dimanche, mars 20, 2011

La manifestation d'Agadir ce 20 mars

Une remarque s'impose : il y a plus de drapeaux amazighs que ceux du régime :) Ce n'est pas du tout bon pour le Makhzen et ses affidés. En tous les cas, ayyuz à tous les Agadirois. Il ne faut surtout pas lâcher la pression, il faut aller de l'avant et continuer la lutte...

vendredi, mars 18, 2011

Avons-nous un État au Maroc ?

D’aucuns vont trouver volontiers que ma question est pour le moins absurde pour ne pas dire provocatrice? Ils ont tout à fait raison. Tant ils considèrent que l’État est quelque chose qui va de soi. N’en déplaise à certains, c’est malheureusement loin d’être le cas. Au Maroc en l’occurrence, il y a de tout sauf un État, un vrai de vrai, je veux dire. Il est bien réel que le pays a tous les traits d’un véritable État tel qu’il est connu et reconnu à l’échelle internationale. Il y a un territoire, un chef de l’État, un gouvernement et des ministres, un parlement, une presse…

Pour autant, rien ne fonctionne normalement. Il y a donc un problème, un gros problème même. Pour la simple raison que nous n’avons aucunement un État au sens occidental du terme. Car, il faut bien se rendre à l’évidence et rendre à César ce qui est à César, l’État efficace, légaliste et démocratique est une invention éminemment et purement européenne. Il est le produit d’une évolution historique et sociale propre à nos voisins du Nord. Mais, hélas, nous ne sommes jamais inspirés d’eux. Nos yeux sont systématiquement restés rivés sur l’Orient arabe, baignant encore et toujours dans le sous-développement le plus total. Jusqu’à quand ? Nul ne le sait.

État prophétique

Plus grave encore, même le peu d’État que les Français ont bien voulu nous laisser, lors de leur bref passage chez nous, a été dilapidé et même perverti pour devenir un grand n’importe quoi. D’ailleurs, beaucoup de gens trouveraient certainement étrange que de Marocains qui ont vécu la période du Protectorat se la rappellent avec nostalgie. Vous n’avez qu’à regarder les infrastructures qu’ils ont laissées, elles tiennent toujours 60 ans après leur départ, soutiennent-ils de concert.

Il faut quand même savoir être relatif et nuancer par voie de conséquence. Car la terre d’Islam a connu l’ébauche d’un État... il y a plus de 1400 ans. Puisque son instigateur n’était autre que le prophète en personne. En révélant l’Islam, il a aussi mis les bases d’un projet étatique pour le moins ambitieux et révolutionnaire pour son époque. D’ailleurs, et c’est vraiment révélateur, le modèle de l’homme d’État juste, intègre et compétent dans l’imaginaire des musulmans a été et reste le produit de cette période, j’ai nommé Omar Ben El Khattab.

Hélas, on sait tous ce qu’il est advenu de ce projet prothétique. En plus de conflits politiques finissant toujours à coup d’épées (tous les califes ont été lâchement assassinés), les Omeyyades ont fait avorter ce système politique avant-gardiste. Et ce, pour instituer l’arbitraire, la tyrannie, la dictature et la répression. Les régimes arabes actuels ne sont que la résultante de cet héritage politico-culturel. Avec leur lot de grands sanguinaires devant l’Éternel : El-Hajjaj Ben Youssef Ettaqafi, Saddam, Kaddafi, El-Bachir, El-Assad, Hassan II, les généraux algériens…

Répression

Qu’avons-nous donc au Maroc- et tous les pays dits arabes et même musulmans sont logés à la même enseigne- si ce n’est pas un État ? Pour dire les choses le plus prosaïquement possible, nous avons tout simplement une autorité ou un pouvoir. Si dans les vrais États tout se négocie dans le respect le plus total, au Maroc, il n’y a qu’une seule manière de procéder : la violence et rien que la violence. Elle peut prendre deux formes : directe ou symbolique. Directe, vous en avez eu, d'ailleurs, un avant goût ces derniers jours avec des répressions azimutales dont sont victimes des manifestants pacifiques, un peu partout dans le pays. Symbolique, c’est à titre d’exemple le déni identitaire imposé, des décennies durant, à la majorité des Marocains, les Amazighs.

Que faire alors dans ces circonstances ? À mon point de vue, et sans vouloir se montrer nihiliste, il faut impérativement commencer par la priorité des priorités: construire un État pourvu de véritables institutions. Et ce n’est pas des précédents qui manquent. Car les pays du Sud-est asiatique peuvent être nos modèles à ce propos. Avant qu’ils soient des démocraties extrêmement prospères et florissantes qu’ils sont devenus maintenant, au tout début, leurs régimes étaient extrêmement autoritaires, mais, ô combien, patriotes. Car ils ont mis en place des institutions extrêmement performantes : la justice, la sécurité, l’éducation… D’où la douceur de la transition démocratique qu’ils ont vécue.

Vacuité

En revanche, les régimes arabes actuels déploient d’incroyables efforts pour qu’ils n’aient jamais d’institutions. Même celles qui fonctionnent un peu mieux, ils les détruisent le plus simplement du monde. C’est la théorie du vide dans sa parfaite illustration. J’en veux pour exemple le système éducatif marocain. La politique débile et non moins criminelle d’arabisation que le régime a appliquée, injustement, à aux générations entières d’écoliers et d’étudiants a été une vraie catastrophe à tous les niveaux. Le pays en payera à coup sûr les contrecoups pour plusieurs décennies à venir.

Au vu donc de ses remarques, la transition démocratique au Maroc risque d’être extrêmement ardue. Je ne dis pas impossible pour laisser une petite note d’espoir. Il faut savoir qu’il faut tout reconstruire dans le pays. En plus d’institutions efficaces qui n’existent pas, il n’y pas non plus de partis politiques et encore moins une véritable citoyenneté. J’ai bien peur que ceux qui exigent, hic et nunc, la démocratie ne soient trop idéalistes, à mon goût. Que ce soit clair une fois pour toute, je suis à fond pour la démocratie sauf que ses conditions n’existent pas encore dans le pays. Pour ce faire, il faut énormément de temps, d’efforts et de sacrifices. Sur tous les niveaux. Notamment sur le plan idéologique.

El-Kaouni, l’écrivain arabisant d’origine amazigho-libyenne, a suggéré que les Arabes doivent effectuer une révolution spirituelle. Soit. Moi, je propose en revanche plus que cela, une révolution épistémologique. En d’autres termes, il faut rompre, définitivement, avec l’arabisme qui a été le creuset qui a permis aux dictatures arabes de prospérer et de perdurer. Car, il faut bien le croire, cette idéologie porte en elle quelque chose de profondément et de fondamentalement antiétatique, anti-démocratique et antihumain. En tant qu’Amazigh, je suis bien placé pour le savoir.

Arabisme

Cependant, lorsque je vois les jeunes du 18 février avec leurs keffiehs palestiniens autour du coup (par la même occasion, regardez et écoutez leur chanson mobilisatrice chantée dans un dialecte arabe du Moyen Orient http://lakome.com/videos/77-featured/3307-20-----.html), je me dis que l’on n’est pas près de sortir de l’auberge. Au-delà du côté symbolique de la chose, je me dis que lorsqu’on veut faire une révolution, il faut être avant tout soi même. En d’autres termes, il faut simplement créer sa propre méthode sans en importer une autre à des milliers de kilomètres. Pire, en l’absence quasi-totale de la mouvance amazighe plus que jamais désorganisée, seuls les arabistes pur jus occupent le terrain. Al-Adl Wa Ilhsan est, par exemple, plus arabiste que réellement islamiste. Pour les restes de la gauche arabo-stalinienne qui ont investi la niche des droits de l’homme, l’on n’a pas vraiment besoin de dire leur tendance. Ça saute aux yeux. Horriblement.

Au regard donc tout cela, j’ai bien peur que la condition sine qua non de toute transition démocratique dans le cas marocain soit d’ores soit déjà compromis, à savoir la mise en place de réelles institutions étatiques. Car, pour se faire, il faut des hommes et des femmes d’envergure, bien sûr patriotes, extrêmement pragmatiques, complètement dés-idéologisés et en même temps et surtout ouverts sur l’universalisme. Même si j’espère de tout cœur que ma lecture des événements soit complètement erronée, ce n’est pas, hélas, le cas des acteurs déterminants du mouvement des jeunes du 20 février. Étant donné que les événements ne sont pas encore arrivés à leur terme, wait and see !

Inuraz dans ses oeuvres

Que c’est une belle et agréable surprise que d’écouter ses arrangements pour le moins originaux du groupe agadirois, Inuraz (espoirs en amazigh). Il faut bien reconnaître qu’il ne manque nullement de talent. Il en a même à en revendre. Un vrai bijou musical dans toute sa plénitude. Plus que cela, et c’est vraiment unique dans nos us et coutumes musicaux, aucune place n’est laissée à l’improvisation. Tout est affaire de pas mal de coeur, de concentration, d’étude et de beaucoup de recherche. Je dis donc à ce groupe : bravo et mille fois bravo. Je ne peux que savoir gré au plaisir qu’il m’a procuré à l’écouter et à le réécouter. Qu’il ne s’arrête pas, qu'il continue à nous surprendre ! On en veut encore et encore !

Cliquez donc sans trop tarder sur ce lien :

http://amayno.net/player/inouraz/inouraz.php

dimanche, mars 13, 2011

Libya : The pen versus the sword

The Gaddafis enjoyed a political facelift from the West whilst carefully avoiding blowback - until now.

The quill may be mightier than the sword. But this is a story of how some Western academics have succumbed to the power of the cheque book.

Which leads me to ask the question: is it money that makes the world go round? Whatever happened to the strength of liberal ideals, humanism, democracy and all that spiel?

There is a Libyan connection, which is the context of this story. Maybe Gaddafi, sons and henchmen have survived till now and may kill more Libyans due to the fact that many experts and academics, some brilliant voices of the global democratic agenda, have chosen to accept the Libyan regime's illicit funding over the ethics they preach to their own students.

Knowledge is power

It may be so that knowledge is power, but surely not when knowledge serves dictatorships.

I first wrote this story for Al Jazeera more than two weeks ago. A few months ago Libyan friends (who have lost loved ones in the fight for Zawiya and before for Benghazi) shared with me and others documents coming from Monitor Group, the Harvard-based global consulting group.

This is the firm which was hired by the Gaddafis to revamp their image. That was before the eruption of the current anti-Gaddafi uprising in Libya.

A few observations are noteworthy here.

The Gaddafis have missed the traffic of information circulated by Libyans within Libya recording the visits, payments, lectures, and visits to either the Gaddafis or the colonel's so-called 'Green Book Centre'. Libyans have been for some time questioning Western complicity in extending the life of one of the worst regimes in the region.

Colonel Gaddafi, more than anything else, has struggled and failed all of his political life to emerge on the world stage as a thinker. He failed dismally and no serious scholar has taken his 'Green Book' seriously.

I had occasion to read it when writing The Search for Arab Democracy, suffice to say that those hours have been lost forever.

However, Gaddafi and his sons fully appreciate the value of ideas for the Libyan state after the lifting of international sanctions. They, especially Saif al-Islam, realised that in politics, ideas are instrumental to the reproduction of power.

Saif, groomed by his father as political heir, was being educated by the best - the London School of Economics.

Saif has been on a long quasi-presidential campaign for years. He has been recruiting and cultivating loyal followers by funding their higher education in Western universities.

One of these is a former undergraduate student of mine who graduated several years ago from the University of Exeter. His name is Musa Ibrahim, a member of the Qadhadhifa, who now serves as a spokesperson for the regime while it wages an illegal war for survival against its own citizens.

Where did the West go wrong?

Let's reverse this standard question Orientalists have traditionally asked in reference to Arabs and Muslims. Arabs are today knocking on the doors of tyrants to seek their own answers locally.

The collaboration of those Western global actors driven by self-interest or self-importance with authoritarianism warrants this question. Regimes like those ousted in Tunisia and Egypt survived because they were brutal - and the technology of violence at their disposal was Western.

Many Western governments may have practised democracy for longer, but they also did so via support of autocracy.

The killings going on right now in Libya display the extent to which the Libyan regime has been misjudged.

Under Bush, the neo-cons sought to re-order the region, including by force (e.g Iraq). Maybe Libya was intended to be remodelled by approving and grooming acceptable dynastic heirs (plausibly the same for Egypt).

Libya's vast riches (40 billion barrels of oil reserves, potential business deals, well-stashed sovereign wealth fund), might have been what saved Gaddafi.

But the Gaddafi regime should have fallen at the turn of the new millennium, around the same time when Baghdad was sacked by the US-led 'coalition of the willing'.

However, Western political establishments chose to subdue Gaddafi's Libya and conquer it economically, thus giving Gaddafi's failed state a longer lease on life. There is no surprise here: economic gain often prevails over moral principles in the international relations of the Middle East.

Western academics were complicit in all of this, giving the 'butcher of Tripoli' an undeserved respite.

Yet months after they prevailed over Saddam, the neocons' message reached Gaddafi: he was ready to play ball with the West. In August of 2003, Libya agreed a $2.7 billion compensation package for the families of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing victims.

In December 2003, Gaddafi gave Bush an unusual Christmas present by renouncing terrorism and giving up his WMDs programme.

In early 2004 Tony Blair's visit to the Gaddafis signalled the rehabilitation of the Libyan dictatorship. Whether Blair was or was not making business for BP or acting in an advisory or consultancy capacity to the Gaddafis and their Libyan Investment Authority is incidental.

What was particularly interesting is that the Gaddafis worked with the very man whose power play in Iraq led to the ousting of Saddam.

Enter 'Monitor Group': Reinventing Gaddafi!

Soufflés, it is said, do not rise twice.

Monitor Group (MG) is in the business of a different type of cooking: consulting governments and business.

In undertaking in 2006 to help Libya shed its pariah status and ease it into a zone of "enhanced economic development", MG defined two goals for its Herculean task:

1. "enhance international understanding and appreciation of Libya and the contribution it has made and may continue to make to its region and to the world"

2. "to introduce Muammar Gaddafi as a thinker and intellectual, independent of his more widely-known and very public persona as the Leader of the Revolution in Libya."

Harvard Business Professor Michael Porter's expertise was sought to revamp the economy of a police state in which the likes of Gaddafi, his brother-in-law Abdullah Sanoussi - who dealt with MG - had their hands tainted with the blood of Libyans and foreigners.

Sanoussi is the man who had a part in the killing of 1,200 political detainees in the Bou Slim prison in 1996. The cabal advising Gaddafi on security included Musa Kusa, Touhami Khalid, and Abdullah Mansour. Two other associates, Matug Al-Warfalli and Abd Al-Qadir Al-Baghdadi, may be linked with the slaying of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher in April 1984.

This is hardly the kind of stuff that would be unknown to men and women of high learning.

The MG strategy aimed to "introduce to Libya important international figures".

Once having been to Libya or met with Gaddafi and Saif, these high profile academics, journalists, politicians and businessmen are multi-tasked with "influencing other nations policies towards" Libya; "making a contribution to economic development"; gaining "a more sensitive understanding" of the country; and becoming "part of a network building bridges between Libya and the rest of the world."

The idea is that these international personalities share through major media outlets their knowledge about the 'new Libya' to combat stereotypes.

Is it Libya that these actors, and MG's work, were packaging to the world? Saif did not consult with the Libyan people about his national economic strategy, which Porter was recruited to develop.

Note the similarity between Gamal Mubarak and Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in their preference of privatisation.

Anyone who reads MG's 'Executive Summary of Phase 1' entitled "Project to Enhance the Profile of Libya Muammar Gaddafi" is left with no doubt that Saif was being groomed for taking over Libya's leadership.

Note also that MG was helping Mu'tassim, Saif's younger brother, in setting up a National Security Council.

Literati or spin doctors?

Richard Perle going to Libya is something. But why did Francis Fukuyama, Anthony Giddens, Bernard Lewis, Nicholas Negroponte, Benjamin Barber, Joseph Nye, and Robert Putnam meet Gaddafi?

Some of these names were guest speakers at the Green Book Centre. Libyans who criticise the Green Book end up losing their employment, freedom or both.

Lewis wanted to learn specifically about Gaddafi's idea of 'Isratin' (a joint Israeli-Palestinian state). Lewis according to the 'Executive Summary' shared his findings with Israel and the US.

Barber was deluding only himself when his 2007 Washington Post article seemed to do exactly GM's PR work, crediting Gaddafi with "an extraordinary capacity to rethink his country's role in a changed and changing world."

The several meetings with the Gaddafis, father and son, earned him a seat in the board of Saif's Foundation for International Development, the very foundation that turned human rights the exclusive bastion of Saif - excluding, for instance, human rights activist Fathi al-Jahmi, amongst others.

Like Barber, writing in 2006 in the New Statesman, Giddens brags about Gaddafi, granting him audience for more than three hours, not the standard half-hour political leaders (supposedly like Blair) give their visitors.

Giddens makes it clear in his article that Gaddafi and he did not agree on the meaning of democracy. Nonetheless, and for some reason, Giddens left the Colonel, convinced of Gaddafi's "conversion" away from terrorism and pursuit of disarmament.

His article observes GM's packaging instructions. He talks about Gaddafi's "global prominence", "egalitarianism", intelligence, and, of course, the Green Book.

Gaddafi younger - Saif - is today renamed by Libyan dissidents 'Zaif', meaning fraudulence. There are many names of Libyan professors linked with the writing of his academic work.

However, in many Western political and intellectual establishments he was treated as 'the chosen one'.

Elisabeth Rosenthal's piece in the New York Times in September 2007 heaps even more praise on Saif than Giddens, highlighting the rise of his political stardom, describing him as "un-Gaddafi".

MG amassed so much brain power for its Libya campaign. Yet how could so much misreading of the Gaddafis come from leading scholars?

Saif's February speech showed him to be a monster in the closet, not the democratic subjectivity the LSE reconstituted.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/20113711235230215.html

samedi, mars 12, 2011

Maroc : l’amazighité est-elle devenue un enjeu politique ?

Mohamed VI a fait un discours, que d’aucuns qualifient d’historique, où il affirme, solennellement, qu’il va entreprendre des réformes constitutionnelles radicales. Est-ce sincère ? Nul ne le sait. En tous les cas, ce n’est pas la première fois que le régime de Rabat promet ciel et terre sans aucun résultat concret.

Pour autant, vu le contexte international pour le moins trouble, accordons-lui pour une fois le bénéfice du doute and wait and see ! Même si, au plus profond de moi-même, et vu la composition extrêmement makhzenienne de la commission de révision de la constitution, la montagne va accoucher, encore une fois, d’une grosse souris.

En tant qu’un simple Amazigh, j’ai une simple remarque à formuler sur son discours. Elle a trait à la reconnaissance de l’amazighité. Quelle forme prendra-t-elle ? Là aussi, c’est le mystère le plus total. Il n’en demeure pas moins qu’elle est vraiment surprenante. Car, si Mohamed VI avait sincèrement la volonté de le faire, il l’aurait fait depuis belle lurette. Sans aucun problème. D’autant plus que tout le mouvement de contestation actuel au Maroc n’est absolument pas d’essence amazighe, mais arabe.

Après donc mûre réflexion, je pense, sincèrement que la sortie amazighe de Mohamed VI relève plus d’opportunisme politique qu’autre chose. Il faut dire ce qu’il y a. L’amazighité est le dernier des soucis de Mohamed VI et son régime. On n’a qu’à voir son bilan : échec voulu et programmé de l’enseignement de l’amazigh, interdiction constante des prénoms amazighs, continuation d’arabisation des toponymes, exclusion totale des millions d’Amazighs, création d’une petite et minuscule chaîne amazigh après avoir mis sur place des dizaines de chaînes arabes, inexistence d’aides aux projets culturels amazighs alors que son régime dépense des milliards de dirhams pour la culture arabe ...

Que cache donc cette promesse de reconnaissance de la langue amazighe ? En vérité, le roi et ses conseillers ont voulu faire d’une pierre deux coups : primo, rappeler aux Arabes du Maroc, qui sont en ce moment les plus remontés contre son régime, l’exceptionnalisme marocain martelé sur tous les tons par toutes sortes de makhzeniens, à savoir que le pays n’est pas vraiment arabe, mais... amazigh. Son message sous-tendu pourrait être le suivant : il est inadmissible, voire dangereux, d’imiter les pays arabes et vouloir virer les Alaouites et tous les Arabo-Andalous qui s’accrochent, férocement, au pouvoir et ses nombreux avantages.

Secundo, lancer une pierre, et je pense que c’est le plus important point, dans le jardin de Moulay Hicham -qui est de mère libanaise. Comme vous le savez tous, celui-ci ne rate aucune occasion pour décocher, malicieusement, des flèches extrêmement acerbes à son cousin, Mohamed VI. Il semblerait que le prince rouge veuille se placer en tant que recours si jamais ça tourne mal au Maroc. Il faut bien se rendre à l’évidence, toute son agitation médiatique ne laisse l’ombre d’un doute sur ses véritables ambitions très politiques.

En promettant ainsi la reconnaissance de l’amazighité, Mohamed VI, qui est de mère amazighe, espère disqualifier Moulay Hicham. On pourra formuler ainsi son message à l’adresse de son cousin et non moins rival : je suis plus légitime que toi parce que je suis plus proche de la majorité des Marocains, à savoir les Amazighs.

Mais la question qui se pose : est-ce que les Amazighs vont gober, bêtement, une fois de plus, les déclarations de Mohamed VI les concernant et être, comme ils l’ont toujours été, des dindons de la farce ? Personne ne le sait. En tous les cas, que chacun prenne la décision qu’il trouve convenable. Pour ma part, je ferais définitivement mien ce proverbe : chat échaudé craint l’eau froide. En d’autres termes, je n’accorderais aucune espèce de crédit aux promesses de Mohamed VI.

vendredi, mars 04, 2011

Libya's Berbers join the revolution in fight to reclaim ancient identity

Mountain tribes in the west, also called Amazigh, unite with opposition after decades of Gaddafi repressing their identity

"Have a good revolution," said the Tunisian customs officer, handing back our passports. We set out across the short stretch of no man's land towards Libya beneath a giant image of Gaddafi, his chin lifted, hands held together in a gesture of unity and victory.

Before we could reach him, a car bearing the flag of Libya's revolution raced out and its driver gestured us inside before speeding around the border post in a wide circle. We could make out the gaping expressions of the police and intelligence officers as they receded into the distance.

"This [is] all free now," the driver said, gesturing at the expanses of mountain and desert.

The roads in western Libya are clogged with makeshift checkpoints. Barricades built of burnt-out cars and rocks and manned by a patchwork of armed militias block the entrances to towns and villages. The fighters here are an assortment of turbaned Amazigh, or Berber, tribesmen, defectors wearing army uniforms and volunteers in mismatched combat fatigues.

The leaders of this uprising are equally varied: one burly military commander, Talibi, in civilian life is an Amazigh poet. Other revolutionaries we met were doctors, engineers, tribal elders, even a web-savvy youth in a baseball cap.

Night had fallen by the time we reached Nalut, where dozens of Amazigh tribesmen stood around campfires guarding barricades and manning checkpoints in the cold. Some carried weapons they had looted from army bases, the rest carried hunting rifles and clubs. The Amazigh we spoke to could not hide their euphoria.

"The fear of decades was broken after what happened in Egypt and Tunisia," said Khairy as he handed us small cups of green tea. The Amazigh have long struggled to retain their cultural rights in Gaddafi's Libya. "We never thought this could happen in our lifetime," he said.

On the outskirts of Nalut we were taken inside a small hut where four black men stood against a wall with their arms held out wide. The fighters flashed torches in their faces. "Mercenaries," one of the tribesmen said. They rummaged through the captives' bags to show us their belongings: a photo album, a few bits of clothing, some socks and a hat.

"We found knives on them," the tribesman assured me. But these terrified young men in their jeans, sneakers and sweaters looked to me like nothing more than young African migrants en route to Europe.

The following morning we went with Talibi, the poet-commander, to a small hill overlooking the highway. Talibi was planning an attack on the border post between Tunisia and Libya so that medical aid and opposition leaders could enter from the west.

Talibi shouted in Amazigh into his two mobile phones. His small guerrilla force of a dozen heavily-built tribesman milled around him, waiting for the order to attack. Between them they had four Kalashnikovs, a few hunting rifles and a stick.

He had spent a year in jail for organising Amazigh activities in defiance of the regime, he said, and his legs carry mangled scars which he said had been inflicted by the torturers of the regime. "They used a drill here," he said, lifting his trouser leg and pointing at three perfect circles. His other leg bore a long scar inflicted by a machete.

When the order was given the tribesmen raced in five pick-ups towards the border. The Libyan policemen opened the gate and let the tribesmen inside without a bullet being fired. As the cars slid to a halt one Libyan soldier ran out of a back door clutching his rifle.

The tribesmen spread out while the intelligence officers and the police huddled in a corner, clearly scared. "Those are the old people of the regime - a spy and former officer," Talibi said. "But now is not the time to take revenge. We need government and law and order, and then we can put them on trial."

Reports arrived that the army was sending reinforcements to the border and Talibi and his men moved out. The rest of the day was spent chasing a column of army pick-up trucks carrying heavy anti-aircraft machine guns. They tracked the convoy from a distance, exchanging intelligence with other tribesmen.

"Look at them they are so happy like they are on holiday," said Talibi.

Five men set up an ambush on a mountain pass while two sat perched on the edge of high cliffs, but the convoy never came through. It had sought shelter in a nearby army camp, the tribesmen said.

The following day we reached Zentan, 60 miles east of Nalut. The town is proud of being the first in western Libya to have risen against the regime, though the crackle of heavy machine guns still rings in the distance. Here, as elsewhere, charred cars and scrap metal block most of the access to the city, diverting traffic into easily defended entry points.

The centre of the town resembles a war zone. The principal buildings of the regime - the headquarters of the security apparatus and the popular committees - have been gutted by fire and adorned with new anti-Gaddafi graffiti. There were long queues in front of petrol stations and bakeries, and the area was running out of basic foodstuffs like sugar and rice.

Fighters waving pistols and Kalashnikovs guarded the gate of the hospital, where the rebels have set up their headquarters. They were tense and edgy. "Don't worry, we are just trying to stop the mercenaries from coming," said one man, waving his pistol nervously in the air as he spoke.

Abdul Satar, the commander of Zentan's most effective fighting unit, is a small and intense man who is prone to explosive bouts of shouting. He sat in one of the hospital's offices with a Kalashnikov at his knees, its bayonet fixed.

Zentan had settled into a certain kind of routine, after falling into the hands of demonstrators a week earlier, he said. The regime and the rebels are fighting a war of attrition, in which the regime sends small army units to fire randomly and then withdraw, while Abdul Satar and his men attack neighbouring checkpoints that have been harassing people as they entered and left town. He was just back from one of these attacks. They had killed one soldier and brought back three injured prisoners.

"We come out to attack them and then we come back and this is how it goes," said Satar. Where did they get their guns? "All our weapons have been captured from the army camps," he said.

Among the dishevelled and tired fighters at the hospital, Othman Zantani, an elegant and softly-spoken medical doctor, stood out. To tell the truth, he said, the revolution was not well co-ordinated.

"It's all happening spontaneously, but now we have to start organising ourselves. I am meeting with a lot of other towns and other tribal elders. We have to move from creating committees that will run daily affairs like health and security and providing aid to the people to creating a political committee that will represent the west of the country, just like what they did in the east. We will co-ordinate with them," he said.

One member of the security committee told me about plans to send weapons and ammunition to Tripoli and besieged cities like Zawiyah. A convoy of munitions was sent two days earlier but was intercepted by regime forces surrounding the city.

"The ultimate plan is to co-ordinate with our brothers from the east and march to Tripoli," said the security leader. "The plan was start marching yesterday, but that was postponed. You see the situation is flexible so we can't really plan, but we have to send armed men to Tripoli. Those are unarmed people who are being massacred. We have to help them."

A few blocks away from the hospital, the revolutionaries have set up a communications room in a nondescript office. There, at a desk covered with thick layers of dust and piled with three landlines, two mobile phones, nine chargers, two laptops and two packs of Marlbororo sits Omar, chain-smoking and glued to the screens of his many devices. He has a baseball cap pulled down over his face as he uploads video footage to YouTube, posts statements on Facebook and updates his contacts at al-Jazeera.

Others in the room were blogging and monitoring the TV and communicating with other activists. "Without this room the revolution would have died," Omar said. "We kept it going." He did not look up.

source : http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/28/libya-amazigh-identity-tribes-gaddafi/print