Just over two months ago, on December 17 a young man called Mohamed Bouazizi died a horrifying death. He immolated himself. And in setting fire to his own body, he ignited the Middle East.
Country after neighbouring country has erupted since the death of the young vegetable sellar from Tunisia who couldn’t take any more despair or humiliation. He couldn’t possibly have known that the fire that ate his body would also consume and perhaps destroy forever a mentality that had choked the world in which he lived. A mentality of cowing before dictators and giving in to corrupt bureaucracy, a mentality resigned to no prospects for the future, to an inadequate or a wasted education, to a life where injustice and danger could strike at any moment, from any corner.
Fire burns, destroys, cleans. Self immolation has for centuries been a suicide signifying protest, an act that illustrates that leaving life in utter pain is still preferable to remaining alive: a final demonstration of despair.
And tyrants and torturers from English kings and Russian czars to Chinese and Cambodian communists have burned their victims to make them an example but succeeded more often than not, in creating martyrs to the cause instead.
Hundreds of deaths have followed Bouazizi, most infamously and recently in Libya where authorities driven by a despearation of their own immenent demise are showing they would rather kill their people than give up power. Colonel Gadaffi, until recently, on the top of the list of the West’s Persona Non Grata, is an easy man for western leaders to decry. Easier than long time allies like ex President Moubarak who enjoyed for decades the benefits of the velvet blinkers the US and Europe put on when dealing with unsavoury but necessary friends.
Ever watched a fire burn? Its mesmerizing isn’t it. There’s something spellbinding about watching flames. I cannot turn my eyes away. How about you?
