Garry Kasparov Author, Russian political activist and former world chess champion
I nominate the Arab street. The breathtaking democratic transformation that has swept the Arab world cannot be reduced to any individual or group. From Tunisia to Egypt to Libya, what they all had in common was the recognition by a critical mass of people, particularly young people, that their voices and their dreams would never find expression without action. Where there is unity and will, the soul’s desire for freedom will create the opportunity.
Jennifer Egan Author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad
I’ve been torn two ways and unable to choose between Occupy Wall Street and the democracy movements of the Middle East. So maybe the answer is an even broader idea: the year of protest, fueled by individuals willing to risk personal safety to reject a status quo that is patently, brutally unfair. The final outcomes are in no way clear, but the fact that they’re happening in places as disparate as Wall Street and Libya is a defining moment in our history.
Glenn Beck Best-selling author, commentator and host of The Glenn Beck Program
I nominate the guy who set himself on fire in Tunisia. He is and will in time be remembered as this epoch’s Archduke Ferdinand. A man with a pushcart will be marked by historians as the starting point of cataclysmic global change. The world is on the eve of global war and perhaps civil war, and he was the match to the world’s kindling. As I said a year ago, once you start the fire of revolution, there is the chance the flames will engulf the entire world.