COMMENT History has it that the Arab Spring started in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid on Dec 17, 2010, when Mohammad Bouazizi set himself alight. It sparked an unrest that led to a revolution that spread across Egypt, beginning on Jan 25, 2011, with a massive mobilisation in Midan at-Tahrir that resulted in the fall of Hosni Mubarak on Feb 11.

Obviously, the spark for the Tunisian revolution that spread to Egypt and elsewhere was demonstrative of the dual action of economic deprivation and political repression in the region. Bouazizi was every man's example of the problems plaguing the region: the economic hardship on one hand and the harrowing abuse he suffered at the hands of the authorities who took away his only income...