home as soon as machine guns cut through the sky and tanks punched holes in walls.
Yesterday people were encouraged to take up arms and die as martyrs. Today they are urged to surrender their weapons and respect the law. Previously the Libyans refused to lay down their weapons because they want to see an elected democratic government in place first. But the self-appointed leaders have given the rebels of Tripoli until the 20th of December to surrender their weapons and return home, unless they want to feel the full force of the law in lawless Libya.
(3) Sabratha
Sabratha: this building was just completed before the turbulent uprising. A sweet shop was operating from the ground floor. The building was used by Libyan government snipers to take out the rebels. After long exchanges of hide and seek, the rebels lost patience and blasted the building with their missiles. The scale of destruction there is and still is looming over the horizon, and the extent of human rights abuses and revenges, in the past and in today's Libya, will take years of painstaking research to document.
(4) Arson Attacks on Banks
Apparently; there were quite a number of banks attacked during the uprising in Libya, including the commerce bank in Benghazi, where one of the largest thefts of archaeological material in history took place, in May 2011, in NTC-controlled Benghazi, Libya.
Jamhouriya Bank, Zuwarah.
In Greek mythology, the Libyan giant Antaeus, son of Libyan Poseidon and mother-earth Gaia, and the husband of Tinga (whence Tangier in Morocco), was challenged to fight powerful Heracles. Antaeus' secret, namely drawing his super energy from the earth (his mother), leaked across the sea, and so to defeat him cunning Heracles lifted Antaeus from the ground and held him high above, until Antaeus lost all his energy and thus the flame of his life was starved of its motherly source.
War Screen Shots From The Media
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 As you might have noticed, we have more photos from Zuwarah and Zawiya than other areas, and that is so because the museum is in its early stages, and it will be updated during the coming months with new photos from all Libya. We would welcome & appreciate adding your photos and unusual stories to our galleries. We are interested in photos from all areas of Libya, especially so from the Two World Wars.To see your photos in this gallery, please send to: info at temehu dot com
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Writing
new kind of history for New Libya, the indigenous history all other Libyas were
made to erase.
Zuwarah
Thank You.