The People We Said Goodbye To in 2011 

Mohamed Bouazizi
March 29, 1984 – January 4, 2011

Although his heart beat for only four days of 2011, Mohamed Bouazizi put the wheels in motion of a year that would bring the fall of governments and the rise of youth protests around the world. The tragedy of Bouazizi, a street vendor who got his fruit confiscated by a local officer in his Tunisian village, embodied the frustration and anger of an entire generation of the Arab world, fed up with unemployment and corruption under stagnating dictatorships. ”How do you expect me to make a living?” he shouted, before lighting himself on fire outside the local government office.

Protests broke out in solidarity. A couple weeks later, a badly burned Bouazizi died. Protests spread. And ten days after his death, the Tunisian president of 24 years stepped down. 

Mohamed Bouazizi is known to the world because of his death, and his story will be told for years to come: the small-town fruit peddler that sparked a revolution that changed the world.