In 2011, fifteen Syrian children were caught after painting anti-government graffiti on a city wall. They were imprisoned. When their mothers came, pleading for their release, the guards told them to either forget their children or else they [the police] could show them how to make more. Those who follow the Syrian crisis know that this led to the outbreak of a 9 year conflict that has cost upwards of half a million lives and over 13 million displaced. But it didn’t start there. In December 2010, a street vendor in Tunisia marched up to the gate of the governor’s office, drenched himself in paint thinner, and then lit himself on fire. He died a couple of weeks later, but by that point his single act threw the entire region into chaos. His motive? As a poor fruit vendor, he had been beaten, humiliated, and his property taken by local law enforcement officers who may or may not have been in the right (the law was unclear). Perhaps seeing no other recourse to make money, feed
