The iconic image of Thich Quang Duc's self-immolation in the middle of a Saigon street shook the American consciousness to the bone. It reaffirmed fears that the United States had involved itself in a political conflict beyond our collective understanding. The real turmoil in 1960's South Vietnam would remain invisible to the Western eye, encoded in a culture we would perpetually misinterpret and misunderstand.
These same distortions pervade popular American thought in the Arab Middle East. In the casino of Arab politics most experts would have bet that the first Arab autocracy to fall to popular protest would succumb to an anti-government popular Islamic revolution. For years we have been fed the line that American tolerance of Arab dictatorships (be they allies like Mubarak and Hussein or quasi-enemies like Assad and Ghadaffi) will breed the anti-American jihad armies of the future. We were told that Arab states have two choices: tyranny or theocracy and repression is the lesser of two evils.
How than do we explain the ousting of Tunisia's former president of the last 20 years (read: dictator) Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali? Massive popular protests against rampant unemployment amongst college graduates coupled with crippling commerce licensing inspired one Tunisian man to set himself ablaze, instigating the chain reaction that would force the Tunisian state to declare a new government today, absent of the Orwellian billboard face of Mr. Ben Ali.
These events would not be worthy of critical speculation if they were only isolated within Tunisia. As of today, 6 more men throughout the Arab world have set themselves on fire protesting unemployment, high food prices, poor living conditions and above all stagnant political discourse from Mauritania to Egypt. Whether or not a democratic government will take hold in Tunesia remains to be seen, but there is a hopefull glimmer that change in the Arab states can come about internally, without American GI's or Islamist revolution.
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