In the aftermath, life turned upside down in Tunisia and the fire that Bouaziz lit burned until it engulfed the entire country from town to town. He died an agonising death from his injuries, after three weeks in the hospital, triggering protests which led to the downfall of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Soon protests spread to Egypt, Yemen, Libya and other parts of Arabic North Africa, the Middle East and some Gulf States. Bouaziz‟s plight echoed the hapless fate of so many thousands and thousands of young Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans and other unemployed youth in North Africa – all seduced by the promises of higher education yet frustrated and thwarted by the visionless, un-productive, corrupt power elites of Western-friendly regimes. The uprisings have come from a complex mix of economic problems involving the sharp rise in food prices and high youth unemployment, together with a widespread hatred of autocratic and corrupt regimes. All these factors have combined in different ways in various countries, leading to a strong popular anger. Of course we cannot deny the fact that people in one country have drawn, and will continue to draw, inspiration and strength from the mass protest movements in others. The partial successes in Tunisia and Egypt detonated similar movements elsewhere, but they did so only in countries with similar historical legacy – the same sharp socio-economic polarities between rentier rulers policies of its regimes plus neoliberal policies imposed by the global financial bodies. The country‟s economy has suffered disastrously under IMF and World Bank-imposed restructuring process.
Published in Political Reflection Magazine Vol. 2 No. 2
