"They started saying we have a lot of money now, that all the journalists paid us. "As the days went on, the talk increased, and the attempt to smear us started," says Bouazizi's mother Mannoubia, a field hand who was picking olives on the fateful morning of her son's self-immolation almost a year ago. His family and hometown were instantly thrust into the national, regional and eventually global spotlight.īut in the months since the crush of foreign and local media crews, dignitaries and well-wishers has subsided, a quiet backlash has developed against the Bouazizis in some parts of their impoverished town. Just 10 days after he died, Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali's 23-year rule of Tunisia was over.īouazizi's act of desperation and defiance ricocheted across a region whose long-disenfranchised people were hungry for basic dignities and fed up with the calcified, corrupt and dictatorial regimes that lorded over them. Bouazizi lingered in the hospital until Jan. Incensed, Bouazizi stood outside the sand-, peach- and cream-colored edifice on the main road, in the middle of traffic, and set himself, Tunisia and the rest of the Middle East on fire. He tried to complain to local officials at the governorate, but they ignored him and refused him entry. How Bouazizi (whose real first name was Tarek) became enraged by his public humiliation at the hands of a policewoman who had harassed and threatened his livelihood one too many times. The world now knows what happened to the scrawny young man on Dec. That, in the end, was perhaps why he became such a powerful symbol. Mohamed, 26, a produce vendor who eked out a meager living selling his wares from a cart he pushed around all day along uneven, dusty streets, could have been anyone in any town in any country in the Middle East.
Instant fame, it seems, has taken its toll on the family.Ī year ago, the Bouazizis and their hardscrabble, dead-end town in central Tunisia were completely unknown. Their exceedingly humble, mottled-white home has been empty for months, abandoned behind a padlocked, pale gray metal door. Mohamed Bouazizi's mother and siblings don't live in their hometown of Sidi Bouzid anymore.
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