The Peace on The Horizon - 75 Years after The World War 2 in the Middle East (174)

 

(Japanese Version)

(Arabic Version)

 

(contents)

 

Chapter 7: The "Arab Spring" - A fleeting dream (7)

174 Arab spring has come (3/4)

Such a desperate feeling of the common people ignited tragedy in Tunisia in December 2010. Police officers arrested a young jobless man who had been selling vegetables on the street without license by the authority. At that time, the unemployment rate in Tunisia reached in 14%. But unemployment rate of the young generation was terribly as high as 25 to 30%. A young man who was deprived of his bread burned himself to death at the square in front of the city hall protesting against the authority. The burning suicide itself is not so rare in the Islamic world. The incident was reported by local newspaper in the trivial article.

 

However, as one passer-by recorded the incident on the video by chance and posted it to YouTube. The fact expanded at one push. SNS used to spread endlessly once posted on the Internet. The young people who saw the whole story of the tragedy on the Internet immediately launched protests and called for a demonstration. The demonstration quickly spread from the capital Tunis to all over the country. The demonstrators asked President Ben Ali to resign after 23 years reign. Most of the young participants didn’t know the other president since they were born. They cried "We are bored with long dictatorship!” i.e. Kefaya! in Arabic. President Ben Ali could not suppress anti-government demonstration. He finally exiled to Saudi Arabia after a month.

 

(To be continued ----)

 

 

Areha Kazuya

(From an ordinary citizen in the cloud)