52 Exit from Authoritarianism Libya, some diaspora members only learned about their people’s history after going abroad to study; according to Al-Rumi (2009), “A number of activists have attempted to use the web to reconnect Libyan Berbers with their language.” One such website called Tawalt, which opened in 2001 from California (Alunni 2020: 143) and closed without explanation in 2009, “was the richest such cultural website, offering not only downloadable grammar books but also audio recordings of grammar classes of Tarifit, Tashalhit, and Nafusa, different branches of the Tmazight language. Unlike Tawalt, which is in Arabic (they claim to be the first ever Amazigh website in Arabic), two other Berber cultural websites, Libyaimal.com and Adrar.5u.com, are exclusively in Tmazight.” According to Al-Rumi (2009), a UK-based organization called the Libyan Tamazight Congress (Agraw a’Libi n’Tmazight, ALT), founded in 2000, also demanded that the Gaddafi regime make official reference to the Tmazight language in the constitution and recognize the presence and legitimacy of the Amazigh people in Libya. By the early 2000s, interviewees who had grown up in political exile attested that their parents’ generation had given up hope or had spent a lot of time “discussing but not enough time doing, or reaching out,” as M., a Libyan American activist, recalled. Their hopes for change at home were further dampened as Gaddafi’s relations with the West improved. Gaddafi had been isolated in the global community for decades for sponsoring international acts of terrorism, including most infamously the 1988 Lockerbie airplane bombing.8 In December 2003, following the US-led occupation of Iraq, Gaddafi agreed to give up Libya’s weapons of mass destruction and settle his foreign debts. His son and heir apparent, Saif al-Islam, also sought to repair Libya’s international reputation as a pariah state by releasing some political prisoners and opening an investigation into the Abu Salim Massacre. This rapprochement was bad news for many of Libya’s former freedom fighters. In addition to being persecuted by Gaddafi, members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group also became caught in the post-2001 war-on-terror dragnet. Under President George W. Bush, the United States began helping Gaddafi capture former fighters in 2004 and rendered them back to Tripoli for interrogation and torture. Britain also signed a rendition agreement with Gaddafi in a memorandum of understanding in 2005 (Human Rights Watch 2011b). Warming relations also made British officials more hesitant to accept refugees from Libya (Blitz 2009). After 2004, the diaspora itself became a key component of the regime’s plan to reestablish ties with the international community. In order to improve 8 The Lockerbie bombing refers to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which – on its way from Frankfurt to New York (John F. Kennedy International Airport) and Detroit via London – exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing a total of 270 people. While Gaddafi publicly denied responsibility, an investigation by British and American authorities found two of his agents to be responsible; while he paid compensation to the families, many of whom were American, in 2003. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press