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Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
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Oz Katerji, Anchal Vohra

Betrayed by Their Leaders, Failed by the West, Arabs Still Want Democracy

A man mourns the death of seven members of a family, killed in a house hit in a reported airstrike by pro-regime forces in the town of Sarmin in the northern Syrian Idlib province, on Feb. 2. Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images

On Dec. 17, 2010, the world was changed forever by the actions of one man. A Tunisian fruit seller named Mohamed Bouazizi doused himself in petrol and set himself on fire outside the provincial headquarters of Sidi Bouzid in protest against local police officials who had seized his fruit cart.

Just 28 days later, Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution had ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, driven by the righteous fury of a population who had witnessed enough, a reaction not just to the desperation and subjugation of a 26-year-old street vendor, but to the routine humiliation and oppression of many decades.

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