Author Protesters at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. waving the Syrian rebel flag. November 25, 2019. Photo by Miki Jourdan / Flickr The cycle of protests that collectively became known as the “Arab Spring” were triggered by a desperate event outside a government building in the small Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid in late December 2010, when Mohamad Bouazizi set fire to himself in an act of protest. Mass demonstrations followed across Tunisia and quickly ricocheted across the Middle East and North Africa — expressions of young and old, men and women asserting their right to a life of dignity. By early February, huge mobilizations had forced Tunisian and Egyptian dictators Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak to resign. However, it’s a long road from regime change to social transformation as would become clear over the following years. And even such a preliminary victory would prove elusive for other countries in the region.