Enjoying a National Holiday

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September 1st was a national holiday marking the Libyan Revolution of 1969.

Most westerners stayed home on the holiday. In fact, the American and British embassies always warned their citizens to do exactly that, presumably in case they would be attacked by Libyans swept up in a wave of revolutionary and nationalistic fervor. The embassies took special care to warn us all not to go anywhere near the main square, the focus of Independence Day activities.

Being less paranoid than most westerners in Libya, we always made a point of going to the square to see the festivities. We particularly enjoyed watching the national folk-dancing troupe, in those days recognized as one of the best folk-dancing troupes in the world. We invariably got a warm welcome from the other spectators, who would make sure that we had a good view of the stage.

Every year the highlight of the folk dancing came with their final dance. This would start with a scene in which Libyan men and women danced joyfully around the stage in a scene of pastoral bliss. Then two dancers dressed as soldiers and carrying bayoneted rifles would appear; one had a Union Jack on his helmet, the other the Stars and Stripes. The crowd erupted in loud booing. The soldier dancers proceeded to stab the other male dancers to death and to do unspeakable things to the women. Meanwhile the booing got louder and louder. Suddenly the music would change as several dancers dressed as armed Libyan insurgents burst onto the stage. The cheering was deafening. There would be a brief struggle, the foreign invaders would fall to the floor, and the insurgents would dance over them, stabbing their twitching bodies with bayonets. The stabbing would go on for quite a while. The applause was deafening.

At the end of the dance the spectators nearest us would look at us a little sheepishly, obviously worried that we might have been offended. They would reassure us that the dance was about the US and UK governments, not the American and British peoples. We would smile at them. They would smile at us. I would shake hands with the men around us. Happy days!
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