the arabist has a good point. at best, wikileaks played a minor roll in overthrow of the tunisian government, and it possibly played no significant role at all. i'm sure the tunisian people were well aware that their leaders were living extravagantly. they didn't need a leaked cable to tell them that.
when i visited tunisia in 2000, it was impossible to miss the huge seaside palace sitting just next to the ruins of carthage (even more so because of all the security guards warning you not to photograph the palace, which essentially means that an entire side of the ruins are not photographable). i'm not trying to play the "i went to the country for vacation and so now i am an expert" card (because i am definitely not an expert). but even during the brief two weeks that i was there, it was readily apparent that ben ali and his cohort were living very differently than everyone else in the country.
tunisians aren't morons, they knew about this stuff all along. the solipsistic western media might think that wikileaks triggered the uprising against the extravagance and corruption of the tunisian regime because that's how they found out about those things.
