It will soon be eight years since the Tunisian street trader Mohamed Bouazizi, harassed out of business by thuggish police and oppressive regulators, burnt himself to death in protest. That desperate act triggered a popular revolt against the corrupt rule of president Ben Ali who fled within a month. That was the start of the so-called “Arab Spring” which spread, ultimately with disastrous consequences, to Egypt, Libya and Syria.

This week in Tunisia, there appears to have been another protest suicide by a 30-year-old unemployed graduate. Mouna Guebla blew herself up in the capital’s Avenue Habib Bourguiba, with what is being described as a homemade bomb. Nine people nearby, most of them policemen, were injured, none of them seriously. This was not an obvious Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS) terrorist attack with a trademark suicide vest. Though the dead woman’s father insisted his daughter must have been coerced into what she did, if it was a terrorist attack, it was a very ineffective effort. On the other hand, if this suicide bombing was supposed to be a protest in the manner of Bouazizi, it was badly miscalculated. Many Tunisians have recoiled in disgust at what Guebla did, not least because it was the bloody Daesh attacks on the Bardo museum in Tunis and later on the tourist beach resort of Sousse that helped plunge the country into its present economic crisis.

Tunis itself still has the appearance of a thriving, fast-expanding capital city. But look more closely at the growing scattering of half-finished houses, factories and shops and there is evidence that times are hard. And the capital is by no means representative of the rest of the country where unemployment is high and income levels are low. Per capita nominal GDP is just $3,500. Up until the 2015 terrorist outrage, around a quarter of the working population was involved directly or indirectly in tourism. Most of those jobs disappeared within months as foreign visitors fled the beaches and the stunning archeological sites such as Carthage.

Tunisians are generally well-educated and many speak French. They are also industrious. Besides phosphates, the country’s exports include agri-food products, textiles and auto parts. And they also include skilled labor. It is one of the ironies of the Arab Spring people-power groundswell that began in Tunisia, that the spread of revolt to Libya was not only catastrophic for that oil-rich state but also produced a serious economic blowback for Tunisia.

Before the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the majority of skilled tradesman in Libya were Tunisian, as were most of the coffee baristas. Libya’s descent into anarchy has driven most of these workers home with a serious loss of repatriated earnings. Only the collapse of their country’s marginal health service has maintained a flow of Libyans seeking treatment in Tunisia. International NGO’s who fled Libya to Tunisia bring “clients” in from Libya for endless courses which most see as a welcome break from the brutality back home.

Thus far, Tunisia is the only Arab Spring country to have avoided social meltdown. But can this last? Unless it receives solid international financial support, the country may yet be infected by the contagion of violence gripping its Libyan neighbor. Ultimately, the cost to the international community of sustaining Tunisia will be far less than coping with yet another failed state.