People who never had the courage to raise their eyes before now dared to point fingers. It all started by a spark, that turned into flames. Flames that turned the destiny of the Middle East, flames that took away long-serving leaders, flames that started the Arab Spring.
17th December 2010: Tunisia
A 20-year-old boy named Mohamed Bouazizi, who used to work as a vegetable vendor started his day fresh and full of hope.
One morning, upon reaching the market, he caught the glimpse of some security officials around his vegetable cart. As he approached them to free his cart and start his day, officials started mishandling him and his belongings. After he sought support from local people, the officials took offence and charged him of spreading hatred against them.
After that, officials started humiliating him, used bad words for his mother, unmarried sisters, and late father. The situation got out of hand when an official started physically harming Bouazizi. No one from the crowd dared to intervene, everyone just stood and stared. Some people even started recording the whole event.
Humiliated and embarrassed 20-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi was too young to let this incident go away from his mind. The discomfiture and discomposure made him take a step which fueled each person oppressed by the dictatorship with a sense of revolt.
An hour after the public humiliation Bouazizi faced, he walked in front of the town hall and performed the act of self-immolation in the presence of the same officials and hundreds of people. Some cared to bring cloth while some cared to bring phones and cameras. While the cloth helped the fire to extinguish, the phones and cameras helped the fire to spread out.
As the video of self-immolation by a 20-year-old boy in Tunisia spread throughout the globe via Facebook, the world reacted with likes and shares and Tunisia reacted with revolt and uprising.
27th Dec’10: The first glimpse of an uprising took place after 10 days of the event, when 1000 people marched the streets against their own government due to increasing unemployment, increasing corruption and the increasing human rights violations by the officials.
The Tunisian president, Ben Ali who had been in power for almost 24 years was highly loathed by his own people. He was an odious dictator, who confiscated civilian rights and implemented the military rule in Tunisia.
As the days passed by, the uprising became larger in number and cogent in intention.
4th Jan’11: Mohamed Bouazizi was declared dead in a local hospital. This fueled the ongoing uprising, more and more Tunisians joined in. The slogan for the uprising was “asn-sha’b yurid isqat an-nizam” (the people want to bring down the regime).
6th Jan’11: This date is marked as the biggest strike to take place in Tunisian history, where 95% of Tunisian lawyers and people from trade unions joined the uprising.
14th Jan’11: Everyday strikes and protests made the president tremble, as a result of which he declared Emergency with military rule.
Which meant the military would take over the security in Tunisia and had the authority to open fire at any ongoing protests or gathering.
As soon as he declared an emergency with military rule, 80,000 Tunisians marched towards the president’s house. Observing the crowd, military officials now handed over their weapons and joined the uprising against Ben Ali.
Without the military, the power of Ben Ali turned fragile, as a result, he resigned from the post and fled away for Malta under Libyan protection.
Tunisian people honoured the sacrifice of a 20-year-old boy by introducing democracy. Mohamed Ghannouchi was elected as an interim Prime minister.
Tunisia became a success story for all the oppressed people facing dictatorship. Libya, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen were some of the Arab countries which followed the uprising and stood up against their own government. This uprising in the middle east which got famous worldwide as “The Arab Spring” also came to be known as the ‘Jasmine Revolution’