Times Person Of The Year: The Proester

'Mohammed suffered a lot. he worked hard. But when he set fire to himself, it wasn't about his scales being confiscated. It was about his dignity.'
—Mannoubia Bouazizi, Tunisia

Once upon a time, when major news events were chronicled strictly by professionals and printed on paper or transmitted through the air by the few for the masses, protesters were prime makers of history. Back then, when citizen multitudes took to the streets without weapons to declare themselves opposed, it was the very definition of news — vivid, important, often consequential. In the 1960s in America they marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War; in the '70s, they rose up in Iran and Portugal; in the '80s, they spoke out against nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Europe, against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, against communist tyranny in Tiananmen Square and Eastern Europe. Protest was the natural continuation of politics by other means.

The Protester: A Portfolio by Peter Hapak

Peter Hapak for TIME

Greek protester George Anastasopoulos and Occupy Oakland protester Melanisia Carmilia Jacobs. "I got involved in the protests here after watching the indignados movement in Spain." Anastasopoulos said. "All these movements for democracy and justice and respect—these moved me so much."

Loukanikos, the Greek Protest Dog, photographed in Syntagma Square in Athens.