Reply #5: A Teenager's Photo That Helped Inspire Libya's Revolutionaries [View All]

[tabatha]

September 13, 2011
by ANDY CARVIN

Over the course of Libya's six-month revolution, activists took thousands of photos to document their struggle against the Gadhafi regime. At the very beginning, on the day activists planned to launch the revolution, there was one photo that stood out — and it captured the imagination of people around the world wishing for the fall of Moammar Gadhafi.

The photo has no official name, but one word can easily summarize it: defiance. It depicts a young woman dressed in a black hijab, her head tilted downward. In her hands she holds a green banner covered in capital letters — a quotation from early 20th-century Libyan freedom fighter Omar Muhktar:

WE WILL NOT SURRENDER
WE WILL WIN OR WE WILL DIE
THIS IS NOT THE END!
YOU WILL FIGHT US + YOU
WILL FIGHT THE GENERATIONS
THAT FOLLOW US UNTIL
LIBYA IS FREE!

The green cloth she holds is no ordinary banner. She has defaced Muammar Gadhafi's official Libyan flag – an act of defiance that could get her killed if she had been in Libya at that time.



http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/09/13/140403572/a-teenagers-photo-that-helped-inspire-libyas-revolt

Aw shucks! Not a NATO production.