The most striking aspect of Mohamed Bouazizi’s life is how ordinary it was. He was a typical 26-year-old Arab trying to make a living in a neglected Tunisian town, a fruit and vegetable seller whose ambition was to save enough money to buy a car. His meagre daily earnings were spent on supporting his family. No one of course will know what went through his mind when he bought a bottle of petrol and burnt himself alive. But the morning of his December 17 suicide had been a Kafkaesque struggle to recover the cart that had been confiscated by the police.
穆罕默德?布阿齊茲(Mohamed Bouazizi)的生命里，最不平凡的一點就是他十分平凡。他是一個典型的26歲的阿拉伯年輕人，在突尼斯一座默默無聞的小城，靠販賣蔬菜水果努力維持生計，理想是攢夠錢買一輛汽車，他每天微薄的收入都用于補貼家用。不過，誰也不知道當他買了一瓶汽油，慘烈地點燃自己時，心里在想什么。他在2010年12月17日早上的自焚，是為了討回被警察沒收的小推車的一場卡夫卡式的抗爭。