MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Later in the broadcast, your turn on Libya, on the Kid's Farm at the National Zoo being closed this summer, on the massive lawsuit against Walmart, President Obama on Libya or anything else on your mind. But first, President Obama did last night explain to the nation his decision to intervene militarily in Libya where the country's leader Muammar Gaddafi has turned his troops on rebels who are trying to force him from power.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIThe violence in Libya stands in stark contrast in recent events in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt where popular uprisings toppled long-time leaders without major bloodshed. The contrast raises a question on many people's minds around the world. What has made some countries in the Arab world ripe for revolution and regime change, but others not? The answer lies in part with individual acts of defiance and the means to communicate them far and wide. Joining me to look at the individuals behind the headlines is Marc Fisher. He's a senior editor with The Washington Post. Marc, good to see you again and thank you for joining us.

MR. MARC FISHERGreat to be with you, Kojo.

NNAMDIAlso with us is Steve Hendrix. He's a feature writer with The Washington Post. Steve, thank you for joining us.

MR. STEVE HENDRIXThanks, Kojo.

NNAMDIYou're both stateside staffers. Why did each of you spend two weeks in the Middle East and North Africa in early March? First you, Marc.

FISHERWell, we've had a number of correspondents in the Middle East, in addition to our regular correspondents who are stationed there, many of whom have been working day and night for several months now without a break. And so we needed to bring in some relief from Washington and also I was sent to do a piece that the daily reporters just didn't have time to do, which was to try take a broader look at the whole arc of the revolution from the very roots in Tunisia through the flowering in Egypt and on to a third place where it hasn't happened yet. And the idea was to sort of look at these places where there hasn't been revolution yet, but where we're starting to see the same kinds of beginnings of an uprising that we saw in Tunisia and Egypt.

NNAMDIMore of a big picture story you used the words, I was sent. Did you pitch the story?

FISHERNo, I didn't actually.

NNAMDISteve Hendrix, how did you get there? Why were you there?

HENDRIXWell, I don't know if I was the cavalry or the substitute teacher, but there were just people covering this unprecedented story who had to have some relief and so we were digging for reinforcements. And the person that I replaced in Benghazi, Libya, had been on the job since, not just the beginning of Egypt or Tunisia, but in Lebanon when the parliament fell in, gosh, late December, early January. So this was just a manpower issue and the scale of the story is such that I think you'll see a lot more interesting bylines that pop up from that theater.

NNAMDIYou volunteered?

HENDRIXI immediately agreed to go. It sounded thrilling, exciting. The assignment was to start in Cairo and then see what happens and then very quickly Libya became the story.

NNAMDIThe one piece of advice you were given is the one piece of advice you apparently ignored. Stay away from the photographers.

HENDRIXNow I know.

FISHERNow he knows.

NNAMDIMarc, in your travels through Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan, you identified several elements you think are necessary for a popular uprising to take hold. One is an individual act of defiance. What role did the fruit vendor Mohammed Bouazizi play in the revolution in Tunisia? And I don't mind admitting at this point that I am absolutely fascinated with Mohammed Bouazizi.

FISHERHe's a totally fascinating character and he is the man who was a fruit vendor in a little town called Sidi Bouzid, which is about a four-hour drive south of Tunis, that is south of the Mediterranean coast, a town where you basically drive through hours and hours of olive trees and date trees and this really lush countryside to get there. And then you get to this very dusty town where there's a small cluster of maybe six or eight fruit vendors under some Fichus trees on a very, dirty, busy street and these guys apparently were there illegally.

FISHERThere was no licensing system for the fruit vendors and so they received daily harassment from the police for years. But it had gotten worse and worse and it started with simple corruption, the police taking some fruit, and it grew into being stopped on the way to take their wares to the market. The police would come and fill up a bag of fruit and force the vendor to take the fruit to their car. And on the day that Mohammed Bouazizi had enough, he was hit and slapped in the face by a policewoman in front of his friends, in front of his customers and he simply couldn't take the humiliation anymore.

FISHERAnd went off, came back and told his friends he was going to burn himself. He didn't believe him and he went in front of the city hall and did exactly that. You know, I think he just had reached his limit. Now there had been people who had done this kind of thing in Tunisia over the previous couple of months and there was no wider notice. The world didn't ever find out their names. But in the case of Mohammed Bouazizi, his family held a little protest out in front of the municipal building the next day.

FISHERAnd here's the next key element. They recorded it on their cell phones on video. And here's the third key element. It was picked up by a blogger in Tunis who put it on Facebook because he had had experience with the secret police and he knew that the secret police were on to YouTube. Anything that you put on to YouTube would be immediately blocked. But he knew that they were confused by Facebook and he put it up there. And within 36 hours, Al-Jazeera, the cable news service in the Middle East, which is extremely popular and viewed in all those countries, picked up that clip and broadcast it over and over again.

NNAMDI800-433-8850 is the number to call. There's been a lot of discussion about the role of social media in uprisings. You make a strong case for the importance of social media. But as you pointed out, more specifically Facebook in getting Mohammed Bouazizi's story out to the Tunisian people because that was the one that the government was not ahead on. The government was behind on that one and that's the reason that story got out.

FISHERYeah. And, you know, it's really sort of one chance circumstance after another. Mohammed Bouazizi does this and his cousin has a video that he puts up on the web. The blogger gets the video and puts it up on Facebook. And now, the fact that this happened in Tunisia is key because Tunisia has the highest internet use and one of the highest education rates in the Arab world.

NNAMDIMohammed Bouazizi was himself a fairly-educated man.

FISHERWell, he had just about finished high school and he actually left school in order to become a fruit vendor. Not that that was his life's goal, but he did this so that his sisters could go to college. And in fact, his next oldest sibling, his sister, is in college now being paid for by the money that Mohammed Bouazizi made as a fruit vendor.

NNAMDIIf you'd like to join the conversation you can call us at 800-433-8850. We're talking with Marc Fisher, he's a senior editor at The Washington Post, and Steve Hendrix, who is a feature writer with The Washington Post. They both spent time in the Arab world during the course of the past few weeks and have written about it. If you would like to comment on the social networking as a feature of the spreading rebellions across the Arab world, you may care to comment on that or anything else.

NNAMDISteve Hendrix, you wrote about visiting schools in Egypt and watching children belt out the Egyptian national anthem with pride on their first day back to school after the revolution there. What was the mood in Cairo when you were there? Was there a sense that, like, everyday life would be dramatically different with Hosni Mubarak out of power?

HENDRIXWell, it was a funny moment in the trajectory of this revolution. I think some of the initial euphoria that must have peaked out when Mubarak actually left had begun to wane a little bit and tension was beginning to emerge. The students had not left Tahrir Square. They were clearly enjoying something they had never enjoyed in their lives before, the ability to speak out and affect events in this way.

HENDRIXAnd there was a little bit of a generational divide emerging. The younger people were pushing, pushing, pushing, not ready to vacate the square and a lot of older people, middle-aged people and working people were saying, well, you know, this has been amazing, but it's a little unsettling. The police are gone. We have crimes that we haven't had before. I guess the internal tension between revolution and normality and security was beginning to express itself.

NNAMDIAnd you're talking about young people who were pushing because not only do young people have the general sense of invincibility that young people have, but this was, I guess, such a new experience for them that they wanted to, if you will, enjoy it a while longer.

HENDRIXI think so. I think some of them were quite settled in to be protesters for quite a long time. And then there was also a genuine sense that our work is not done. We have gotten rid of Mubarak, but how much has really changed in Egypt? The army is in control of the government. That's not ideal. There was a lot of controversy over the scheduling of parliamentary and presidential elections.

HENDRIXThen, like in Tunis, they actually managed to get the scalp of the prime minister in Egypt so there was this kind of continuing string of successes that was at odds with, you know, the vendor saying, well, our business is gone and our families are hungry so when are we done and where do we stop? And clearly, the young people were pushing, pushing.

NNAMDIAnd of course, I have to point out, Marc Fisher, for those people who don't know, it is that Mohammed Bouazizi did not live to see all of this. He died three weeks after.

FISHERHe did. And when I arrived in Sidi Bouzid, the first place I went, after visiting the fruit vendors who were his work partners, was to the little hut where his mother and stepfather and three siblings live in three rooms. And it was one of those extraordinary experiences you have as a foreign correspondent where you just kind of show up and the family is there almost seeming as though they're waiting for you. And they proceeded to spend four hours telling us the story. And it's such a typical one, which is what made it so universal and so powerful, because what's happened in a lot of the countries that lived under these dictatorships and repressive regimes for so long is that people came to see that the more educated you were, the less likely you were to get a decent job.

FISHERAnd that's why you saw these revolutions being led by people who were on Facebook who were well educated. And the classes came together because poor people saw that they had no way up. There was no upward mobility and so there was this commonality of frustration and rage that just blew up.

NNAMDIHere is Joseph in Annapolis, Md. Joseph you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

JOSEPHHi, I'm on a cell phone so I'm just going to talk on the side here. Can you hear me?

NNAMDIYes, we can.

JOSEPHGreat. I was really interested to hear, you know, your speaker talk about the revolutions, for example, in Egypt. It seems as if the social media enabled people to kind of come out en masse and kind of de-stabilize the situation and create a power vacuum, but the social media didn't allow them to organize at a high enough level to be able to carry on government. And in the vacuum that they created, the army, which is much more organized, kind of stepped in. So if your speaker could comment about the potential for social media to do more than just kind of bring people out to a large demonstration, even keeping them out there for a long time because there doesn't seem to be -- again it creates a kind of a vacuum that more organized forces tend to exploit. I'll take my answer off the air.

NNAMDIMarc Fisher?

FISHERWell, you know, there is in any revolution, even long before social media existed, there's always this divide between what Steve was talking about, the euphoria around the actual, you know, getting the old guy out of there and overthrowing the government and that's done from below in almost every occasion. But then you face the reality that most regimes that are worthy of being overthrown were pretty good at making sure there was no organized opposition so there's no natural group of leaders to step in.

FISHERAnd that's where we get into this phase two that we're in, in several of these countries now where the people are struggling to say, okay, who's going to be in charge? Who's really qualified to do that and how much of the old guard do we really want or need to get rid of? Do we just cut off the top layer? Do we cut off the top five layers?" There are a lot of people you talk to in the crowds in Cairo and in Tunis who say, get them all out of here. Get every last one of them who works for the government out of here.

FISHERAnd then, there are others who say, well, no, those are our relatives who work for the government. That's pretty much most of the country, works for the government. We need to keep them. We just need to get rid of the guys on top. And that conflict will take months and months to work out. And then, as you say, there's the military and so on. But on the social media point, I think, the value of that was not so much to organize, but as to liberate people from that fear which is the only thing that keeps these repressive leaders in charge.

FISHERAnd as soon as you -- it's like the "Wizard of Oz." As soon you lift the curtain and see that you really didn't need to be as fearful as you were and that there's such strength in numbers when people take to the streets, then the whole thing kind of collapses.

NNAMDIGot to take a short break. When we come back, we'll continue this conversation. Thank you for your call. If you've already called, stay on the line. We will get to your call. We're talking with Mark Fisher, senior editor of the Washington Post and Steve Hendrix, he's a feature writer with the Washington Post, about their travels in the Arab world in the wake of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and other countries. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back, "Tunisia and Beyond: What ignites a revolution?" Marc Fisher of the Washington Post went to the Arab world where these rebellions and revolutions have been taking place and has written, giving us some insight into that. He's a senior editor with the Washington Post. He joins us in studio along with Steve Hendrix who is a feature writer with the Washington Post. Steve, you spent two weeks in Libya in early March to relieve a colleague from the Washington Post who's worked for several months without a day off.

NNAMDIIt was your first experience in a war zone. What was your impression, say, of the rebels in Benghazi?

HENDRIXWell, they're very enthusiastic. I mean, what they have is a heart and courage and a supreme burning devotion to this cause that they've found themselves a part of. They don't have a lot of training and they don't have a lot of weapons. And I think we've seen the limits of their military capacity. When I got into the country, they had just finished a very impressive campaign where they successfully took every city along the coast of the Gulf of Sidra.

HENDRIXAnd were, you know, cued up for Tripoli, they thought. They'd actually come to the point where they were saying, we don't need this no-fly zone, you know. Thanks, we've got this. And then, on Sunday, the 5th or 6th of March, then ran into an ambush in the town of Ben Jawad and they found out what real resistance was like. And since then, they've been pushed back all the way to Benghazi. And I think without the western intervention, we would've seen them lose Benghazi and, you know, untold slaughter there.

HENDRIXNow, in the last couple of days, they've been able to retrace their steps. So they do pretty well when they've got a couple of combined Western air forces above them.

NNAMDIDuring your time in Benghazi, you drove out to the front line to see the fighting between the Libyan rebels and the forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi. Where did you go and what did you find?

HENDRIXWell, then the front was at a little oil facility town called Ras Lanuf, which is a collection of low rise apartments and a lot of big tanks, basically, oil tanks. And, I mean, it was a very industrial little patch. And this was the front operating base for the rebels. So there were, maybe, 1,500, 2,000 young guys with AK-47s. A lot of them had rocket propelled grenades. There were a couple of dozen pickup trucks with mounted machine guns in the back and five or six anti-aircraft guns.

HENDRIXAnd then, about 20 miles down the road was the actual front. So at this base, we saw a lot of wounded coming in, a lot of dead and later in the day, following a photographer against all good advice.

NNAMDIJust don't hang out with the photographers, they're crazy. They will get you killed. What did you not understand about that? Go ahead, please.

HENDRIXIt seemed like all the action was down the road. So that's where we went and we got within a couple of kilometers of, you know, within sight of the mortars landing and explosions in the sand. And this is where the -- it was interesting. The rebels were kind of clotted around here willing to fight, but feeling completely inadequate against the artillery that they run into. So they had small automatic weapons and they weren't suicidal. So a lot of them were just -- this is as far as they could get.

HENDRIXAnd then the -- I saw the photographer jump into another truck with a bunch of fighters and he was going to go onto the very front, even though we had both seen an AFP photographer come out with a gunshot wound earlier that day. So these guys are a little crazy, but we must thank them for the (unintelligible) gift.

NNAMDII was about to say, we joke about the photographers being crazy, but without them, we would not be able to get the kind of images that we get. They put themselves in very dangerous situations to get those images.

HENDRIXThey tell the story.

NNAMDIAnd at some point, it becomes a part of their ongoing psychology as would appear.

HENDRIXIt really does. When we were in Tunis and there were secret police snipers on the rooftop shooting down at demonstrators, including some rowdy ones who'd been busting up windows and store fronts and so on. And we were running through the Kashbah, which is the old souk in the center of Tunis, the old bizarre. And shop keepers had come out to form a line of sort of a barrier, saying, don’t go any further, there's snipers. And we ran up right up to that line and stopped there, except for the photographers who went running on through and for their pains got dragged through streets by the secret police and detained for a while.

NNAMDIWell, what was it about the people themselves? The common element in these uprisings seems to be a new found sense among the people that it was somehow safe to go out and protest. What happened to the fear of speaking out in Tunisia and in Egypt?

HENDRIXYou know, it reminded me so much of back in 1989, 1990 when I covered the revolutions in East Germany and Eastern Europe. And it was the same phenomenon. There's this moment, this sort of tipping point phenomenon where people, who otherwise were not the kind of folks to expose themselves to dangers, suddenly feel that this is the moment they need to not only go out and demonstrate, but take their kids, take their families and do this. And there's this moment where you sort of realize where there's word of mouth or rumor, that the police are not going to shoot back, that your own country soldiers are not going to kill you.

HENDRIXAnd then, there's this incredible strength that people draw from being among many of their -- many of the people like themselves. And so that was what the activists needed to create because there had been lots of small demonstrations in Cairo. Lots of small demonstrations in Tunis over the last months and years, but they never amounted to anything. And so the challenge for the organizers was to get some of the ordinary middle class people to join them.

HENDRIXAnd it -- there was this process almost block by block, where they, particularly in Cairo, the young activists from the 6th of April movement actually would walk house by house asking people to come join them. And the crowd got larger and larger and it became safer and safer and then it just kind of balloons.

NNAMDI800-433-8850, if you have questions or comments about what our reporters saw on the ground in the Arab world when they were there. Here now is Bob in Winchester, Va. Bob, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

BOBYes, I was thinking that Al-Jazeera English has been so fundamental to understanding this whole thing for the last couple of months, but it very much bothers me that we can't get it on the United States television.

NNAMDIWell...

BOB(unintelligible) ...

NNAMDI...depends on what kind of service you have. I have it.

HENDRIXWell, but the caller's right. I mean, most countries...

NNAMDIAs a general...

HENDRIX...as a general -- right. Most cable systems have made a very clear decision, although you can't get a clear explanation or answer from them about why, they don't carry Al-Jazeera English. I was quite skeptical about Al-Jazeera English before spending some weeks overseas and in places where I watched it, nearly, around the clock when I wasn't out on the streets. And I have to say that they, first of all, have brought more reporting power to the story than just about any other news organization on the planet.

HENDRIXTheir coverage has been creditable and fair, I think. The only place where they go off the rails is whenever the subject turns to the question of Palestine and Israel. You suddenly start hearing these voices that are so much more extreme than all the rest of their coverage. And I'm not sure exactly why they've chosen to do that. But that's where their creditability starts to come into question. But on this story, on these revolutions, they have been the place to watch.

NNAMDIThey're not the favorites among most dictators in that part...

HENDRIXYeah, right.

NNAMDI...of the world, anyway. Steve, what surprised you most about the people you met in Libya and in Egypt? What's your sense of their hopes, their expectations for what will come next in their countries?

HENDRIXWell, this is my first time in that region. And I was amazed that in the middle of an intense revolution in Egypt and a violent one in Libya, this vaunted Arab hospitality couldn't be quelled and people, even if they were hostile to you, and there is a fair amount of anti-Americanism among people who were impatient for us to be more involved in some cases or -- definitely in Egypt. But even as someone might be haranguing you in some sense for your government's policy, they're wishing you a very pleasant stay in their country.

HENDRIXAnd that wasn't just a superficial pleasure, that seemed to really say something about the character of the people. I mean, they -- I've never seen a group of people who could argue with each other with more intensity and come to -- you know, and not come to blows. They could listen to each other's, sometimes, literal screams of anger and they just respond rhetorically. And then it was quite amazing. And I think it takes a lot to -- and maybe we've seen over the decades, where has the Arab anger been? But it's expressing itself now in pretty remarkable ways.

FISHERAnd there was also this -- I mean, I felt almost privileged to watch as Egyptians who had been kept divided by the regime for so long, discovered each other across lines that were really difficult in the past. So you had people from the Muslim Brotherhood talking to leftist intellectuals and arguing like crazy in cafés and on Tahrir square. And in many cases, they would admit, you know, some guys from the Muslim Brotherhood said, you know, I've never had a conversation with a woman outside my family before.

FISHERAnd people were learning about each other in ways that, they said, were really changing them. You know, whether that lasts beyond this euphoria, we'll see.

NNAMDIOne of the elements that seem to dampen enthusiasm for regime change in the Arab world seems to be the existence of a monarchy. When you were in Jordan, you found deep loyalty to the royal family there. Why have we not seen any large scale uprisings in Arab countries with monarchies?

FISHERYou know, the monarchies, in some cases, are more stable to begin with. In some cases, they were less repressive or at least had some of the -- some less repressive trappings than the other countries. For example, in Jordan, the police are not as, sort of, mean faced and brutal as they had been in Egypt and Tunisia. In fact, they're downright hospitable, as Steve was talking about. They -- I went to a couple of demonstrations where the police came out to the crowd and starting serving bottles of water and juice boxes and nuts to the crowd.

FISHERNot something you would've seen in Cairo or in Tunis. But there is this allegiance to the monarchy. In Jordan, in particular, because the monarchy is seen as the one institution in society that is keeping the glue -- that is the glue that's keeping the tribes on the east bank of the Jordan river and the Palestinians on the west bank of the Jordan river from being at each other's throats. And Jordan was -- is one of the many countries in the Middle East that was basically drawn on a map by the Brits at one point.

FISHERAnd so there isn't necessarily a natural nationhood to some of these countries. And the monarchy is the one thing that makes this -- these countries feel genuine to people who live there. So there is this sort of honor and respect that's paid to the monarchy and so some of the same complaints are heard, but they're aimed at the government and not at the King. And the King is seen as someone who could be reform obviating the need for regime change.

NNAMDISteve, I wanted to get back to the point that Marc made earlier about people feeling this new sense of their own power. That it was safe to protest people, according to Marc, see behind that curtain that there's just an old guy who's been in charge here for so long. How did that operate with Moammar Gadhafi? Because on one hand, he would be seen that way and then on the other, when he struck back, I guess, rebels were reminded about his, frankly, awesome power.

HENDRIXWell, yeah. I mean, I think he's some -- a leader that there has been a -- he's easy to have opinions about and has been for many decades. And I think there has been the, sort of, subterranean collection of jokes and opinions about his ridiculous character and some of his outrageous public projects that came to nothing that have been less than whispered. I mean, it was very dangerous in that country to speak out against Gadhafi.

HENDRIXSo maybe only among your family could you say these things. Well, now they have bloomed into the popular culture and they're spray painted on walls and he is very much the face of anger. He's -- unlike the King in Jordan who is a, maybe, the face of cement for the culture, Gadhafi -- it's a very personal fight for most of these people. I mean, they're screaming his name as they run into battle. I think they’re aiming at him, figuratively, when they're shooting.

HENDRIXIt's all about Gadhafi and his sons. And, you know, we'll never have another dictator probably quite like him. And they are finally able to say what a lot of people around the world have said and he's a ridiculous clown in some ways, but a terrifying one.

NNAMDIHere is Kabadoo (sp?) in Fairfax, Va. Kabadoo, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

KABADOOThank you, Kojo. Very interesting program. I have been following the revolution or non-violent movement revolution, North Africa and the Middle East. As an African myself, I have been wondering what this sentiment and the implication of it for the rest of Africa, so called sub-Saharan African countries is because most of these countries are in a situation, in fact, more desperate situation than the North African countries. Is there any implication of this happening elsewhere such as...

NNAMDIKabadoo, you raise...

KABADOO...Zimbabwe?

NNAMDI...you raise...

KABADOO(unintelligible) ...

NNAMDI...you raise a very significant but extremely complicated issue here. Because when we're talking about Sub-Saharan Africa, you're talking about slightly different cultures. And, I know, while there are some dictators in that part of the world who are uneasy about all of this happening, they seem to have had more success so far in suppressing their opposition to this point. There's a Vice President of Ghana, whose name I can't think of right now, who has been writing fairly extensively about this on the website, theroot.com. I've been -- who is saying, essentially, that it's inevitable that this is also going to come to Sub-Saharan Africa, Marc.

FISHERWell, it may well be. I mean, certainly, you know, throughout history, we've seen waves of revolution that tend to sweep across the continent. This one has been limited in part by language because one of the main ways that this contagion of revolution has spread has been through cable television, through Al-Jazeera, which is in Arabic. And so it's possible that in Arabic speaking portions of Sub-Saharan Africa, you might see a greater impact than elsewhere. But, you know, the spread has been so remarkable and, you know, even in some of the former Soviet Central Asian republics there's been rise in demonstrations. So it does seem to jump beyond the Arabic language region to some extent. But for the most part, it has been based there.

NNAMDIThe Vice President of Ghana, I was referring to, is John Dramani Mahama, Vice President of the Republic of Ghana. And, finally, there's this from Laura in Washington, D.C. Laura, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

LAURAHi, Kojo, thank you for taking my call. I wonder, why is it that when Gadhafi was our friend, he was Kadafi (sp?) and now he's Gadhafi and can't we come up with something, you know...

NNAMDII'll ask...

LAURA...one (unintelligible) ...

NNAMDI...Steve Hendrix. Why do we spell his name differently at different times?

HENDRIXThere's about 40 different spellings. That I can tell you. There's about 12 pronunciations even in the region. In Egypt, he's Kadashi (sp?) and I'm not sure if I'm linguistically talented enough to explain all of that. But clearly, when you transfer Arabic names into Latin letters, you get this confusion.

NNAMDIMarc, finally, you put faces on the individuals in Tunisia (unintelligible) sparked the revolutions there. Are these people going to become household names in the Arab world and what about in the West?

FISHERWell, I think Mohammad Bouazizi, who really was the spark that ignited the entire wave of revolutions, I think that's already a household name in much of the Arab world, and I think probably will become one in much of the rest of the world as his story is told and retold. You now see posters of Mohammad Bouazizi through, not only Tunisia, but also Egypt and elsewhere, and these posters are being spread to countries where they're not allowed, and you started to see them there as well.

FISHERSo his name I think is the one that really stands out. It's interesting in the Egyptian revolution there isn't a single figure. There are several people who organized a number of the groups who were important players there. And, you know, I met a guy in Jordan whose story matches Mohammad Bouazizi almost step for step, although he didn't end up burning himself, but suffered many of the same humiliations and reacted in some of the same ways. And his name has become quite well known in Jordan, and yet we have not seen the same kind of mass uprising there.

NNAMDIWell, the story continues. Marc Fisher is a senior editor with the Washington Post. Marc, thank you for joining us.

FISHERGreat to be here.

NNAMDISteve Hendrix is a feature writer with the Washington Post. Steve, avoid those photographers. Steve, thank you so much for joining us.

HENDRIXI've learned my lesson. Thank you.

NNAMDIWe're gonna take a short break. When we come back it's "Your Turn" on any topic on your mind. If you want to talk about the kids' farm being shut down at the National Zoo come this summer, President Obama's remarks on Libya last night, or school discipline policies in Fairfax County, the possibilities of recording hearings involving young people who face disciplinary action, you can start calling now. 800-433-8850. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.