All of these countries have a burgeoning youth population with many graduates. Unfortunately there are just not enough jobs to employ these young people and in the past many have moved abroad for work. As the economic recession bites, foreign job markets are closed to these workers and they are stuck at home with no money and no job prospects. They then see the ruling classes living a life of luxury and rewarding their family and cronies with lucrative mining/oil/hotel/airline etc. contracts and generally living off the fat of the land with their villas and yachts whilst doing little to alleviate the unemployment and poverty of the masses. All it needed was a spark to light this tinderbox and that has now been provided by the Tunisians.