Fist-Pumps and Rag-Tag Rebels: Blog Boots on the Ground in Libya

Strange daze inside Libya via Ryan Calder at Revolutionology:

Me: "How old are you?"
The Littlest Rebel: "Thirteen."
Me: "Do you know how to use that thing?"
The Littlest Rebel: "Yup."

Another guy in the truck, probably in his early 20s: "We've taught him how to use it, but he doesn't man the thing. I do. But if I'm killed during the fighting, he'll know how to step in and man it." --The littlest rebel

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These two photographers are shooting what they know the photo agencies will buy. One of them told me as much. Photo agencies buy pictures of rebels reading the Quran on the battlefield. -- How Orientalism reproduces itself

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Muhammad, laughing: "The rebels will launch a rocket at us."
Me: "Huh?"
Muhammad: "The fist-pump in the air -- that's what Gaddafi and his guys do. The rebels do this [he puts two fingers up in a "V"]. Stick with the two fingers." -- In eastern Libya, avoid the nightclub fist-pump « revolutionology

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20 km east of Brega, I was interviewing Faraj, a 19-year-old unemployed rebel who lives at home with his parents. He didn't appear to be armed.

"Do you even have a gun?" I asked. "Yeah... well, you know how it is. There's about one Kalashnikov for every four or five of us rebels," he said. "Mine's in the car."

We heard one shell land several miles away. A column of black smoke rose slowly.

Faraj and his comrades jumped in their cars and fled, even before the gang of foreign photographers with me stopped clicking their shutters. -- The accordion war: Why does the front in Libya keep moving back and forth? « revolutionology

Posted by Vanderleun at April 2, 2011 11:44 AM