Summary

Matar dedicates the bulk of this chapter to the description of a cell phone video featuring his younger cousin Izzo raising the flag of the revolution over the city of Zliten, a key strategic location in the war. Matar vividly details the shaky video with no interjection of his own, instead adhering only to the description of the video. The video shows Izzo's point of view as he and Marwan race up the stairs of an abandoned building carrying the flag, urging each other to be careful, and reveling in the view of "the flag of life and liberty" (87). The only audio Mater notes besides the whispered dialogue of the two young revolutionaries are distant gunshots and the howling wind. The video ends with an image of the flag over the building; "there is no mistaking it," Matar concludes (88).

Just a month later...