Comments
I don’t have comments turned on here at MightierThan – I have always kind of hated them on other blogs, not because I think readers can’t have interesting thoughts on interesting posts, they can and usually do, but because since its inception the Internet has provided too many people the unnecessary opportunity to be someone online they could never get away with being in person, usually someone much more rude and disagreeable, sometimes even hateful, racist, or worse. I think interaction is important, and I think tolerance of random trolls should be encouraged, but I still can’t bring myself to allow them on some corner of the net I have tried to carve out on my own. (7/11 update: read here for my complete 180)
However on YouTube, and more specifically on the Iran videos I have posted, the comment culture is fascinating to watch, both inspiring and infuriating. I have tried to curate with care, deleting obviously hateful posts, or ones so ignorant no one should have to waste their time reading them – but the community does a pretty good job policing itself with the excellent comment rating system that YouTube employs. I wish more sites would copy it.
Mostly I’m amazed how many people think videos of the Iran ordeal are the best place to bring up how much they dislike Obama, and it occurs to me that people’s distrust and perhaps hatred of him is so searing that any soapbox will do if it’s a chance to let out their frustration. It’s like they’re convinced they’re watching a magic show that’s effect is so offensive they must stand on their chair and shout about hidden rabbits. But it’s not a magic show, and there is no rabbit – so any sensible audience member who’s paying attention thinks they are crazy. This just enrages them further.
While in my heart I wish Obama and America could swoop in and fix all of Iran’s problems, that is an irrational wish. Obama has done very well setting the tone for America’s reaction, for as we learned in Iraq – you can’t invent someone else’s democracy – they have to earn it for themselves or else they will never be able to employ it successfully.
One More Thing
In my conversation with Jose, we covered a lot of ground that didn’t make it into the article – and one thing I talked to him about that I still haven’t seen anywhere else (as analysis) is the following..
There are plenty of stories about the Twitter revolution and how important it is or isn’t, but there is another angle that I think people should consider. There are now probably a hundred thousand Americans who are following about 20-30 Iranian Twitter users. Two weeks ago, it’d be safe to assume that a decent percentage of those followers did not know much about modern Iran beyond its link to Hezbollah or the pursuit of uranium enrichment. But now they are reloading their Twitter feeds and mixed in with tweets from Bob from work, their cousin in LA, and Ashton Kutcher – is PersianKiwi. Now countless Americans are hanging on the every tweet of their new Iranian friends, vicariously riding the peaks and valleys of a personally fought revolution. Surely Americans must be learning that they have much more in common than they could have possibly imagined with these people deep inside the old “Axis of Evil.”
The Iranian Twitter user Change_for_Iran had been reporting on the situation there with great consistency. He is a student at Tehran University and throughout his reporting he has often referred to his friend Masood. So on Saturday night when he reported:
Change_for_Iran: it was a nightmare, I can barely breath & my face is burning, Masood got shot in the arm & Shayan’s brother is missing
5:07 PM Jun 20th from web
it’s not hard to imagine that tens of thousands of people were personally impacted by this news, as if their friend had been shot. And worse, now that Change_for_Iran hasn’t tweeted since Saturday night himself many worry and keep him in their daily thoughts, continuing to ask about him in more than a thousand tweets since then, like this one:
A5204: @Change_for_Iran We’ll probably never meet but I’ve been worrying about you for the past few days. I hope your safe and still fighting.
No one can predict with certainty what will happen next for Iran, and we still may not know for weeks, months, or even longer (the ‘79 revolution took a full year). But regardless there is now a new link between us and them, an intimate connection that has been forged in a new media foxhole. And this may have begun to dramatically transform the way America relates to the Islamic world. Suddenly liberals and neo-conservatives, human rights activists and 2nd amendment zealots, are all finding common ground hoping for justice and democracy in Iran. As I mention in the article, “Allah-o-akbar” – which for many in the U.S. was most likely linked to the hijackers of 9/11 – must have bold new meaning after people tune to YouTube and hear the chants of Tehran: Islam as a force for justice instead of hatred.
So imagine for a moment that the Iranian regime holds onto power and the demonstrators are somehow forced back into their normal lives. Six months from now President Obama believes the only way to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon is to employ surgical air strikes. But a smart bomb goes rogue and lands on the apartment building where PersianKiwi’s grandparents live, killing them and countless others. If PersianKiwi logs onto Twitter to despair and rage against the U.S. to the many followers she’ll likely still have, how will America react? Will people call the White House? Will they complain to CNN that it’s not covering the human cost of the attacks? Will the many bloggers and reporters who have come to trust PersianKiwi allow their reporting to be influenced?
Imagine also for a moment if 200 Iraqi civilians had been on Twitter with a few hundred thousand U.S. followers when the bombs fell on Baghdad, or when the abuses at Abu Ghraib were made public.
One of the “Tom Friedman tenets” of globalization is that it ties our economies so close together than we have no choice but to get along or else risk global economic ruin. But what if the social medium of the Internet has a similar effect, so that regardless of the state of trade or diplomatic relations between countries, their citizens remain closely intertwined and socially interdependent. Is it not possible that the personal relationships of individuals – linked in real time by technology – could make it just as difficult for two governments to go to war? Could Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook – save the world from its most violent impulses?
…
UPDATEx2: Change_for_Iran has reappeared, but is injured enough that he can’t walk properly, and is now outside of Tehran
UPDATE: Unless we don’t get the chance to read PersianKiwi anymore, she’s possibly missing…
And the Iranian on Twitter known as PersianKiwi, who has been posting virtually non-stop for the last week and a half, posted a final ominous message tonight at around 9PM Iran time:
they catch ppl with mobile – so many killed today – so many injured – Allah Akbar – they take one of us
they pull away the dead into trucks – like factory – no human can do this – we beg Allah for save us -Everybody is under arrest & cant move – Mousavi – Karroubi even rumour Khatami is in house guardwe must go – dont know when we can get internet – they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names – now we must move fast -
thank you ppls 4 supporting Sea of Green – pls remember always our martyrs – Allah Akbar – Allah Akbar – Allah Akbar
Allah – you are the creator of all and all must return to you – Allah Akbar -
