1. tfk
  2. Poetry from the front lines

Poetry from the front lines

By tfk on July 5, 2011.

Kareem Fahim reports from a rebel checkpoint outside of Tripoli:

The people fleeing Tripoli on Thursday said that several neighborhoods filled with the sound of gunfire every night. At checkpoints throughout the capital, they said, paramilitaries from the dreaded Peopleâs Guard carried long lists of wanted men. The gas lines were five days long.

The refugees say that Tripoliâs rebels defiantly paint their flags on anything that will spread their message, including pigeons, cats and balloons.

That's an image I'd have expected more from a China Mieville novel than from war reportage, but it's beautiful and perfect. The rebel flags attached to feral pigeons and cats and balloons captures the tenuous state of things, but also the hope and ingenuity of people seeking freedom.

Hope, they say, is the thing with wings. Or fleas. Or taut, fragile rubber shell, buffeted by the winds.

Tags
Policy and Politics

More like this

Tripoli falls to rebels; Benghazi, capitol of a free Libya, celebrates
Early last month, I quoted a dispatch from a checkpoint between rebel-controlled Libya and Qaddafi's Tripoli: The refugees say that Tripoliâs rebels defiantly paint their flags on anything that will spread their message, including pigeons, cats and balloons. Today, the rebel flags are flying from…
Baghdad Update: Mosques
My friend Paul, the Official Middle East Correspondant of Uncertain Principles, has been doing another rotation in Baghdad, and has sent an update on the "surge." This latest dispatch describes some... reliability issues with the Iraqui police forces who are supposed to be stepping up to provide…
Good News from Baghdad
Another email update from Senior Middle East Correspondant Paul Schemm, this time including some stuff that could be read as sort-of positive, if you're a fan of the American presence in Iraq: The US soldiers obligingly stopped periodically during one patrol and allowed me to clamber out and talk…
The Cats in Baghdad
Sunday's New York Times offers a poignant look at some of the victims of the Iraq War: IT was a bitterly cold night in the Baghdad winter of 2005, somewhere in the predawn hours before the staccato of suicide bombs and mortars and gunfire that are the daily orchestration of the war. Alone in my…