 | Friday, January 29, 2021 | |  | Friday, January 29, 2021 | | |  | Mohammed Bouazizi is depicted on the facade of a post office in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, in Dec. 2020. (Riadh Dridi/The Associated Press) | On Dec. 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi was working at his fruit stand, when a Tunisian municipal inspector confiscated his produce and wares. She argued he didn't have a permit to sell produce. Bouazizi's family alleges the inspector then publicly humiliated Bouazizi by slapping him and spitting in his face.
But when Bouazizi went to the local governor's office to complain about the incident, he was ignored. So he bought paint thinner, returned to the governor's office, and lit himself on fire outside the building.
Bouazizi died of his injuries on Jan. 4, 2011. But his final act emboldened Tunisians fed up with government corruption to flood the streets in protest, demanding their longtime president step down. Soon, other countries in the Middle East and North Africa followed suit in a movement now known as the Arab Spring.
Canadian political scientist Bessma Momani says the Tunisian fruit vendor's legacy continues to bring people hope a decade later. "Society is more awakened. It is more conscious of … government corruption," she told The Current.
High unemployment rates and corruption have led to some people moving away from Tunisia, Momani said. But those galvanized by the Arab Spring have not "turned their backs on their countries" — they just find new, more discreet ways to protest, she explained. | | | | | | | | | | | Jan. 25 marked 10 years since Egyptians first gathered en masse in Cairo's Tahrir Square to demand political change, as part of the Arab Spring uprisings.
After 18 days of occupying the Square, the protesters toppled the presidency of Hosni Mubarak.
After Mubarak's fall, the country saw a military council take charge, followed by the election of a president from the Muslim Brotherhood, vast counter-revolutionary protests, a military coup and the subsequent massacre of hundreds or more at a Muslim Brotherhood sit-in in August 2013.
Finally, Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi came to power — a president who jails dissidents and has altered the constitution to extend his own rule.
But Shady el-Ghazaly Harb says the dream of the Arab Spring is still alive in Egypt today.
Harb, a surgeon in Cairo, was one of those protesters in Tahrir Square in 2011, and he later paid the price in an Egyptian prison.
"The last two anniversaries of the revolution, I spent in solitary confinement in prison," he told As It Happens. "And I myself, on each anniversary, I never regretted for a moment this course that we had, or the revolution, or even after the revolution."
Harb said el-Sisi's regime is much worse than the Mubarak era. But he has hope in the younger generation, the people who grew up after the revolution. "They have the same dreams that we had in 2011 because, I mean, yeah, they can put us in jail, but they can't put our dreams in jail." | | | | | | | Not everyone who has lived through the Tahrir Square protests remains hopeful, however.
Many of the ills that made Egypt ripe for an uprising in 2011 have only been exacerbated in 2021: the lack of jobs, the lack of political participation and the utter lack of freedom. The "Tahrir people" — as they're pejoratively referred to by supporters of el-Sisi's regime — are either out of the country, if they haven't been arrested, or keeping a silent vigil.
Many of them find it "very, very painful" to revisit those two and a half weeks in 2011, says celebrated Egyptian novelist and commentator Ahdaf Soueif, who participated in the protests.
They "keep the 18 days in a place where they can be safe, where we protect them against accusations of having been a collective hallucination," Soueif told Ideas.
While there may have been subtle positive consequences from the uprising — like a greater awareness of the rights that have been denied to many people — she cautioned, "I really hesitate to say it because the price has been so high and continues to be so high." | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | Chiefs lineman Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, who is working to fulfil his requirements to become a doctor this off-season, has been recognized by Sports Illustrated as a Sportsperson of the Year. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press) | Laurent Duvernay-Tardif traded his NFL jersey for scrubs to fight on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Canadian NFL player says he felt a responsibility to support something he believes in: health.
"Five years from now, I'm going to be able to look at 2020 and be like, 'Alright, I followed my conviction and I made a move that I'm going to be proud of,'" he told The Current.
The Kansas City Chiefs offensive guard, who holds a medical degree from McGill University and is working to become a doctor (he still has to complete a residency), was fresh off a Super Bowl win when he decided to work as an orderly at a long-term care facility in Montreal.
In July, he took the decision a step further by opting out of the 2020 NFL season altogether so he could continue to fight the pandemic — although he has suggested he'll be making a return to the football field in 2021.
Hear the full conversation with Duvernay-Tardif on The Current. | | | | | | | | | | | |  | (Submitted by Claire Fraser) | | | Photographer and videographer Claire Fraser recently installed a sauna in her garage. She describes the sauna as her sanctuary, and a good place to escape from the stress of the pandemic.
Fraser, from Dartmouth, N.S., discovered the relaxing power of saunas at the age of 14 when she was on a family trip to Windhorse Farms, a Nova Scotia nature retreat.
"At the time, I was dealing with really debilitating anxiety and panic attacks and I was not finding an escape from them," she told Now or Never. After a visit to the sauna, she was surprised by the level of relief she experienced.
A decade later, Fraser rewired the unused garage in her house to accommodate a sauna. And although neighbours have been puzzled by the sight of Claire running from the house to the garage in a swimsuit, she describes the sauna as a place where she can become grounded again.
"I leave my phone behind, I'm not going to be distracted by anybody and I have nothing to do while I'm in the sauna," she says. "It's a time that I've allotted to myself to be there with myself."
Read more about the happy places listeners shared with Now or Never. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | Nathan Rogers with the mandolin his father, Stan, played in the late 1970s. (Travis Golby/CBC) | Musician Nathan Rogers, son of iconic Canadian musician Stan Rogers, hopes the sea shanty trend on social media will help more people discover the "fantastic" and "vibrant" world of folk music.
Sea shanties have been around for centuries, and originally helped sailors work in unison while out at sea.
Because of a TikTok trend, sea shanties are having a moment among a younger generation, who are sharing videos singing the traditional sailor songs in unison. People all over the world are joining the fun, and one viral star has even signed a deal with a record label thanks, in part, to their rendition of The Wellerman.
Though they're confused by the recent social media craze, Nathan and his fellow musician and uncle Garnet Rogers say they're impressed by some of what they're seeing and hearing.
"I'm always happy to hear when people are singing together. I don't think it gets done enough," Garnet told Day 6.
"If they're going after content that is really actually quite deep and has quite a storied tradition and has a lot of relevance, even today, I support that fully," said Nathan.
Read more about the sea shanty trend on Day 6. | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | A reconstruction of Psittacosaurus illustrating how the cloacal vent may have been used for signaling during courtship. (Bob Nicholls/Paleocreations.com 2020) | Dinosaurs, like many other animals, have only a single rear orifice known as a cloaca to defecate, urinate and copulate. And thanks to a well-preserved specimen, scientists now know a bit more about Psittacosaurus's cloaca.
Paleontologist Jakob Vinther had previously worked on uncovering the Psittacosaurus dinosaur's colour patterns. He discovered that, like baboons, this dinosaur's cloaca was highly pigmented and would have stood out from surrounding areas of skin, which he said likely served as a visual signal to potential mates.
The Psittacosaurus' cloaca most closely resembles that of a modern crocodile, rather than its closer avian relatives. It's covered in scales with lips on either side of the slit, but instead of converging at the bottom like the crocodile, its lips flare out in the direction of the tail resulting in it being shaped like an inverted "v."
Learn more about this research on Quirks & Quarks. | | | | | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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