Time magazine gives its annual Person of the Year award to the person or group who has had the most profound effect on the year’s news. By definition, therefore, it tends to go to the great and the good. This year it should go the man who started the Arab Spring: a 26 year old Tunisian street vendor named Mohammad Al Bouazizi.
Last December, confrontations with a local government official left Mohammad fearing he was losing his family’s only source of livelihood. Desperate and unable to get the authorities to listen to him, he set fire to himself in front of the gates of the Governors office in Sidi Bouzid.
He died on 4 January 2011 from his injuries. In the intervening time, rioting, sparked by his act, had started in cities across the country. Before Mohammad died, the man who couldn’t get anyone to hear his pleas was visited in hospital by President Zine el-Abidine Ben, and 10 days after his death, the President fled the country.
As we now know, this was nowhere near the end of it. Presidents have fallen in Egypt, Libya and now Yemen. Tunisia itself has had democratic elections. The West has been pulled in to new military action. Syria is in civil war. And all can be traced back to a fruitseller in a small provincial Tunisian town.
Of course, Mohammad Al Bouazizi could not have known where his protest could lead. But that is not the point. One man’s act has changed the Middle East more than decades of diplomacy have managed. And I think his influence and memory should be marked.
I don’t know if Time will make him Person of the Year — they’ve short listed him (which is great), but he’s not the favourite. Steve Jobs appears to have a clear lead.
But this year? Please drop Time a line and tell them there’s really only one choice.
Richard Morris blogs at A View From Ham Common which was named Best New Blog at the 2011 Lib Dem Conference
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