The continuing revolution in Tunesia proves how myopic both western media and blogs can be. We only woke up to what was happening last week, after riots and protests had been going on for a month; only when president Ben Ali was already in his plane on his way to France did we start to pay attention. As Jamie explains over at the New Left Project, this silence from the big media beasts is not surprising, as this was a spontaneous rebellion, not one of the US State Department’s carefully orchestrated phoney balony colour “revolutions”.
So what has been going on in Tunesia? Alternet has a good recap of the events of last month:
How did it all start? On December 19, authorities in the small, central city of Sidi Bouzid seized the produce cart that 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi was using to make a living. So Bouazizi set himself on fire. Young people in the small, central city of Sidi Bouzid rioted, and police moved to seal the city. In early January, Bouazizi died, becoming an early martyr for the cause. Brian Whitaker, the Middle East editor of the Guardian and a Tunisia expert, has agood article explaining how Bouazizi and Sidi Bouzid got the ball rolling on revolution.
For a more streetlevel view of the revolution and riots, Methalif’s blog is a good start. Over at Lenin’s Tomb, Kevin Ovenden has a nice summary of Ben Ali’s career.
Meanwhile in the rest of the North-African dictatorships, the leaders are a bit more uncomfortable today. Yesterday a protester in Egypt set himself on fire, emulating Mohamed Bouazizi and today protesters demonstrated in front of parliament, supporting him.