"Mia mia." It is an extremely popular phrase, widely used in Libya, that translates roughly to "100 percent."
Nine times out of 10, that is what Libyans said when I asked how they were coping with nightly bombardments by NATO warplanes, electricity blackouts that lasted days and rebel forces who were pressing forward on three fronts.
"Mia mia," they said with a smile. In other words, everything's great! No problem!
Was this the cheerful coping method of a society living amid olive groves and palm trees next to the Mediterranean Sea? Or was "mia mia" a survival tactic for people who had grown up within the authoritarian system of Moammar Gadhafi's perpetual revolution?
The whispers of dissent my colleagues and I often heard in Tripoli suggested the latter.
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