MAN: On a December day in 2010,
a produce vendor in Tunisia
stood in front of
a government office
and set himself on
fire, killing himself.
His desperate
actions helped spark
a revolutionary
uprising that has come
to be known as the Arab Spring.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
While the uprising across the
Middle East in North Africa
did not take place during
a specific calendar season
they were commonly referred
to as the Arab Spring.
An allusion to the
so-called Prague Spring,
a 1968 democratic revolution
in Czechoslovakia.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The Arab Spring time line began
in Tunisia, a country that
had been under the allegedly
corrupt and authoritarian rule
of President Zine El Abidine Ben
Ali for more than two decades.
On December 17, 2010,
a working class vendor
named Mohamed Bouazizi
was approached
by Tunisian authorities
about his unlicensed cart.
He offered to pay a fine
but instead his vegetables
were confiscated
and he was publicly
humiliated by the police.
Afterwards, to add
insult to injury,
local officials refuse to
hear complaints of harassment.
In a short protest,
Bouazizi stood
in front of the local governor's
office and set himself on fire.
He died from his
injuries on January 4.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Bouazizi became a martyr
who inspired others who
were suffering from
unemployment at the hands
of a corrupt government.
His death sparked a Tunisian
revolution in which protesters
armed themselves
not only with signs
but with cell phones,
allowing the protest to spread
at social media speed.
On January 11, a week
after Bouazizi's death,
Tunisia's government fell apart
and the disgraced President
Ben Ali fled the country.
The videos of the
successful uprising shared
via social media raise global
awareness of the protests
themselves.
State run news organizations
were barely able to keep up.
The speed and success
of the protest
inspired others
across the region.
Throughout January
protests erupted
in Algeria, Jordan, and Oman.
By January 25, the
movement reached
Egypt followed by Syria,
Yemen, Iraq, Libya,
and several other countries.
On February 11, Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak
stepped down and by
the end of the year
Yemen's government
was overthrown.
[CHANTING]
As was Libya's, ending the
dictatorship and the life
of their leader Muammar Gaddafi
who was captured and killed
by Libyan rebel militia.
While some of the
Arab Spring protests
did result in regime
changes not all of them
brought about positive
change for the working class
people like Mohamed Bouazizi.
In some cases the
uprisings were co-opted
by religious
extremists, like ISIS,
who embraced the revolt
against secular Arab regimes
for their own agenda.
As a result, when governments
toppled in places like Syria
and Iraq, rebel
groups stepped in
to fill the void using strong
arm tactics and even terrorism.
In Syrian, Civil
War has resulted
in the deaths of some
half a million people
stoking the fires of unrest.
Along with political instability
and economic stagnation
in neighboring countries
the Syrian Civil War
has also led to a massive
refugee crisis in the region.
While the Arab Spring revealed
how fast a revolution fueled
by technology could
unfold it also once again
proved how complicated
and unpredictable
revolutions can be.
