Spring Awakening

By: Editor | April 14, 2011 | Politics

Photo by Ammar Awad / Reuters

At the time of publication of this article, it has been just over four months since Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian computer science student-turned fruit vendor, drenched himself in paint thinner and lit himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, a provisional backwater 160 miles from Tunisia’s capital (the nearest movie theatre to Sidi Bouzid is 80 miles away). It was an unlikely tinderbox for a revolution that four months later would see NATO strikes in Libya, the sacking of political cabinets in Yemen and Jordan, regime change in Egypt and bullets fired at pro-democracy protestors in Bahrain, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Prior to the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, Sidi Bouzid’s biggest association with a rebellion was that George Lucas shot exteriors for the Star Wars slave world Tataouine in nearby Matmara.  It is a desolate desert place where a smoking, screaming, humiliated and badly burned twenty-something fruit vendor could easily be written off as just another young Arab suicide.

And yet ...

The people of Sidi Bouzid have described the subsequent events following Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation to the foreign and domestic press as both “impossible” and “a miracle.”  Within weeks, Tunisia’s president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to flee a wave of popular uprisings that swept over the citizens of the Arab street, rolling from the Western reaches of the Maghreb to the eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula.  In the months that have passed since Mohamed Bouazizi struck his match, not only has the decades-entrenched power structure of the ‘Arab World’ been fundamentally rattled but America’s post-9/11 narrative about ‘over there’ – the poor, young, autocracy-prone and oil-rich lands that so thoroughly spooked the American public and politicians for a decade has also gone up in smoke. The much-feared Islamic fundamentalist revolution materialized as the biggest youth-led push for popular democracy since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

And yet, and yet ....

Today, the dust of the ‘Arab Spring’ has far from settled.  The shape of the Arab World to come is neither known nor assured.  Like the Prague Spring of 1968 and the democratic protests of Tienanmen Square in 1989, this could all end in blood and tears and more dictatorship. Each day, inspiring new challenges to entrenched tyrannies come from unexpected corners (see Syria). And right behind them march the idealism-crushing reversals of fortune (see Egypt). It is all happening very fast. The same Egyptian Army that protected pro-democracy protestors in February declared subsequent protests illegal a month later. Our regional Arab friends like Jordan are just as vulnerable, if not more, than our regional Arab ‘frenemies’ like Libya. As the U.S. scrambles to cobble together a coherent policy to engage what is now and what comes next, it’s worth looking at everything that has happened since to shed some light on future events as they unfold. And for that light, it’s best to begin at the beginning, with the burning young man.

1. Them

Mohamed Bouazizi wanted to buy a van.  Mohamed Bouazizi wanted to start a family. Mohamed Bouazizi would have liked to get married, to get a cushy government job, to leave the street where he had lived his whole life, to have a future, to earn some self-respect, to use his computer science degree, to work.  Instead, he illegally sold apples for around $7 a day. Most of that money went to support his mother, uncle and five brothers and sisters. He was 26.

Faida Hamdy, 45, made a living for over two decades working in various capacities for the Tunisian state. Her job title on the day Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire was municipal inspector.  It was an easy job with which to supplement her income through bribery. She would inspect buildings, answer noise complaints, fine vendors for not having permits. Sometimes the bribes Faida would receive were free goods and services. But usually she asked for cash, a day or two’s wages, as a protection racket against the far more expensive fines she could levy. Her father and many of her family worked for the local police. She travelled with two colleagues who would physically enforce her authority. She was not frequently challenged. She was the corruption of an autocratic state in its pettiest incarnation.  Her supervisor described her record as “unblemished” and “exemplary.”

On December 17th, Faida Hamdy shook down Mohamed Bouazizi. Unable to pay her bribes or suffer her fines, Faida Hamdy humiliated him, slapping him in the face in the town square. Mohamed Bouazizi struggled against the blows but then was beaten into submission by Hamdy’s two colleagues who confiscated Bouazizi’s fruit scale as punishment for resistance. Unable to make a living without his scale, Bouazizi went to them later to ask for it back. He was beaten again. Bouazizi went to the provisional governor’s office to demand a hearing for this grievance but he was denied an audience. Enter the match, enter the cans of paint thinner, exit Mohamed Bouazizi. Two and a half weeks later, Bouazizi succumbed to the burns that covered 90 percent of his body. Three and a half weeks later, the government that ruled Tunisia for 23 years toppled.

Photo by Sharif Karim / Reuters

Photo by Ammar Awad / Reuters

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