Some spend their lives swallowing affronts, rationalizing and accepting their fates; they keep telling themselves that light will return one day even though life is nothing but an accumulation of disasters. They hope, they pray, they look elsewhere: the beauty of trees, the flight of a bird, the flutter of a butterfly, the smile on a child’s face, and they feel a sudden burst of confidence in humanity; they tell themselves things will get better, that it’s just a bad moment, that God is merciful and will open doors. But on that day, Mohamed felt he was banging his head against a concrete wall. He saw no way out of his fate. He couldn’t see any compassion in the eyes of passersby. Not a single hand reached out, not a word of encouragement, no justice. Mohamed is a citizen of the world who has reached the end of his patience. Yet, he could have thought about the character of Ayoub — about Job in the Koran — and the patience he had to demonstrate to endure all God had inflicted on him. But Mohamed didn’t think about him. Job is far away. Everyone is far away. There’s no one around him. He can’t even feel the presence of his mother or his sister, Leïla, whom he loves very much. He feels isolated, abandoned. God has abandoned him. Now he’s sure about that. On this cold December morning, he looks at the sky. Nobody gives him the slightest sign. Absolute solitude deepened by a cruel sense of unbearable injustice. The slap and then the spitting. One doesn’t do this, not even to a dog. He’s been stripped of his humanity much as a woman wipes makeup from her face. His face is no longer visible, his eyes can no longer see, and his self-esteem is gone. His dignity has been crushed beneath police boots. He tells himself, “It’s crazy how the poor are mean to each other, to those who are even poorer.” Because these police officers are miserable, they turn to corruption; they become servile and behave like slaves when the governor calls them to bring a cup of coffee or when they are told to paint his villa. They obey; they bend over to serve the authority. They lower their heads and eyes to serve those who have given them a job. Everyone knows that. Being indebted is a modern form of slavery. So, they do more than their duty. They take initiatives and see themselves as small chiefs, but chiefs anyway. They give orders with the same arrogance, the same violence that their supervisors use on them. A poor street vendor becomes an ideal victim. They can despise him because they have power over him; they can confiscate his cart, and if he’s not happy, let him die. “Ah! Let him croak!” These, apparently, were the words spoken by Ben Ali when he found out the street vendor had self-immolated.
Mohamed Bouazizi endured fifteen days and fifteen nights of suffering before dying. Like a dog, like a “nobody at all,” like a nameless shadow, like a poor man. Being poor in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and various other countries means being destined to croak like a dog, either because a police officer will push you to commit suicide or when you get sick, you won’t be treated and you’ll die from lack of medicine and medical assistance.
Mohamed Bouazizi decided to end his life. But how could he bring himself to self-immolate by fire? This is certainly not part of the Maghrebi tradition and culture, nor part of Islam, which forbids it. The one who defies God by taking his own life will repeat the same act for infinity. Mohamed must have seen images of monks self-immolating; or perhaps he heard about it. This act is spectacular; it’s directly significant and without ambiguity. Fire leaves nothing. It destroys everything. It inflicts terrible agony. Mohamed set himself on fire in public, in front of the town hall, in front of this government building that refused to listen to him and do him justice. He knew he had lost his cart for good, that the police would never return it, that their superiors wouldn’t take his side and help him. He knew that the poor in his country are condemned just for being poor. So his despair must lead to something that could, perhaps, capture the attention of the indifferent, those who were unjust, those who were powerless to do anything other than protect their own interests, and those who were oblivious to the fate of a street vendor.
Hang himself at home? That would serve nothing… Cut his veins? Not that either… Fill himself with sleeping pills? He can’t afford to buy them, and also, that would be a silent suicide; people would say: the poor man, he had a peaceful death… death in his sleep! No, Mohamed wanted to die and make his death become a useful act for others, useful for the poor, useful for the country. Perhaps he didn’t think at all about his country, but while dousing himself with gasoline and clicking a lighter, he must have had the time to think about his mother, his brothers and sisters, maybe also about his father; he must have thought it’s better to join his father instead of living in humiliation, without dignity, without money, victim of small bastards’ whims; their venom is as terrible as that of big bastards.
The fire ignited instantly. He didn’t move. When people ran to save him, it was too late. The fire was faster than they were; the fire had done its job. Mohamed was still breathing, but it was the breath of a charred body, a body whose soul already smelled the perfume of heaven, or, perhaps, the flames of hell. He was transported to a hospital in Sfax, then to the Burn Center in Ben Arous near Tunis. The body started to crackle. The soul couldn’t get out, trapped by ash and held prisoner in a body that was no longer a body, but an example of what humiliation can provoke.
His body lay on the hospital bed wrapped in bandages. Many hoped that, magically, the bandages would suddenly unroll before their eyes and the TV cameras, and that, little by little, a frail, new body would appear in its place as though propelled by an angel or a god who would have mercy on this poor man, a man who had just sacrificed his life for about 11 million people.
On December 19, the people of Sidi Bouzid started demonstrating. This was the beginning of what later came to be known as the Jasmine Revolution.
A few days later, on December 28, Ben Ali visited Mohamed Bouazizi, who was glued to the hospital bed. These were grotesque images of a president trying to appear paternal, but having the air of someone inwardly cursing this poor bastard whose action triggered the first demonstrations. But this man, whose body has turned into that of a mummy, won’t be here for long. He dies on January 4. Ten days later, Ben Ali’s regime gives up the ghost. The president flees, begs for asylum here and there, and then ends up going to Jeddah, land of Islam that cannot refuse hospitality to a Muslim. As for his wife and family, they’re already far away.
That’s how Mohamed Bouazizi unwittingly became a hero. His sacrifice had been worthwhile. This was, no doubt, what he had hoped for, but neither he nor anyone else could have foreseen what followed. With calm and dignity, Tunisians rose as one. It was the police who were violent; their brutality left several dozen dead and hundreds of others wounded. Submissive for twenty-three years to a quiet dictatorship, the people succeeded in bringing down Ben Ali, his family, and his racketeering and mafia clan.