I was in fifth grade when the school’s officials ordered all the teachers at my school to end the day early and take us to march the streets of Damascus singing songs of admiration about the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. I arrived home from the daylong rally, excited to tell my father—a successful army officer—my realization: Our president had big ears like a monkey. He didn’t laugh with me. Rather, my father slapped my face and taught me a lesson I will never forget. He said: “The walls, windows, doors—all you see, smell, or feel around you, everything and everywhere—have ears. They can hear your words when you talk about the president, his friends, or politics. They can even hear your whispers.” I was 10 years old when I was first introduced to dictatorship.
Ten years later, when I was 15 years old, on Dec. 17, 2010, the thrones started to shake. The Arab world woke up to the news that a 26-year-old Tunisian man had burned himself to death after authorities banned him from trading vegetables in the city—his only source of income. His name, Mohamed Bouazizi, would be remembered as one of the martyrs of what would soon become a new Middle Eastern revolution.
