Arab Spring: Dream or Frustration?

17 December 2010 will remain etched in history books. It sparked off something mostly unanticipated and yet, the Arab masses had waited a long time for the moment. On that day, Mohammed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, set himself on fire in a show of public protest. Why did he self immolate? Mohammed Bouazizi was a fruit and vegetable seller whose cart was confiscated by the police. Instead of accepting his fate, he decided to confront the police and was slapped back, that too by a woman official. The malaise of corruption, unemployment and poverty already existed but being slapped by a woman was perhaps the last straw. Bouazizi’s self-immolation triggered widespread unrest in Tunisia which was dubbed the Jasmine Revolution. Subsequently when massive protests broke out in a number of other Arab countries, the phenomenon came to be termed as the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring took the world by surprise. In a region marked by political oppression, economic under-development and well-educated but unemployed youth, the classic conditions for revolution always existed. What it needed was a spark, which came in the form of the self-immolation of Bouazizi.