The Self-Immolation of Bouazizi, the 1% of the 99%
It was December 17, 2010, the police went to Sidi Bouzid Market for “inspection”, in doing so they encountered a fruit vendor in the market. Mohamed Bouazizi was that fruit vendor, a 26-year-old man who was a college graduate supporting his family during mass unemployment in the country. Bouazizi was wonted by the harassment and threat by the local police ever since he started selling fruit as he was considered an illegal worker because of lack of permit required, but that day he’s had enough. After he refused to solicit bribes for the police officers, they began beating him, publicly humiliated him, and confiscated his wares from him.
Enraged by their actions, Bouazizi went to the municipal building to see the governor to address his complaints and retrieve the properties that had been taken from him. The governor refused to meet nor hear his complaints, a choice that would certainly be regretted by that governor. Not satisfied and resentful, he wanted his complaints to be heard and one thing he did that would later change not only Tunisia but the Arab soil, he took a flammable liquid and poured himself drained with it then set himself on fire in front of the government building.
Bouazizi’s action woken up the people. How the government treated the young fruit vendor so that he lit himself on fire led people’s ire toward the government and started a protest. A mass of outrage protesters poured the street in Tunisia inducing fierce conflict with state authorities. By the day Bouazizi passed away of his self-immolation’s severe injury, January 4, 2011, the protests had sparked throughout Tunisia. Same as Bouazizi, the people also had enough of living under the 23 years regime of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali that was filled by corruption and tall rate of unemployment.
The regimes tried to suppress the masses by using force and it drew international censures and failed to appease the opposition. On January 14, 2011, Ben Ali was forced to abdicate and flee Tunisia by the protesters as they marched in Tunis, carrying banners with Bouazizi’s image. Upon the abdication of Ben Ali, Bouazizi was hailed as a martyr and hero of the Democracy in Tunisia. One year after Bouazizi’s self-immolation, protests had happened in as many as 17 countries in the Middle East and North Africa and regime change took place in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, the event that would later be called “Arab Springs”.
“The self-immolation was a trigger, a wake up call. In many of historical events, there’s always one event that escalated the things quickly that led to either a revolution, a war, or a change. The event that was the 1% of the already 99% heated condition that already occurring beneath.”
