World on Fire
by Roy-Gene MacIninch
March 9, 2011
People around the globe have watched with a mixture of awe, excitement, and dread as history kicked into high gear in the Middle East in December 2010. When an account of the past few months—and that of those to come—is written, special attention will hopefully be given to Mohamed Bouazizi. Remember him? Maybe not.
This college-educated 26-year-old had been operating an unlicensed vegetable cart for years in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid to provide for his family. Like many in the North African country, he was unable to find work in his profession. Then, when the cart was confiscated by police and local authorities soundly refused to hear his case, the young man did what he must have felt was his only option: on Dec.17, 2010, Mohamed set himself on fire.
Less than a month later, Tunisia’s resident autocrat was driven from power in a popular revolution that took the media, the American intelligence community, and the dictator himself utterly by surprise. And even when all the pundits and intelligence officials claimed it would never happen in Egypt, a handful of weeks later, protests brought down the decades-old regime of Hosni Mubarak. Continue reading »
