During the 2011 uprising in Libya, the red-black-green flag with a star and a white crescent in the centre became a symbol for a new regime. This was the former ensign of the United Kingdom of Libya, which Qadhāfi’s revolution discarded in 1969. The flag was revived to represent Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan as a symbol of national unity, but it also implied a relationship with the history of the nearly twenty-year-long regime of King Idris. The memory of the monarchy, erased by the Qadhāfi regime, seems to have found a space of recognition and meaning in public discourse and narrative. The present contribution aims, on the one hand, to analyse if and to what extent symbolism linked to the monarchical period became an emblem of the revolts against the regime in 2011. On the other hand, this article examines the reconstitution and reappropriation of the memory of the monarchy, and its source of legitimation, the Sanussi Order, from a social and political point of view.