'Not wanting to take it anymore'

GIORGOS MOUTAFIS / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES Enlarge Image

Mother of Mohamed Bouazizi, the vendor who set himself on fire Dec. 17, holds his photo. His death sparked Arab Spring.

On Dec. 17, 2010, 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi stood outside the governor's office in rural Sidi Bouzi, Tunisia, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire.

He had been trying to earn money with his fruit and vegetable cart but was harassed by police and set himself on fire in protest.

His suicide lit a spark in tens of thousands of Tunisians facing high unemployment, government corruption and decades of repression.

Protests began in small Sidi Bouzi and quickly spread to the capital of Tunis, then around the Arab world. It created a movement that ultimately brought down at least three governments and forced several others to introduce democratic reforms.

Rough estimates suggest somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 people were killed across the region during protests. Thousands more were injured.

The protests would come to be called the Arab Spring. It was chosen by the Free Press editors as the international newsmaker of the year.

Les Campbell, senior associate and regional director for Middle East and North Africa programs at the National Democratic Institute in Washington, D.C., compared the Arab Spring to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

"These are tectonic shifts," said Campbell of the changes in Arab governance. "It was unimaginable a couple of years ago. But at the same time it has been a long time coming."

And it was so dramatic, the entire world took notice. Even Campbell's hockey team would talk about Middle Eastern politics over post-game beers. A sophomore he spoke to recently told him she was studying Middle Eastern politics in college. When he asked her why, she said simply: "It's THE thing that's going on."

Campbell said the western world -- which ignored the Middle East except for oil, terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- took notice because of the compelling story of people rising up for freedom.

Bouazizi's distress and hopelessness after years of mistreatment by police and government officials echoed the feelings of thousands of Tunisians and others in Arab countries, said Campbell.

"This is about human dignity and people not wanting to take it anymore."

The Tunisian government was the first to fall on Jan. 14. President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia and prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi took over. He had been in power since 1987.

By then the Arab Spring was already spreading across the region, Algeria and Bahrain and Egypt. Throughout the winter and into the spring, the protests grew in Yemen and Jordan, Kuwait and Morocco.

Unemployment, dictatorship governments and corruption are all cited as reasons behind the protests. Most were led by young people who had been exposed to the world outside the Middle East with the introduction of social media and satellite television.

Campbell said Twitter and Facebook gave people a way to organize quickly in countries where public gatherings were illegal.

"The frustrations were there. People wanted a change but they didn't have a button to push. Social networking allowed people at the press of a button to reach thousands."

In Egypt, the largest country in the area, hundreds of thousands flocked to Tahrir Square in Cairo demanding President Hosni Mubarak step aside.

For 18 days, he clung to power, sending out the military to try to suppress the crowds, shutting down Internet and mobile networks to take away communications. He promised not to run again. He promised to increase salaries. It was not enough. Finally, on Feb. 11, he handed over power to the military council and fled.

The uprising was longer and deadlier in Libya. Protests that began in February grew into a civil war. Leader Moammar Gadhafi sent troops in to quiet the uprisings. NATO and the United Nations set up a no-fly zone and started using allied planes to launch air strikes. Tripoli would fall in August. Gadhafi was captured and killed in October.

Canada joined the NATO combat mission in Libya with 650 personnel.

Massive change in government and direction across the Arab world resulted from the protests.

From the first free elections in Egypt in more than half a century to democratic reforms and increases in minimum wages and social housing spending in Saudi Arabia. Libya will have free elections in 2012.

Protests continue in parts of the region. In Egypt, deadly clashes continue between the governing military council and protesters who want the government they just elected to take over. In Syria, protests are turning into a civil war. At least 6,000 people have been killed in protests as the government repeatedly cracks down with the military.

Campbell said the western world has largely ignored domestic politics in the Arab world -- until now.

"All of a sudden last January it just exploded into plain view. The realization now is there is much more going on there than oil and terrorism."

Former Manitoba NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis was in Jordan on a democracy-building mission with the National Democratic Institute in January 2011 when the Arab Spring erupted. Before, she said, westerners didn't think about how repressive or autocratic many of the Arab nations were. "This is about desire for democracy and human rights. It made people (in Canada) aware of freedoms we take for granted."

She said it's critical for the western world to provide advice on how to develop democracy without telling them who to elect.

Many have commented that while democracies such as Canada are dealing with falling voter turnout, people in the Middle East and North Africa were putting their lives on the line to be able to finally participate.

Some see it also as the catalyst for the Occupy movement, which saw protesters try to battle against economic and social inequality.

"I think we picked the Arab Spring (for international newsmaker) because of its effect on protesters around the world," said Free Press deputy editor Julie Carl. "It started things, and they ended up in our own backyard."

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 28, 2011 A6