Mohamed Bouazizi

Timeline began in Tunisia, a country that had been under the allegedly corrupt and authoritarian rule of President Zain al-Abidine bin Ali for more than two decades.

On December 17, 2010, a working-class vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi was approached by Tunisian authorities about his unlicensed cart.

He offered to pay a fine, but instead its vegetables were confiscated, and he was publicly humiliated by the police.

Give my vegetables back, dude.

The tension in the country was a powder keg waiting for a spark.

And on December 17th, 2010, that spark was lit by a 26-year-old man named Mohamed Bouazizi.

Boazizi was a street vendor.

He sold produce from a cart to support his family.

You can think about George Floyd, Black Lives Matter.

You can think about Mohamed Bouazizi in the Arab Spring.

These incidents that are not accidents as such, but they basically express necessity through a singular event.

At the same time, I think it's interesting, there was also an event going on at the same time which showed the opposite class what they can expect in terms of their living conditions.