The City of Derna

My city Derna is located on the mediterranean sea, on the eastern shore of Libya, about two hundred miles from the Egyptian border and 900 miles from the capital, Tripoli! The city of the prophet Muhammad's companions (Sahaba) is famous for its waterfall, generosity and jihad!

For many centuries now, It is also known as “the city of curiosity” as a result of its people’s innate intelligence and their thirst for knowledge!  

Derna became, lately, famous as the capital of terror and assassinations! This is truly unfortunate and it is the result of the Islamist groups, who made from Derna their north African capital, to export the young Jihadists...They fought “their holy war” all over countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and lately in Syria. It is no surprise that Newsweek Magazine named the city of Derna as “ The Martyrdom factory”!

The origins of the people of Derna are from the west of Libya. They came, as fighters, from Tajura, Zliten, Misrata, Warfalla and other western tribes, many centuries ago. They came to support their brothers, the "Obeidat” and the “Murabitins” who asked for help in their war against the tribes of “Awlad Ali”. After fierce battles, they prevailed and the enemy (Awlad Ali)  had no other choice than to retreat to the northern Egyptian shores, which were Libyan lands at that time but they were lately changed by the British and Italian occupiers, who transformed the borderline to the separating line between the city of Emsaed, Libya and Al-Salloum, in Egypt, to the south until the Sudanese territories.

During the Qaramanli era, Derna was the second main city in Libya, after the capital Tripoli. However, it became third during the second Turkish era, after Benghazi. It kept that rank  during the Italian occupation, the days of the independence and the era of king Idris. However, under Gaddafi’s rule, because of the repetitive revolts and riots,the city was intentionally marginalized, to force its people to abdicate (surrender), therefore, it became the eighth city in Libya! 

No matter how much I write, I will not give my city, Derna, justice! Yes, It is a small city; the number of its inhabitants is currently less than a hundred and fifty thousand people. However, if we take into consideration the “Drawnas” (That’s how Libyans refer to the people who are originally from Derna) all over Libya and outside the country, the number would be half a million people, which represents 10% of the whole population of Libya!

Unfortunately, since the era of the kingdom, there are no viable (trustworthy, reliable) statistics in Libya! The city is still put on the side and marginalized, even after the 17th of February 2011 revolution, as if there’s an evil curse on the city, to stop it from thriving!

There are many reasons that led Derna and its people to this situation. The main one is that its people are naturally rebels and would oppose any ruler who would rule unfairly.

The people of Derna are not opportunists or power-hungry! At the opposite of that, they are very generous and think very highly of themselves. Instead of monopolizing the wealth, they prefer to see it spread all over the homeland, Libya!, and this can be easily demonstrated!  Many people, who are originally from Derna, reached the highest ranks and decision making positions  and they could use their positions to the benefit of the city...But they have never done that! Others have taken advantage of their positions for the benefit of their cities or tribes, either to build or construct their cities or to send their young people to study abroad, depriving other young people, especially those from Derna, from taking advantage of those opportunities! That was done upon recommendations and orders from the tyrant Gaddafi or his criminal agents. Wasn’t that a horrible crime???

People of Derna are civilized and they inherited the knowledge and the education from their fathers and ancestors, which made them always distinguished, either in the field of knowledge and culture/education or in bravery and the defense of the homeland!  Since many decades, Its brave young men have participated in many battles. The first one was in Egypt, when a group of around 500 men, led by an officer named Al-Kilani, volunteered to join the Army of Ahmad Urabi Pasha in its ultimate/ final decisive battle against the British occupiers. They bravely fought and only few of them made it back home and very unfortunately their memory was not celebrated, until now!

The Darawna are known as wonderful warriors for their homeland. In 1805, a small group of Darnawi sailors succeeded to detain the U.S Marines Ship “Philadelphia” with its crew, which was the pride of the U.S Naval forces, at that time. The Americans were unable to recuperate it and they had no choice other than destroying the ship, by a special deployed force, so that the Pasha would not be able, within his fleet, against them!

This is a long story but nothing was written about it, to tell the world about the Darawna heroes, who succeeded to take over the ship and detain it The American commander had no choice other than surrendering, instead of going to a fierce battle that would have killed all his soldiers and sailors. Unfortunately, nothing was written in the history about this memorable event or to commemorate Derna and this was done by the former regime in Libya, on purpose, to erase any honorable contribution of the city in the national libyan history! which is, obviously, very ungrateful and truly sad. Something has to be done, definitely, by the Libyan post-revolution authorities, such as building a monument, to keep the memory of Philadelphia episode alive!

We can certainly add to these honorable stories tens or hundreds of other stories that happened during the sinister occupation of Libya by the Italians, which started, obviously without any legitimate reason, in October 1911.Hundreds of martyrs have fallen for no reason and hundreds of others were sentenced to spend jail time in the Italian islands. Most of the detainees did not make it back to the homeland, obviously because of the inhuman conditions of the detention: No medication for the sick, not enough food or covers during the winter cold days, as well as inhuman and degrading detention conditions where they were treated worse than the savage beasts!

Many of Darna’s young men have joined the Senussi Army, in Egypt, during the 40’s of the last century. They played a major role in the incursions behind the enemy lines (The German and Italian troops). They destroyed, thanks to the explosives, many jet fuel tankers and storage facilities, as well as the enemy jets on the tarmac. They also saved the lives of many of the allies’ pilots, ejected from their cockpits after being hit by the enemy and they use their parachutes to land in the green mountain or in the desert. Thanks to the valuable and fast help from the locals, they could easily disappear, which made the axis soldiers lose a valuable time searching for them, in vain!

The young people of Derna, who were classmates, in the Turkish military academies with the Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal,  also fought for Turkey when it was invaded by the allies and many of them made the ultimate sacrifice defending the Turkish lands. The ones who stayed alive were promoted in the ranks! Some of them even reached the top ranks of the Turkish army, like the General Omran Al-Jathra, the General Hassan Kassar (My father’s uncle) as well as many others from Derna and its region who were, unfortunately, forgotten!

Many other heroes from Derna made the ultimate sacrifice fighting the Gaddafi regime. While he was in power, thousands have died in Libya and outside of it! Among these martyrs, more than three hundred have passed, in Abu Slim jail massacre, in Tripoli, during the nineties of the last century, which demonstrates the brutality and the cruelty of the blood-thirsty regime of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi!

That is Derna, the city where I was born, grew-up and then left for many years, before coming back to it! I will, definitely never forget it because Libya is the mother land and the city of Derna is like the pearl ornamenting its crown!

No matter how my city has been marginalized and forgotten, it will come back!

Derna, God willing, will retrieve, one day, its prestige and it will, definitely, shine all over again!

God bless!

Ragab Zatout