Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week and a half, you know about the unrest in Iran due to the controversial election last Saturday. Parallels have been drawn to the Iranian Revolution thirty years prior, and the protests in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago. With the Iranian state ban on international media, we are starting to see the impact of social networking websites as information sources, as many Iranians are documenting their experiences and fears on Twitter, and the major news networks are airing those blurbs. With the firsthand accounts of so many Iranians, plus the suddenly-public death of Neda, this is probably the most personal and real that the news has been for the global community.
For the first time that I can remember, the news has faces. The story is from people with names who are witnessing the atrocities firsthand, and they are bringing us along with them. Part of me is furious at the violence and repression, but among all the tragedy, there is cause for celebration. Despite the fact that the Iranian state has banned all foreign journalists, and restricts all their own media to the state-run press, the stories are still being told. Word is still getting out from Iran to the rest of the world. They are showing us the protests through their posts on Twitter and their cell phone videos. The citizen as journalist has never been so prominent.
Please keep the Iranian people in your thoughts and prayers. They are not alone.
