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Every century or so, a vast swelling of human emotion, intellect and spirit coalesces under the auspices of liberty, engendering an epochal transformation that sends shock waves forever reverberating through the sands of time. Recent history has stood witness to The Glorious Revolution, The Spirit of '76, The Spring of Nations, the litany of independence movements in the 19th and 20th centuries, and now, the Arab Revolutions of 2011.

Over the last few decades, fear and quiescence - the pathology of tyranny - have become a hallmark trait of citizens in the security states that constitute much of the greater Middle East. The Arab Revolts have been a long time coming. The event that precipitated them, however, was as shocking and unforeseeable as its ultimate outcome - the ouster of two autocrats by relatively non-violent, secular movements, with several other dictators facing the prospect of widespread insurrection.

On December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a twenty-six-year-old Tunisian street vendor, committed one of the most brazen acts of which a human is capable, self-immolation.

Mohamed Bouazizi's father died when he was three years old. By the age of ten, he was the primary provider for the Bouazizi family, walking two kilometers to the supermarket to buy fresh fruit and vegetables to sell at the local market in Sidi Bouzid, his hometown of forty thousand. Upon turning eighteen, Mohamed quit school to work fulltime; he hoped to give his five younger siblings the opportunities that he had never had. Mohamed, as it turns out, was successful in that respect - his meager earnings, roughly $140 per month, supported a younger sister's college tuition. The heartfelt story ends there.

Tunisia, under the rule of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and the extended family of his second wife, a former hairdresser, had become a nation rife with nepotism, unbridled corruption, and ostentatious displays of wealth among a small coterie of haves.

Beginning from the time Bouazizi was just a boy, he suffered the daily humiliation and ignominy - at the hands of a venal and disreputable ruling regime - that is so prevalent throughout the region. Police officers often bullied or fined him for operating without a permit, which costs more in bribe tributes than he could earn in a day. Never mind that a permit is not required to sell from a cart in Sidi Bouzid, it still wasn't uncommon for the police to confiscate Bouazizi's produce and scales, the lifeline of his work.

On December 16, 2010, Mohamed made his customary trek to the supermarket (he aspired to save enough money to buy a pickup truck one day). He procured his goods on credit and returned home at 10 p.m. His mother said that he didn't sleep much due to the stresses of his work.

He left the next morning at 8 a.m. A policewoman confronted him on the way to the market. She returned soon thereafter and tried to take his scale from him. He didn't have a license. Bouazizi refused to relinquish the scale, though. Swearing ensued, then the policewoman slapped Mohamed in the face, allegedly insulted his deceased father and, with the help of her colleagues, forced him to the ground. The officers knocked over his cart and confiscated his scale, valued at $100, or the equivalent of twenty days' work for Mohamed. Publicly humiliated, Bouazizi sought recourse. He went to the local municipality building and demanded his scale back. He was told it wouldn't be possible to talk to the official who made such decisions.

Thus was the rampant level of graft and extortion prevailing that a, by all accounts, hardworking, optimistic and generous young man was driven to douse himself in gasoline and light a match. Standing in front of the municipality building, Bouazizi's last words were, "How do you expect me to make a living?"

What is so striking about Mohamed Bouazizi's martyrdom is that, ostensibly, he had no intention of becoming a martyr. His suicide was not political or religious in its nature, nor was it premeditated. His life outside of his loving family was the personification of frustration, and his death: the paramount expression of hopelessness. At the core, that's a sentiment that resonates with every human - and certainly with the countless others who have suffered similar injustice throughout the Middle East.

The social, religious, and economic environments across North Africa and the Middle East are disparate, to say the least. Yet the least common denominator, an innate mark of the human condition - disgust and indignation provoked by existential subjugation  - can be felt from Algiers to Sana'a and from Amman to Manama. As a local Sidi Bouzid union leader put it: "The fear had begun to melt away and we were a volcano that was going to explode. And when Bouazizi burnt himself, we were ready."

The sudden nature by which the revolutions rose and spread across diverse Arab communities speaks to this endemic phenomenon. Yes, it is true that "a new generation with knowledge of the world beyond came into its own," as Johns Hopkins Professor Fouad Ajami wrote in the New York Times. And there is no doubt that Facebook and Twitter have enabled and facilitated every step of the way. But, more than any other factor, the revolts were borne out of a cathartic release; the volcano exploded, and the reign of impunity is now coming to an end.

Yet without Mohamed Bouazizi's incredible sacrifice, the currents sweeping the Middle East may have never taken on the universal dynamic currently manifested, and eviscerated civil societies would have likely never found such a collective voice. Now, thanks to the anguished actions of one who inspired many, we citizens of the 21st century stand witness as the vestiges of an antiquated and pernicious political system crumble beneath the powerful force of the human spirit. 

Jesse Schwartz has recently earned his graduate degree from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.