Hekima Review No. 45 (Dec 2011)
More often than not, great changes in human history have ensued from the unconscious dialogue of an individual human being with the great historical forces that have been in motion for perhaps centuries before his or her birth. The individual in question crystallizes the aspirations of his or her contemporaries and voices them, channeling as it were their spiritual energy, sparking off a movement bigger than the idiosyncrasies that initially set him or her in motion. Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation on 17 December 2010 catalyzed the Tunisian Revolution and the wider Arab Spring. The manifesto of Stephan Hessel, former French diplomat, entitled Indignez-vous!, has much to do with the birth of movements such as the Spanish indignados, the French indignés, the Portuguese movement Geração à rasca, Occupy Wall Street in the United States, Y’en a marre in Senegal and a host of other movements across the globe which strive to humanize our world.
