(Music)
In January of 2011, fiery suicides shattered the uneasy calm of marketplaces across the
Middle East and North Africa. It all began when a 26-year-old street merchant named Tariq
Mohamed Bouazizi was ejected from the marketplace by the authorities, and set himself on fire.
In little more than two weeks, he would die of his wounds and set off a series of revolutions
that would become known as the “Arab Spring.” Over the next two months, sixty-three other
small businessmen excluded from the economic mainstream, set themselves on fire and protests
swept the region. Within two years, four governments would fall and the entire Middle East would
plunge into an era of painful change.
Two hundred million Arabs on the street protesting
against the status quo. And either these people, who are the overwhelming majority because
we’re talking in hundreds of millions are included, or you’re looking for trouble.
Most observers see only a fundamental battle between conservative Islamists and those who
seek a more liberal and secular government. And that battle most certainly exists. But
the ongoing events of the Arab Spring are driven by a much more fundamental force – the
basic right of all people to earn a living free of government corruption and repressive
regulations. Outraged by decades of exclusion tens of thousands of small entrepreneurs had
finally lit the fires of the rebellion. Joined by millions more who, for years, have been
locked out of the economic system, they are the “Unlikely Heroes” of the Arab Spring.
And they have now become a mighty force for change.
(Protesting)
Tariq Mohamed Bouazizi, and those
that followed him in his desperate suicidal act, became the martyrs who set off a seemingly
endless series of revolutions. Bouazazi’s fiery image became the icon of protest for
the excluded. To Hernando de Soto, the Arab Spring is not an issue of religion.
Hernando de Soto:There’s something called the global economy, it’s creating prosperity, and Bouazizi and his
like have not been included. They feel excluded. This is what it’s about.
Narrator: Mohamed Ben Abbes Machalli is another small businessman.
So alienated by the authorities, he also attempted
to take his life. He survived but remains bitter.
In desperation, millions like Machalli and Bouazizi, working to make a living, yet locked
out of the social and economic system by Byzantine laws and massive corruption, took to the streets.
Almost overnight, protests had spread throughout the region; and there seems to be no end in sight.
Hernando de Soto: This is major change. 200 million Arabs who work outside the legal system, that’s
what they have in common. They work outside the legal system. It’s a revolution. To
me the message is quite clear. The Arab Spring is a huge shout for inclusion. There’s no
other way to explain the fact that so many people came out behind him, and that the first
reaction of government was to put him on a postage stamp, because he symbolized something.
Narrator: He was an instant hero. The Tunisian government not only put his image on a postage stamp,
they created a monument to him and his cart. Yet millions of people like Bouazizi remain
locked out of the social and economic system.
Tunisia’s small, elite, formal sector operates
under a unified legal system that connects them to the globalized world. These people
have access to all the tools of the developed world: credit, property titles and registered
legal business entities such as the corporation. It is the kind of business law that enables
them to make legally recognized and enforceable transactions with people anywhere.
But the overwhelming majority of Tunisian citizens are prohibited from operating legally by a
complex and corrupt bureaucracy, and they must work without these tools. The result
is something called “extra-legality.” They are stuck working extra-legally, in an
all-cash, no credit world. They are doomed to poverty, locked into businesses they can never grow.
Hernando de Soto: Extra-legality or informality is the condition of people who basically conduct
business on the margins of the law. Which means not illegality, that you’re doing
something against the law- that you’re a criminal. You’re just not working within
the legal system.
Narrator: Small businessmen like these are “extra-legal.” Because of overly-complicated
regulations and excessive fees, these small entrepreneurs cannot afford the time, nor
do they have the money to register their businesses with the government. They want to be part
of the legal system. They just can’t. Untapped resources could at last bring a future of
prosperity and hope out of a life of hardship and oppression. This is the economic promise
of the “Arab Spring.”
(Music)