In this European Winter, let's not forget the green shoots of democracy on Africa's North Coast.

Maybe some Arab world dictatorships had reached tipping points. Maybe regime change was imminent. Or maybe it really takes one act of courage by one person.

We Westerners are scared of sovereign debt defaults, unemployment, double-dip recessions ... When we're out of work, we skip a gas payment, run up credit cards, and get fat on cheap, low-nutrition, high-calorie food.

But the people of North Africa and the Arabian peninsula have entirely different fears. When a Tunisian or Gazan or Yemeni is out of work, he feeds his children half a meal and starves himself. He moves into a one-room house with ten other people.

Most of us would die for our children. But would we die for our beliefs? for our countrymen?

The suicidal immolation of one fruit vendor in Tunisia, as political protest, began this year of revolt in North Africa.

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