A city washing its face in the sea: Derna regain its identity after liberation

Sarah Rashad

A year ago, the military commander of the Libyan army, Marshal Khalifa Hafter, announced the liberation of the city of Derna, eastern Libya, on a final basis.

The liberation, celebrated by the army’s supporters and facilitated by the Libyan armed forces taking control of the entire Libyan east, caused the fall of dozens of symbols of fundamentalist extremism and Daesh terrorist group in Libya and North Africa.

In spite of the outrageous losses suffered by the branches of the global jihadist organizations in Derna, the city was a stronghold of Daesh, al-Qaeda and other militias. It occasionally tries to carry out individual and sporadic operations against Libyan army positions.

The latest such operations were carried out by an organization called early this month in the city of Derna and later revealed the involvement of women belonging to the organization in the implementation of the operation.

While Derna is known as a city with a distinct cultural identity, the question is whether liberation has restored it to its first era, and to what extent is it protected from extremist thought?

The Egyptian critic, Magda Sidhom, who lived in Radna for a long time, replied to the Reference, saying that the city’s era of extremism is not far away, pointing out that it was even before the so-called “revolution of February 17” known as a coastal city surrounded by sea and mountains.

She pointed out that Derna has a rich identity, as it knew art and literature and was open to different cultures. Its religious identity is in the mystical love. But this changed when the so-called “sheikhs of extremism” called themselves on the city at the beginning of what is known as the Arab Spring.

She justified the interest in specifically the geographical nature of the city, surrounded by mountains, which was a special choice for extremists to hide.

To facilitate this, she said: “These sheikhs have begun to attract young people and spread extremist ideology; to facilitate through them the entry of extremists to the city and take up arms.”

She denied that extremism is at the core of the Druze character, considering that the people themselves are trying today to get rid of the remnants of extremist thought and return to the old identity.