Harka (ex Bouazizi, ex Avant le Printemps)

Mohamed Tarek Bouazizi, a young 25-year old Tunisian, only aspires to live a simple life. He sells fruits on markets to provide for his family, whose survival rests on his shoulders. Every day he is in the streets selling fruits, an ordeal that is punctuated by the hide-and-seek game with corrupt and violent police officers.
Hopeful for a better future, Tarek works hard, and invests his savings in a van that will allow him to improve his lot. His efforts, however, will only result in his gradual abasement at the hands of rotten institutions and of an indifferent society.
In background, the clamor of the rebellion against the state’s oppression is resonating. Activists are mobilizing against the corruption of the regime. Under the influence of his friends, Tarek becomes aware of society’s failings, and realizes the injustice of his powerlessness.
Faced with the inescapable reality of the denial of his existence, Bouazizi takes the momentous decision to immolate himself in front of the Governorate.
There was born the Arab Spring, and the wave of political change it heralds, which will prove to bring hope as well as disappointment and despair in Northern Africa and in the Middle East.