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Tripoli – a city in a bubble: "
Richard Engel, NBC News’ Chief Foreign Correspondent, called in this report on what transpired in Tripoli Friday.
TRIPOLI, Libya – Today was supposed to be the opposition’s day of rage, the day they were going to have protests in Tripoli. I spoke with opposition leaders yesterday and they thought today was going to be a possible turning point, that they would be able to muster huge demonstrations against Gadhafi. There was an expectation of bloodshed.
In the morning, the government was clearly concerned that there would be violent clashes, and that these clashes would trigger a chain of even more violent events.
So the government minders told journalists that we were not allowed to film the opposition protests. When the protests didn’t really materialize – there were some relatively small clashes that were fairly brief in one outskirt neighborhood – the government minders relaxed their ruling.
There is now a large demonstration of perhaps 10,000 Gadhafi supporters in Green Square.
And I’ve spent the last five hours driving around Tripoli today – like a police officer, circling, circling, circling – and I did not see any opposition demonstrations in the capital city.
Nothing.
This is a company town. It remains a Gadhafi town – it is clearly still in the grip of the government. I’m not saying that everyone here loves Gadhafi; but today, if there was an attempt to have opposition demonstrations all over Tripoli and topple Tripoli – it failed absolutely.
‘What situation? Everything’s fine’
This city continues to live in a state of denial. I repeatedly asked people today, “What do you think about the situation?” I got answers like, “What situation? What are you talking about?” “Everything is fine. Gadhafi is 100 percent,” meaning he is great.
I asked somebody else, “What do you think about what’s going on?” The answer I got was, “What’s going on? There is just a problem with terrorists, with al-Qaida – they are trying to destroy Libya. You in the media are exaggerating it. It’s no big deal.”
I spoke with a school teacher. She said she’s afraid for her family in Benghazi (a city in control of the opposition).
The people here in Tripoli, at least the people I saw today, are apparently accepting the government line that is being repeated and repeated and repeated. That this is an international plot, that al-Qaida is responsible, that the foreign media are fueling this and that the poor, defenseless people of Tripoli are under siege by terrorists and foreign journalists.
People really seem to believe it. And I have no reason to believe that these people were paid. I spoke with school teachers, construction workers, taxi drivers, an athlete, a university professor – too many people and too much at random for them to have been organized. I was in many different neighborhoods over the course of five hours and I got very consistent answers.
Anti-Gadhafi protesters run from tear gas fired by police as they tried to disperse the demonstration in the Tajoura district of eastern Tripoli on Friday. Click on the photo above to see a complete slideshow of unrest in Libya.
And I didn’t get the feeling that people were hedging their bets. I didn’t get the feeling that they were telling me what they wanted me to hear. These people were going out of their way to tell me this.
If someone is scared and sitting on the fence, it’s better to not say anything. You just stay quiet. But these people were actively coming up to me to correct me and tell me that I was getting it all wrong.
A city in a bubble
Now, to a certain degree, they have a point.
As soon as I came back, after five hours on the streets, I turned on the television and the first and only image I saw on Arabic-language TV was tear gas and images from the brief clashes. They were being replayed almost in a constant loop. But that is not what 99.9 percent of Tripoli looked like today.
So I can understand, to a degree, people’s frustration. If you are living inside this bubble and your only information is state TV, which is painting such a radically different picture from the foreign channels, then I can see the problem.
Inside the bubble, Tripoli looks good. Markets are open. Stores are open. I went to a coffee shop, sat down and had an espresso. My cameraman had a cappuccino – and it was good.
So if you turn on the TV and you see an endless cycle of the one clash that took place in one neighborhood on the outskirts of Tripoli, I can understand how people here would say, that’s not representative of what we are seeing.
That said, in the town of Zawiyah, which is about 30 miles from Tripoli, we did hear eyewitness reports of heavy fighting. We have heard conflicting reports on who is in control. There seems to be some running battles, real battles.
But the heart of Tripoli itself remains a Gadhafi stronghold.
Opposition silenced
I’m not saying that are not people here who oppose the government – there clearly are. When we were walking around yesterday – which was a much quieter day – people felt more comfortable to come up and slip us furtive notes. Today those people didn’t dare do that.
The Gadhafi supporters were not only out on the streets in large numbers, but they also have the backing of the military. Around the pro-Gadhafi rallies are police checkpoints, police vehicles, and many people in uniform taking part in the demonstrations.
So if you were going to slip a journalist a note saying you oppose the regime, today would have been a very risky day to do that.
I’m not saying all these people went away and that everyone suddenly fell in love with the leadership here – but today they stayed home. The government was out, pro-Gadhafi supporters were out, the military or the uniformed services were out cheering and shouting in the main square.
If you live in the bubble – the city was normal. Inside Tripoli there is a state of denial and total disconnect with what is going on in the rest of the country.
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