Episode description

Ten years ago, a desperate young man set himself on fire in an obscure town in Tunisia, and set a new course for his country — and the world.  The Arab Spring reshaped the course of the 21st century, but the uprising that inspired them all is often overlooked.  Until now. 

Revolution 1 tells the story of the Tunisian uprising through the voices of those who lived it.   We follow high schoolers-turned spies on a nail-biting mission to ferry video out of a blockaded city; a blogger who became the voice of the revolution in four languages as she steps out from behind her keyboard to document police brutality; and young lovers whose romance was cemented on the barricades, then torn apart by an arrest and weeks of torture.  There's a yacht heist, gangsters, WikiLeaks cables, snipers, underground Facebook groups, and families dealing with the uncertainty we all face: joblessness, access to education, how to keep a business afloat. 

A decade later we are still feeling the effects of the Arab Spring today, from the global migration crisis to the rise in nationalism in Europe and the US. And with popular uprisings from Hong Kong to to Black Lives Matter still gripping the headlines, we thought it would be the perfect time to look back… to Revolution 1.

Join us, on January 14th