Oh you're not obliged to be interested or anything, just explaining why the news is all over this.
The Middle East has not always had the borders that it does. Most of these were put in place by the British, at times arbitrarily, without any regard to tribal, religious, ethnic or linguistic differences (T.E. Lawrence, a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia, actually did
draw up a map of the Middle East in accordance with what he saw were tribal boundaries, but British authorities rejected the idea, despite the fact that Lawrence was probably the most knowledgable Brit on the Middle East at the time). This, and the creation of Israel (or rather, how that country was created), have set the tone for the way the Middle East not only deals with the West, but with its own affairs.
Shortly after the British left, most of these countries adopted some form or another of totalitarian rule, whether theocracies or dictatorships. Colonialisation has a way of stunting the growth of a country - take a look at any given country in Africa to see what I mean - and in this age of remarkably easy communication and exchanging information, more Middle Easterners are finding it easier to network, exchange ideas, discuss and organize.
What we are witnessing right now, from Tunisia to Egypt to Yemen and to an extent, Iran (the outrage over the presidential elections isn't over by a long shot) is a cultural revolution, where ordinary people at the grassroots level are organizing and mobilizing to overthrow their governments. We saw something similar a couple years back in the Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan; places where there was at least a semblance of democracy. Those were applaudable uprisings but not entirely surprising.
Here, though, in the Middle East, we're seeing people rise up against totalitarian regimes, disavowing violence to achieve those ends, and religious fundamentalists appear to be largely pushed out of the greater portion of participation. This is everything Westerners have wanted to happen in the region, and it's happening without our "help" or intervention. It is more than "significant"; it is a history-changing, global event. That's why the whole world is watching.
While our Canadian friends here baw about corporate traffic throttling, Egypt has had no internet at all. They've been organizing with the help of text messaging and
fax machines. Ordinary, unarmed people are facing down live ammunition, tear gas, imprisonment and torture. As someone who watched the Berlin Wall being torn down and communism collapse, I believe this is probably one of the most significant events of the past 20 years, no matter how it ends up playing out.
