In the same vibes of Why I Am Not A Christian by Bertrand Russell or Albert Einstein's quote of God and Einstein, I am fully aware of the political price one has to pay in order to be a strong leader or a lame cock-sucker.
The Chinese in the zeal of wanting change has forgotten that "短人财路，如杀人父母".
A wise man once advised that I must always vote for the opposition rings true in my ears. (I have mentioned this once before. Well, another story for another time.)
In the Arab world, the Arab Spring for a revolutionary wave of nonviolent and violent demonstrations, violent and nonviolent protests, riots, and civil wars in the Arab world that began on 18 December 2010, started in Tunisia. Many dictators lost their shirts that time. Link: wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
Tarek al-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi was a Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on 17 December 2010, in protest of the confiscation of his wares and the harassment and humiliation that he reported was inflicted on him by a municipal official and her aides.
Mohamed Bouazizi, who was known locally as "Basboosa". His father, a construction worker in Libya, died of a heart attack when Bouazizi was three, and his mother married Bouazizi's uncle some time later. Along with his six siblings, with his uncle in poor health and unable to work regularly, Bouazizi had worked various jobs since he was ten, and in his late teens he quit school in order to work full-time. Bouazizi lived in a modest stucco home, a 20-minute walk from the center of Sidi Bouzid, a rural town in Tunisia burdened by corruption and suffering an unemployment rate estimated at 30%. According to his mother, he applied to join the army, but was refused, and several subsequent job applications also resulted in rejection. He supported his mother, uncle, and younger siblings, including paying for one of his sisters to attend university, by earning approximately US$140 per month selling produce on the street in Sidi Bouzid. He was also working toward the goal of buying or renting a pickup truck for his work. A close friend of Bouazizi said he "was a very well-known and popular man [who] would give free fruit and vegetables to very poor families."
According to friends and family, local police officers had allegedly targeted and mistreated Bouazizi for years, including during his childhood, regularly confiscating his small wheelbarrow of produce; but Bouazizi had no other way to make a living, so he continued to work as a street vendor. Around 10 p.m. on 16 December 2010, he had contracted approximately US$200 in debt to buy the produce he was to sell the following day. On the morning of 17 December, he started his workday at 8 a.m. Just after 10:30 a.m., the police began harassing him again, ostensibly because he did not have a vendor's permit. However, while some sources state that street vending is illegal in Tunisia, and others that Bouazizi lacked a required permit to sell his wares, according to the head of Sidi Bouzid's state office for employment and independent work, no permit is needed to sell from a cart.
In any case Bouazizi did not have the funds to bribe police officials to allow his street vending to continue. Similarly, two of Bouazizi's siblings accused authorities of attempting to extort money from their brother, and during an interview with Reuters, one of his sisters stated, "What kind of repression do you imagine it takes for a young man to do this? A man who has to feed his family by buying goods on credit when they fine him...and take his goods. In Sidi Bouzid, those with no connections and no money for bribes are humiliated and insulted and not allowed to live."
Bouazizi's family claims he was publicly humiliated, that a 45-year-old female municipal official, Faida Hamdi, slapped him in the face, spat at him, confiscated his electronic weighing scales, and tossed aside his produce cart. It was also stated that she made a slur against his deceased father. Bouazizi's family says her gender made his humiliation worse.
Faida Hamdi and her brother claimed in interviews that she did not slap Bouazizi or otherwise mistreat him. An eyewitness referred to by Asharq Al-Awsat claimed not to have seen Hamdi slap Bouazizi.
Both Bouazizi's mother and the eyewitness who told Asharq Al-Awsat stated that her aides had kicked and beaten him after confiscating his fruit-cart, Faida Hamdi states it might have happened and Asharq Al-Awsat denies it happened.
Bouazizi, angered by the confrontation, ran to the governor's office to complain and to ask for his scales back. The governor refused to see or listen to him, even after Bouazizi was quoted as saying "If you don't see me, I'll burn myself." Bouazizi acquired a can of gasoline from a nearby gas station and returned to the governor's office. While standing in the middle of traffic, he shouted, "How do you expect me to make a living?" He then doused and set himself alight with a match at 11:30 a.m. local time, less than an hour after the altercation.
His act became a catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution and the wider Arab Spring, inciting demonstrations and riots throughout Tunisia in protest of social and political issues in the country. The public's anger and violence intensified following Bouazizi's death, leading then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to step down on 14 January 2011, after 23 years in power.
The death of this one man led to the demise of many totalitarian states in the Arab world. Once again, as I have always quoted:
“What country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms ... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.” - Thomas JeffersonSince I am unwilling to pay such a price, I can never be in politics. I will just travel the world in search of the best place to settle. If that place deteriorates in time, hey, I will move again. I am a wanderer, a warrior, a knight, but never a coward. I will leave silly words-mongering to the self-clever idiots who can't even dare to move away from their comfort zones.
In this time and space, a plane ticket is too cheap an alternative to politicking. Why fight a battle that I am already disadvantaged in the first place. That old guy is already 3rd-5th generations before my time. Let him build his 阿斗. A real warrior has no fear of the unknown.
At times, it is a lonesome battle. It is nonetheless a fun path.
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