There is a huge socio-political transformation taking place in North Africa and the Middle East.

Chaos theory: A butterfly flutters its wings in one place, and that results in a hurricane on the other side of the world. A humble, 26-year-old fruit seller sets himself aflame in a small town in Tunisia, because he is harassed by a corrupt municipality and police force – and a revolution is unleashed in over 18 countries across two continents, covering more than fifteen million square kilometers with population of more than 300 million.

There could not be a more ordinary man. He was born and lived in a small town called Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia. He had six siblings, and his father died when he was three. As per the local custom, his mother married her husband’s brother. He went to the only school nearby, which was almost 20 kms away, and consisted of just one room.

He began working from the age of 10, doing odd jobs, yet he managed to complete his schooling. He used to make the equivalent of six to seven thousand Indian rupees per month.

From the day he began working, till the day he died, he had been paying bribes to the municipality and the policemen. On 16 December 2010, he bought fruits for about eight thousand rupees, on credit. Next morning, he was out on the street from 8 am, the policemen arrived around 10.30 am.

When he could not pay the required bribe they beat him up and threw his wares to the ground, and confiscated his electronic weighing scale. The municipal officer was a 45-year-old woman. She also slapped his face and spat on him. None of this was anything special or new. But today it was different. Mohammed Bouazizi had had enough.

He ran to the local ‘governor’ to complain and ask for help. But the governor would not even meet him. Mohammed ran to a gas station, bought some gasoline, and standing in the middle of the traffic in front of the governor’s office doused himself with it. He called out, “How do you expect me to make a living?” and set himself on fire. It was 11.30 am.

He had sustained burns over 90% of his body, and he died eighteen days later. More than 5,000 people attended his funeral in his small town, and they chanted “Farewell Mohammed, we will avenge you. We weep for you today. We will make those who caused your death weep.”

And, sure enough, they did. Within hours of Mohamed Bouazizi’s self immolation, protests broke out all over Sidi Bouzadi. The protests spread from town to town until it reached Tunisia’s capital city of Tunis. On the 14th of January, 2011 the President of the country, Zine El Abadine Ben Ali, fled the country along with his family, ending 23 years of dictatorship.

What made Mohamed Bouazizi take that extreme step? What happened on the 17th of December was just the final straw. It was sixteen years of constant harassment from the corrupt police and municipality, with no recourse to any democratic mode of redressal. His desperate act of rebellion was not just for himself. It was on behalf of millions of others like him.

This found a resonance in other countries in that region. In Algeria, on 13 January, 37- year-old Mohsen Bouterfif set himself on fire. In the next fifteen days three more people burnt themselves. Another man set himself on fire in front of the Egyptian Parliament. Another in Saudi Arabia. One each, even as far away as Sicily and Amsterdam.

One country after the other in that region erupted into spontaneous demonstrations. On 28 December there were demonstrations in Algeria. On 12th and 14th of January it was Lebanon and Jordan respectively. On the 17th there were protests in three countries: Mauritania, Sudan and Oman. On 21 January, it was Saudi Arabia. Four days later it had reached Egypt, five days later – Morocco, another three days, Yemen. A week later it was Iraq’s turn, followed by Bahrain in another four days. Three days later: 17 and 18 February, it is the turn of Libya and Kuwait. 26 February, Western Sahara, and finally, 15 March – Syria. From 15 May there has also been some unrest along Israeli borders, which is not directly connected to this ‘Arab Spring’.

On the 11th of February President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt had to step down from 30 years in power, after eighteen days of massive protests. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced that he would not seek re-election in 2015, as did Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki, whose term ends in 2014. King Abdullah in Jordan dissolved his government, and put an interim Prime Minister in place. In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh offered to step down in exchange for immunity. Libya has descended into several months of civil war, with Muammar Ghaddafi being untraceable.

All these states represented a world that had failed to keep pace with the rest of the world. A world that was still steeped in the politics and social norms of the colonial period of the twentieth century; or, at best, the compulsions of the cold war epoch. A world of dictatorships, empty rhetoric and repression. Authoritarian states with extreme poverty, government corruption, human rights violations, inflation, kleptocracy, sectarianism and unemployment. In effect, a powder keg of human disaffection. This is the chaos that destroys the stability that is built on the repression of human spirit, denial of basic human dignity.

The pundits of the world predict that this region might continue to be unstable for the next ten, fifteen years – and more. That it is going to get a lot worse before it begins to get better.

Witness what is happening in Syria at the moment. Brutal repression of amazingly peaceful protests. Yet massive demonstrations continue every day. Thousands upon thousands of people leaving their homes every day, in the knowledge that they may not return alive. With dozens of countries in the neighbourhood waiting in line, to join this chaos.

If this is the price to be paid for ushering in a democratic and modern future, so be it. Beautiful, beautiful chaos!

Well done Mohamed Bouazizi. Maybe you were not so ordinary, after all. And……thank you.

by AJIT HARI