Egyptians celebrate the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir Square in February 2011. Photograph: Tara Todras-Whitehill/AP The extraordinary shock of people power gave way to a bitter backlash. So where to now? Mon 14 Dec 2020 00.00 EST Last modified on Mon 1 Feb 2021 09.14 EST A decade ago this week, a young fruit seller called Mohammed Bouazizi set himself alight outside the provincial headquarters of his home town in Tunisia, in protest against local police officials who had seized his cart and produce. Accounts of the 26-year-old’s shocking act rippled through his homeland, where hundreds of thousands of people who had also been humiliated by an atrophied state and its officials now found the courage to raise their voices.