Zwara, Libya

As shells fell around the Amazigh city of Zwara on the evening of April 3, the city’s five tanks thundered back at its Arab neighbors in Rig Dalin. Men, ranging in age from their teens to their sixties, fought and supported the fighters—and updated the Zwara Media Center’s very active Facebook page. Also, they talked incessantly about the meaning of democracy, minority rights, gun control, and other topics usually left to less urgent settings.

Libyans are often having the right kinds of discussions among themselves, but there’s a huge gap between conversation and the actions needed to nudge the nation closer to a functioning democracy.