This revolution will be Twittered
Yes, I know—the unrest in Iran right now can hardly be called a revolution, and there’s a good chance it may never rise to that level, although one can hope.
But there is no question that the widespread protests that have gone on there were facilitated at the start by modern communications such as cell phones and especially the internet, including such ordinarily light and entertaining modes as You Tube and Twitter. They’ve taken on a new—and deadly—seriousness, and although the Iranian government has now blocked a great many of these avenues for communication, some of the protesters have found a way around such barricades, particularly through Twitter.
I doubt that the originators of these networking tools ever envisioned this particular use of their bright idea. What’s more, the internet was at least partly responsible for the ability of the younger generation of Iranians to comprehend exactly how repressed their country is compared to the outside world reaching them on their computers.
In fact, one could set up a hierarchy of countries on the basis of how completely they attempt to block communication technology in general, and it would roughly resemble the relative cruelty and harshness of the regimes involved—with North Korea being by far the most Draconian, nearly complete in its sealing-off of the populace. Tyrants well know that this is what they must do (or at least try to do; there are often ways around it) in this day and age to keep their people from what neocons like me would call the universal yearning for liberty and a say in choosing a government that fosters it.
Of course, technology is a double-edged sword; it makes the protesters in Iran vulnerable, as well. Their attempts at coordinating the protests have been hampered by the government’s blocking of the normal avenues of internet and cell phone communication, as well as press coverage. But although the mullahs have not been completely successful in doing so, you can see the fruits of their efforts today as journalists in the West maintain that the information they’re getting is spotty, fragmented, and unreliable. Twitter, however, is alive with reports and photos indicating that the demonstrating crowds are bigger than officially reported, and that the police (mostly Baseji?) have been shooting and killing as well as using tear gas and water cannons.
There is no question that today’s protesters are uncommonly brave; they went to the streets knowing there was a good chance they might be murdered. There is also no question that no one knows whether the official repression and violence against them will have its desired effect and cause the crowds to thin and finally dissipate, or whether it will inspire a widespread backlash and perhaps even a general strike.
Boris Yeltsin said, ““You can make a throne of bayonets, but you can’t sit on it for long.” But the example of Russia before him, and of Iraq for many years, as well as North Korea—belie his words. You can sit on that throne for quite a while, as the mullahs have, although it depends on what the meaning of “long” is.
Thirty years is a long time, enough to allow a new generation to grow up under this regime and to become impatient and dissatisfied with it. The bigger question is how many bayonets surround the mullahs’ throne, how willing those who hold them are to use them to intimidate the Iranian people, and for how long.
Well, you can’t say the protests were facilitated by Twitter; twitter is just the most useful tool for sending messages on the fly. Just a tool, one of many. As many Iranians say – if it were possible to send out SMS from their cells, less people would be using twitter. And in any case software application, even if it was as great as fans are claiming now, can’t be responsible for “facilitating protests”.
In your own link it says so:
“The online outpouring has been “hugely important for letting the wider world feel solidarity with the protesters, and in bringing attention to the issues,” said Ethan Zuckerman, research fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. But, he added, “probably not that important in actually mobilizing people on the ground.”
A lot of the information on social sites was coming not directly from inside Iran but from Iranians in the diaspora.
“When we see these movements take over social networks, a lot of (that) is in the U.S.,” Zuckerman said. “A lot of this traffic we are seeing is coming out of Iran in more conventional ways, whether that’s Skype or traditional telephone.”
I am getting really tired of this hysteria about stupid twitter.
You are technically correct; I was lumping Twitter in with other forms of modern electronic communication in general. There are other ways for Iranian protesters to organize.
But Twitter is most definitely a way for them to get their message to the outside world, one of the main ways at the present time. I strongly suspect that this acts as a motivation for their continuing to protest. If there were no way to tell the world what was happening, I believe they would be much more likely to lose heart.
Of course, they may eventually lose heart anyway—as well as their lives, for some of them. But I don’t discount Twitter as a player in this. It may be an essentially frivolous medium, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be used for very serious purposes, and be effective.
Re: the revolution — I hope so, too.
A few days ago, I was pleased to see reports that our State Department requested Twitter to delay a planned outage so the protesters would not have their communications cut.
A commenter on the Strata-Sphere site noted that it was actually Jared Cohen, a Condoleezza Rice appointee in the department who did this.
As he is NOT an Obama appointee, I sure hope he survives this act.
The story here: The man who saved Iran.
–
I continue to be amazed by how little our younger generations of Americans know about Iran and its history from antiquity on up to the present.
Iran used to be Persia, which was a great empire that rivaled Rome’s. Its people were (and still are) sophisticated, educated, and urbane. There is no comparison between the Persian and the Arabs – the Arabs being desert billygoats who use sand to wipe their arses with. It is one of history’s greatest insults that the Arab Muslims conquered Persia in the 7th and 8th centuries.
Iranians are a proud people, but they too have been warped by totalitarian ideologies that flourished since the time of Islam’s founding. In the modern era, before the Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran had flourishing socialist and Communist parties, as well as westernized people – some of whom were anti-Communist and pro-West.
I would like to see Iran freed some day, but I can tell you that it won’t be done by crowds of protesters who decide to rush the guns of the Revolutionary Guards without weapons themselves. IT JUST WON’T HAPPEN.
Furthermore, no study of the current situation would be complete without paying attention to Iran’s deepening ties with Moscow. It would be a disaster for Russia if the Mullahs’ were to be toppled, so you can bet the farm that the Russians will do what they can to prop up the regime. You will never, ever witness Russia supporting a pro-democracy movement.
Twitter may be a clever way to get news out of and into Iran, but be assured that the regime will find a way to shut that down.
Before you can depose the Mullahs you must acquire a healthy respect for the power they wield. In any kind of war, there are preconditions for victory that must be observed.
The first time a policeman raised his riot stick and stalked towards a protester, expecting him to run as usual, but the protester just stood there and looked back at him, and the policeman backed off and walked away, was the start of a fire that has taken on a life of its’ own.
The biggest problem with being an oppresser, depending on fear, is “GOD HELP YOU” if they ever STOP being afraid of you.
I’m sure the security forces are trying, but it’s awfully hard to stuff the djinni back into the bottle; ain’t it?
–
FredHjr: I never indicated the crowds themselves were enough. That’s why I’ve emphasized the reactions of the police and guards, as well as the idea of a general strike. I think the latter might be especially important, depending on how many people would cooperate and for how long, and how much support they might have among some of the powerful in Iran (other clerics, the army, that sort of thing).
Even then I am very skeptical of success. But I think it is a possibility. The demonstrators cannot do it alone, but they are the most visible front lines at the moment.
Paul Gordon: Such reluctance is apparently very common among the regular police. But it’s reported that the mullahs are using the often-foreign Basejis, who are have fewer compunctions. And then there are the Revolutionary Guards, who are even more hardline, and who apparently have not been called in as yet. The mullahs have many tricks up their voluminous sleeves.
neo I wasn’t saying you were engaging in a flight of fantasy. I was just making a general comment about how it seems many people do not appreciate how fanatical and how armed the Revolutionary Guards are in Iran. These guys will not have any qualms of conscience about gunning down protesters. The regular police may hesitate or even defy orders, but those guys won’t.
What say you about the possible role of Russia now and in the future?
FredHjr: I’d say that Russia is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.
Even if Churchill did say it first.
Neo,
Any medium could be used for any purpose – as your link to Google News article makes clear, the ease and primitiveness (is that a word?) of twitter is both a blessing and a disadvantage.
I’ve been reading various blogs from Iran – in Russian- and English-language LiveJournal and links from there to other plaforms. Some of them redirect their twitter feeds into the regular blogposts when the bloggers are out on the streets. I’m sure the computer junkies can argue till turning blue at the lips about relative qualities of this or that platform (and they do) – but that’s silly and really out of proportion; the means of communicating the event might be important but not as important as the events itself.
I don’t share your belief that w/o twitter the protests were died out. Protests (or rather -Resistance) have stemmed from a deep need, it’s a inflamed wound that needed to be cut open, a product of 30 years of compacted repressions. Adding to that, Iranians (or Persians, as some still like to flatter them with) have a centuries-old custom to fly in rage to the streets; riots and massacres is nothing extraordinary to that culture. First image that appears in my mind when I hear the word “mob” is of Persians murdering a great writer and a diplomat Griboedov in the street riots of Tehran in 1829 – because he gave refuge in Russian diplomatic mission to an Armenian merchant and few Christian women (who converted into Islam under threat of force). The same fierce rage and mob rule were present at the time of Islamic Revolution. In what Western country the populace might turn so easily to Revolutionary Guards? Yes, something similar happened to Russia and Germany – but to achieve that degree of fanaticism there happened to be a few years of war, starvation and total devastation of morale. The resistance-to-violent-urges span is much shorter in Islamic countries.
What I’m saying – the goals and the means might change, but the temperament and customs of the people are much more tenacious. People in US tend to project their own law-abiding general attitude onto other cultures; we think – if people in Iran are so fearless and so oblivious of possibility of not returning home from “protests” – they must be pushed to the absolute limit. They might, of course, but not as it would mean for us here. There is no moral barrier in Muslim cultures to violence; I remember bloodbath perpetuated by Aserbadjani in Karabakh and in Baku – and Persian and Aseri religion, culture and customs are closely related.
Another thought – and I think I and others said it already many times: the opposition (and all these people on the streets) aren’t fighting against mullahs or against theocratic government; their flags are green and they are chanting “Allahu Akbar”.I wouldn’t be surprised if what they understand under “democracy” is much different from American model, despite their superior (compared to other Muslim countries) education, technology and surface-deep westernization.
I’ll post again the link to a blogspot blog somebody advised as a good source for factual info. Somewhere in the updates the author mentions that the wounded are searched for in the hospitals by Basiji. In a LJ blog I read an interesting twist: the hospitals’ staff is ordered to admit the wounded, register their names and personal info, and then transfer them to the military hospitals; who knows if they would be ever returned to their families after that, and in what condition, if ever.
Tatyana: I don’t think that, but for Twitter, the protests would have died out. Nor did I say so. I merely wrote “If there were no way to tell the world what was happening, I believe they would be much more likely to lose heart.” And I also said that Twitter was one of many ways they are doing that. Therefore, what I’m saying is that Twitter helps them keep going because it is a means to communicate with the outside world.
And nowhere have I suggested that I know what the demonstrators actually want in the end, or that it resembles the American idea of a republican (small “r”) form of government, or other characteristics of America. My guess is that it does involve democracy, however, and some sort of liberty, in that what originally inflamed them is the fact that their votes were thrown away and election fraud was perpetrated on them, and that the candidate for whom they voted was in favor of relaxing some of the more Draconian aspects of the mullahs’ rule as it affects their daily life.
There is some strange miscommunication here, I’m afraid.
Nowhere I said that you “suggested that I know what the demonstrators actually want in the end, or that it resembles the American idea of a republican (small “r”) form of government, or other characteristics of America.”
I guess they do want democracy, and “wider openness to the West”, as many of the Iranian bloggers state. All I said is that their idea of it might be much different from ours.
In any case, I don’t think it’d involve welcoming back those Iranian Jews they chased out of the country, or normalizing relations with Israel.
Tatyana: Well, we’re in agreement there—I certainly don’t see normalizing relations with Israel as being in the cards. But not wanting to destroy Israel would be a step forward.
I continue to be amazed by how little our younger generations of Americans know about Iran and its history from antiquity on up to the present.
You mean they skipped over a huge revolution that turned into a woman-hating, gay-slaughtering mass of enthusiastically spreading oppression?
Golly, why on earth would they have skipped that to tell us how horrible the US is, and how great Woodstock was, and how no woman ever went to college before the 60s? (All things that actually happened to me– MAN did I piss them off when I pointed out both of my grandmothers were college educated and worked outside the home.)
As for history… *lol* Europe didn’t exist except for “Columbus bad” and “Crusades worse.” Seriously, pathetic.
I don’t recall if it’s been noted elsewhere on this site, but one huge problem the mullahs have – and it’s intertwined with twittering in a roundabout way – is the average age of Iranians today.
Due to various very stupid actions on the part of the mullahs over the past 30 years, 70 percent of the population is under the age of 30. This is out of approximately 70 million people, give or take.
They have their own “baby boom” coming of age, and in numbers that will dwarf the US baby boom, and probably have ramifications even larger than occurred in the US (1960’s radicalism and such).
Almost 3/4 of the Iranian population have been born and raised under the mullah’s iron rule and know nothing of any other kind of lifestyle.
The only thing they know of the US is what they’ve been told – namely that we are evil and seek to destroy them.
Yet, the US for decades has not acted in ways that reinforce that claim.
Eventually, even the slowest members of society will begin to question dogma when it’s not backed up with reality and the younger generation are the ones programmed to question authority.
There’s some biological impetus to reject authority and leave the nest, and when it’s expressed in large groups of a younger generation it’s going to be directed at whoever the most convenient authority figure is.
That authority is the system the mullahs have set up.
That younger population is likewise arguably far more technically savvy than older generations – and I suspect this is going to be true no matter what society you apply that issue to.
So, it’s not unusual for this generation to use *twitter* to support their defiance of authority, but if it had not been twitter it would have been something else.
I just don’t see this younger generation of Iranians wanting to live the way the older generation did, and if the mullahs bring in what amount to mercenaries to keep order, then it will only estrange the mullahs governing system even more from the average Iranian.
The best thing the US could do at the moment is simply voice moral support for the opposition and let them work through it themselves.
The guy leading the opposition is no saint (he supports Iran having nukes and was involved in their revolution years ago), but if he is successful in confronting the ruling system then it may eventually lead to greater relaxation between Iran and the rest of the world, and then HE’LL have to deal with that same under-30 generation of Iranians who are supporting him now and will demand greater changes.
So, we should just sit back with our popcorn and enjoy the show….
Scottie, I agree with you on the practical results of our considerations (that we should sit back and enjoy the show) – if not on all of the considerations itself.
Sonic Chamer here expressed all my muddled thought very eloquently here.