HOW THE ARAB SPRING BEGAN

It began in Tunisia, where the dictator's power grabbing and high living crossed a line of shamelessness, and a commonplace bit of government callousness against an ordinary citizen — a 26-year-old street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi — became the final straw. Bouazizi lived in the charmless Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, 125 miles south of Tunis. On a Friday morning almost exactly a year ago, he set out for work, selling produce from a cart. Police had hassled Bouazizi routinely for years, his family says, fining him, making him jump through bureaucratic hoops. On Dec. 17, 2010, a cop started giving him grief yet again. She confiscated his scale and allegedly slapped him. He walked straight to the provincial-capital building to complain and got no response. At the gate, he drenched himself in paint thinner and lit a match. (See pictures of Sidi Bouzid.)
"My son set himself on fire for dignity," Mannoubia Bouazizi told me when I visited her.
"In Tunisia," added her 16-year-old daughter Basma, "dignity is more important than bread."

CAN ONE PERSON MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

 

MOTHER TERESA DID IT FOR THE POOR

AL GORE DID IT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

THIS MAN IN THE STREET DID IT FOR HIS COUNTRY