Her father’s childhood playground was in ruins.
The swing set 20-year-old Mercedes Farhat saw in 2008 while visiting her father’s family in Tripoli, Libya, was a metal skeleton. Graffiti covered a fountain. It was nothing like the lovely memories he shared with her.
She said she saw more than a run-down playground during that trip. She saw a run-down country.
The fight to remove Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi has put Farhat’s family in a difficult position. There’s a thin line she must walk, a line between wanting change and supporting a man who holds so much power over her family and her future.
The Gadhafi government, she said, monitors everything from phone calls, emails, even articles with her name in it.
She’s a Libyan Olympic swimmer. Gadhafi’s son is the head of the Olympic committee. She competed for Libya in 2008 and wants to compete again.
“So there’s so much hidden language,” said Farhat, a UF biology junior.
Her father will call her aunts and uncles in Tripoli. In Arabic, her father will say, “Oh yeah, Gadhafi’s great,” because he knows no conversation is private.
After U.S., France, Britain and other forces attacked Gadhafi’s forces in Tripoli on Saturday, Farhat’s aunt, who works for the Libyan government, told her father that everyone is safe and life is normal.
“I’m sure that when they say life’s normal, that doesn’t mean it’s 100 percent fine,” she said.
She’s probably right, said Matthew Jacobs, a UF history professor who teaches a course in U.S.-Middle East relations.
He said a lot of people are looking at Libya and asking how the conflict will affect American politics.
The bigger concern, Jacobs said, is how the conflict will affect the Libyan people.
“There’s very real hardships,” he said about life in Libya. “There’s the hardship of living in a country that is approaching civil war. Then there’s the hardship of the regime trying to maintain control and clamping down.”
Then there’s the biggest concern: civilian casualties.
“People are going to die,” he said. “We can’t look past that.”
Gadhafi has stated that he will not give up his power peacefully, and many people believe his threat.
“I think he’s going to go by violence if he goes,” said Leonardo Villalon, director of UF’s Center for African Studies.
Farhat said she isn’t worried. Not yet.
She said she did not pay any more attention to international politics than the next student, at least not until her family was affected.
“This is the first thing that I’ve paid attention to at all,” she said.
She’s paying close attention to the news, but she said she isn’t scared. It hasn’t distracted her from her upcoming physics exam.
Despite many things, including the neglect of the country’s public spaces, low wages and intense government control, she didn’t expect anyone to rebel because the government monitors everything. She said she certainly did not expect the U.S. and other nations to bomb her father’s country.
“I’m surprised that this started,” she said.“Even now.”
