A month before the revolution broke out, Basma stood drunk at the old city wall and brazenly shouted “Death to Gaddafi!” The next day, she woke up inside the infamous Jdeideh prison in Tripoli with swollen eyes. Basma had been too brave, too early.

Basma is known to all in the neighborhood by the male name Ashour. The elderly women in the old city, who love Ashour and her spontaneous chatter, reproach children for calling Ashour “Mrs.” because she herself prefers to be called Ashour. She is rarely asked about her real name.

A month before the revolution broke out, Basma stood drunk at the old city wall and brazenly shouted “Death to Gaddafi!” The next day, she woke up inside the infamous Jdeideh prison in Tripoli with swollen eyes. Basma had been too brave, too early.

Basma is known to all in the neighborhood by the male name Ashour. The elderly women in the old city, who love Ashour and her spontaneous chatter, reproach children for calling Ashour “Mrs.” because she herself prefers to be called Ashour. She is rarely asked about her real name.

Every morning she sits in her usual corner next to ‘Uncle Mas’oud Café’ in Bab Al-Jdid neighborhood and drinks her Nescafe. “I don’t know when I first came here and saw those,” says the 37-year old, pointing at the vendors’ stalls lined-up along the cement pavements outside the old city walls.

All she remembers is that she came to the old city from a ‘resort’ where she spent many years learning how to dive after fleeing her family’s home west of Tripoli.

Outside Bab Al-Jdid wall, Al-Itk market, famous for its diversity, marginalized people, cheap second-hand goods and stolen expensive products, Ashour spends part of her day in the market corners, talking to vendors and shoppers. She laughs in one moment then gets angry and swears at them before going home.

Walls of my life

“My life,” she says, “is full of walls, starting with the name Ashour— which stuck with me from early childhood— to my parents’ home, which I left a year after my father died before I turned 13, and in the old city wall where I live in an unlicensed accommodation agency, and ending with prison, where I forget how many names I have had there.”

“I was released along with the other prisoners held under Gaddafi. He recruited the most dangerous prisoners in the killing brigades that fought the rebels in Tripoli,” she remembers.

Although she refused to join Gaddafi’s mercenary, Ashour is still living her childhood nightmare, which forced her to leave her parents’ home and live in prison or on the fringes of society.

Robbed childhood

“Less than a year after my father died, an incident forced me to leave home. Despite being a little girl, I didn’t fear playing with boys. I always preferred their company to girls’. I often sat with my father’s friends, unwittingly playing the boy’s role,” she said.

“One night, I woke up to find my uncle on top of me trying to rape me,” she explains. “Please let’s stop talking about it,” she says bitterly, trying to hide her tears while exhaling the heavy nicotine Riyadi cigarette. She turns to a boy running towards her from the neighboring café. She smiles warmly at him, kisses him tenderly and lets him sit next to her.

 “Deeds are what matter”

The ‘quarter’ (or the old city in Tripoli) where Ashour lives, became the destination for many Libyans, Arabs and other Africans, after large numbers of its original residents deserted the area in the 1970s.

Ex-convicts, prison runaways, drug dealers, outcasts and mentally disturbed people have settled here. Even girls who escaped their homes and schools found in its remote alleys and dens among ruins, a good place to live according to its new identity, which ignores societal-determined morals and law.

“Life is harsh,” Ashour explains. “I pity the poor who were forced to live in the ruins because they have no other shelter. I wonder about the future of their children.”

“I always supported the poor. I have principles and I always cursed Gaddafi in the prime of his violence and power,” she adds.

“I don’t care about labels, I may be a struggler and a criminal, but deeds are what matters,” she insists.

A mother’s heart

Ashour has donated much of the money she inherited from her father to help her family and the poor. When her younger sister came to her a few days earlier to get permission to get married, she gave her a check of 5,000 Dinars (US $3,900) and advised her to have a baby as soon as possible.

“I love children more than myself,” she says with a smile. Basma, who left her pigtails and school bag at home 25 years ago to live a harsh life alone, is a rebel at heart.

“I may be rebellious, corrupt and an outlaw, but I’m not a thief, a false witness or a pimp.”

While some in her neighborhood question Ashour’s appearance and manner they agree on her good-heartedness, trustworthiness and honesty; they find excuses for her occasional drunkenness and carousal.  

“The dissolved regime thought I was a mad homeless person who would not pose any danger. This is why I was spared police arrests. If it wasn’t for my drunkenness, I would be one of Abu Salim’s prison victims,” she says.

“Most of my convictions have been due to quarrels with policemen or the municipality guards who are corrupt and take bribes.

I don’t have any reason to be afraid. This is just the truth,” she says before leaving and disappearing into the market.