Just read Clay Shirky’s perspective on the election turmoil in Iran. It’s hardly surprising he’d focus on the technological aspect.
“… this is it. The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Chicago demonstrations of 1968 where they chanted “the whole world is watching.” Really, that wasn’t true then. But this time it’s true … and people throughout the world are not only listening but responding. They’re engaging with individual participants, they’re passing on their messages to their friends, and they’re even providing detailed instructions to enable web proxies allowing Internet access that the authorities can’t immediately censor. That kind of participation is really extraordinary.” (Source-Anthropology.net)
Extraordinary, you bet. Unprecedented, no doubt. A positive development and one that produces the tangible results of greater freedom for all Iranians? Too early to tell, but the initial signs aren’t good.
That the disagreement over the election results is so profound and involves such powerful figures in Iranian society is frightening. This is not a situation I see calming down any time soon. Thankfully we don’t (yet) endure a theocratic government, so it’s hard for some Americans to appreciate what it means to have the Ayatollah oppose the election results. Here we know Pat Robertson hates the president, so what? But there, it’s a serious situation.
So far Iran has shut down access to many websites and blogs, thrown out the Western press and, according to something I read on Friendfeed today (failed to get the link), the government is actually creating phony “anti-Ahmadinejad” sites so they can harvest the names of Iranians who register or leave comments there.
Let’s hope whatever happens in the near future there it stays within their borders and doesn’t spill over to the rest of the world. There’s no way in hell we can afford (literally and figuratively) to be involved in international conflicts on three fronts. We may have to establish priorities; Afghanistan may have to wait if Korea or Iran become a larger and more immediate threat.
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