Bouazizi lived in the charmless Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, 125 miles south of Tunis. Police had hassled Bouazizi routinely for years, his family says, fining him, making him jump through bureaucratic hoops.
On a Friday morning almost exactly a year ago, he set out for work, selling produce from a cart. On Dec. 17, 2010, a cop started giving him grief yet again. She confiscated his scale and allegedly slapped him. (In retaliation) he walked straight to the provincial-capital building to complain and got no response. At the gate, he drenched himself in paint thinner and lit a match.
"Mohamed suffered a lot. He worked hard. But when he set fire to himself, it wasn't about his scales being confiscated. It was about his dignity," said his mother, Mannoubia Bouazizi.
"In Tunisia," added her 16-year-old daughter Basma, "dignity is more important than bread."
Massive and effective street protest was a global oxymoron until — suddenly, shockingly — starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times. And the protester once again became a maker of history.
The Arab Spring (was thus born) and the germ of protest has spread to Europe and then America and now Russia.
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Related: An Interview with Mannoubia Bouazizi, The Martyr's Mother
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