FPB blogger Sarah Repucci wrote recently about the frustration over which drove “…a single jobless youth set himself ablaze as a statement…” to protest against corruption and “the regime’s self-enrichment.” Soon after, protests against the government of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali picked up in intensity until the president ended his 23-year reign and fled the country on Friday.
As Anthony Shadid reports in The New York Times that another factor which has recently spurred frustration in Tunisia is rising food prices:
“Tunisians’ grievances were as specific as universal: rising food prices, corruption, unemployment and the repression of a state that viewed almost all dissent as subversion.”
Shadid’s analysis also points out that people in other countries in the region are experiencing similar frustration over food prices:
“Smaller protests, many of them over rising prices, have already taken place in countries like Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and Jordan…
In Jordan, hundreds protested the cost of food in several cities, even after the government hastily announced measures to bring the prices down. Libya abolished taxes and customs duties on food products, and Morocco tried to offset a surge in grain prices.”
The political climates in each of these countries, however, will likely make it more difficult for popular movements to unite and force long-standing regimes from office.
Posted by Michael Lucivero.
