In December 2010, a 26-year-old street vendor in a small Tunisian city set himself on fire in front of a government building. Twenty-eight days later, a dictator who had ruled for 23 years (since 1987) was on a plane fleeing the country during what many call the only successful revolution of the Arab Spring.
On paper, Tunisia looked fine: international observers pointed to economic growth rates of 4-5%. In practice, that wealth belonged to a thin slice of the population clustered around the capital and the wealthier north. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s government tightly controlled the press, and crushed political opposition before it could take root. The interior of the country–rural and forgotten–faced unemployment rates as high as 30% among young graduates.
The regime held onto power through a simple formula: economic pressure to keep people too exhausted to organize, and enough police repression to punish those who tried. For decades, it worked. Until one man was pushed to the breaking point.
On December 17, 2010, in the city of Sidi Bouzid, a local official confiscated Mohamed Bouazizi's produce cart — the same cart he used for seven years to support his family of eight. When he went to complain and was turned away, Bouazizi walked to the street in front of the regional headquarters, doused himself in flammable liquid, and set himself on fire.
