Every recent uprising in the Arab world has had some emotional trigger, a tragic death or the commemoration of a brutal incident. In the case of Syria, it was the painting of graffiti by a group of schoolchildren that sparked the wave of protests leading to the deaths of nine people over the past week and could turn into a revolt against the regime of president Bashar al-Assad.
Inspired by the images of Arab revolutions incessantly shown on pan-Arab satellite TV and the internet, the schoolchildren in Deraa, an agricultural town 100km from Damascus, near the border with Jordan, wrote on walls some of the anti-regime slogans they were hearing only to find themselves detained by the police.
In a tribal region, the families took to the streets last week to protest against the arrest of their children in demonstrations that also demanded freedom and an end to corruption.