On the morning of December the 17th of 2010, Tunisian municipal policewoman Fadia Hamdi woke up from a disturbed sleep to find herself cued into the general direction of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, who woke up from a disturbed sleep to find himself cued into hers. Fadia Hamdi seemed to have been lured by an empyreal authority to randomly run into Mohamed that morning; to be irritated by him; to slap him, while he seemed to have been inspired to remember what fire is. Fadia Hamdi put her uniform on, left her house, got into her car, and drove to the vegetable market of the provincial town of Sidi Bouzid where Mohamed Bouazizi was ready and waiting. They faced each other without uttering a word, each lifting one leg off the ground like flamingoes, outstretching their arms and hands, and their fingertips touched. The entire universe was still for a second, until one stray atom – that up till that moment had been scouring the universe at the speed of light – suddenly found purpose, and the tempest fell.
Demonstrations surged like tidal waves and engulfed every town and city in Tunisia for the days that followed, and they spread like wildfire in all directions into Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Syria, Iraq and Iran. People were on the streets for the first time in history for no other purpose than justice and bread; not for any slogan of reference to any country or any god. Since the world began; since the Hittites, Hyksos, Pharaohs, Assyrians, Persians, Romans, Ptolemaic, Byzantines, Rashedeen, Arabs, Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Ayyubids, Mamelukes, Ottomans, French, British and the recent nationalists; throughout this entire history there hasn’t been a single moment in which these populations were treated with respect or given their daily bread without having to beg for it; there has always been torture; there have always been metal rods cutting through the flesh of anyone who dared think or act differently; they were always crushed. It’s a filthy, wretched history, full or wrongs and shame, and the people decided to rise because they had nothing to lose. Within months, the revolution spread into every corner of the Earth; into countries as far as Russia, Mexico, China, Spain, the US, Turkey and many others. Laws were changed and officials were dismissed in Ivory Coast, Saudi Arabia, Mali, India, Brazil and France. Arms deals were broken, policies were changed, presidents and heads of state were removed, have abdicated, or were killed, and the effect of the political fallout was immersive. The entire world was gripped by convulsions.
And now, the revolution has receded. People who had things to lose went miles out of their way in order to bring things back to how they used to be, with an extra effort to eliminate any possibility for a future uprising. They invested billions of dollars in counter-revolution efforts until they managed to change history and re-write the story of what happened from their own perspective. Regional governments have thrown all their weight into the fray to make sure that ‘stability’ will be what people will really look for. An endless amount of black ops and conspiracies were carried out by psychopaths lurking in the antechambers of the buildings housing corrupt security apparatuses who stained their hands with the blood of every man and woman who wholeheartedly wanted nothing but respect. The word ‘rebel’ or ‘revolutionary’ became a dirty word, and people jeered at activists in the same manner and for the same principles that a medieval mob once watched and cheered as Jeanne d’Arc burned. Those who took part in the revolution have left the region, or were imprisoned and killed, or both, and their names were forgotten. The moment is gone and its rush was confined to the subconscious in the form of a glimpse into a better world that one often sees at the corner of their eyes; an elusive glimpse that disappears when you turn around to look at it.
But let this promise be a living salutation to Mohamed Bouazizi and those who have given the only lives they would ever get: we will come back. You can organize any number of world-class international economic forums; you can invite any number of prestigious foreign dignitaries, but you will never be able to blind me with the magic sand you’re throwing into my eyes. I know very well how you killed people on the streets of Cairo, Tripoli and Aleppo. I remember your names and faces. You are nothing but a bunch of fugitives reeling in state thuggery and gangsterism, and no amount of marketing or interviews with foreign news agencies is going to change that. Mark my words, motherfuckers: we are coming back for you, and we remember the fire that started it all.