HOW SET THE MIDDLE EAST AFLAME SEVEN DOLLARS

For a long time, Zine el-abidine Ben Ali was considered to be untouchable. He had ruled Tunisia with an iron fist since 1987— and been responsible for the abuse, rape, and murder of thousands of innocent people. And he was greedy. He had systematically looted the nation of 11 million inhabitants, many of whom lived in conditions of grinding poverty. A year after his downfall in 2011, the country was still struggling to recover the estimated $17 billion he’d plundered from the treasury and diverted to private accounts— a sum equivalent to about one-third of Tunisia’s annual GDP. The dictator had managed to thrive unchecked for 23 years full of mismanagement and abuses of power. And what brought him down in the end was not yet another conspiracy to commit murder or massive embezzlement— it was the flap of a butterfly’s wings that seemed so mundane and insignificant that practically no one noticed at first. It all started at a vegetable market in a small town in the Tunisian desert…

Sidi Bouzid is a dusty city of 50,000 people in the interior of Tunisia. Unemployment is high. Most of the inhabitants struggle to make ends meet— like Mohamed Bouazizi. The 26-year-old must support his mother, uncle, and five younger siblings with the income he generates operating a small unlicensed vegetable cart. He could not afford to get a business license. On the morning of December 17, 2010, as on every other day, he purchases tomatoes, apples, and onions at a wholesale market and carries them several miles across town to sell them to his regular customers at a small markup. But today things are different. A light breeze is blowing that will soon develop into a storm—all it takes is a brief encounter with officialdom: 45-year-old Faida Hamdy is a municipal inspector, a policeman’s daughter with a spotless record. Hamdy is not a police officer: Her duties include inspecting buildings, investigating noise complaints, and fining illegal vendors. On this day she asks to see Mohamed Bouazizi’s license. But he doesn’t have one. Other vendors later say that a bribe of 20 dinars— around $7— would have settled the matter, but Bouazizi, who purchases his produce on credit, could not or would not pay it. That $7 sum is enough to trigger the butterfly effect. When Hamdy tries to confiscate the cart, Bouazizi resists, so the inspector seizes his cart, his scales, and his boxes of fruit. Bouazizi storms off to complain at the nearby governor’s office, but no one would listen to his complaint. That’s the last straw for Mohamed Bouazizi. How will he feed his family with no cart and no produce? What happens next is not only the tragic story of a Tunisian street vendor— it would become a part of world history. Bouazizi returns to the governor’s office with a can of flammable liquid, pours it on his body, and sets himself on fire within sight of the police station. Due to burns covering 90% of his body, Mohamed Bouazizi dies three weeks later— and for a moment, it seems the incident is over as the final chapter in the sad story of a young life comes to a close.

But then something very surprising happens. By the time Bouazizi dies, protests have spread throughout the entire country as people rise up against the injustice and poverty that they’ve been enduring for decades. The demonstrators declare Mohamed Bouazizi their symbolic hero. The government deploys heavily armed special units against the demonstrators, but things only continue to get out of hand. Instead of retreating, more and more demonstrators take to the streets. When the police start using tear gas against the people, the crowds respond by throwing stones and occupying police stations. Repression and despair that have accumulated for decades are being released with an angry uproar—and soon the demonstrations spread like a conflagration across Africa and the Middle East. The Tunisian president flees the country on January 14, 2011, and goes into exile in Saudi Arabia. The next month Hosni Mubarak resigns as president of Egypt after 30 years in power. Later that year a mob kills Libyan dictator Muammar el-qaddafi. In Syria protests soon become a brutal civil war. The Arab Spring that began in Tunisia ultimately sparks protests against corruption, oppression, and tyranny in at least 17 other countries—and plunges parts of Africa and the Middle East into chaos from which they still have not recovered.