This Is Just the Start - Future historians will long puzzle over how the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, in protest over the confiscation of his fruit stand, managed to trigger popular uprisings across the Arab/Muslim world


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/opinion/02friedman.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Self-immoliation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation