Two Lessons from the Iran Elections
For my last blog entry, a personal decision on how much any blog really makes a difference, I wanted to take a more serious note than the last few entries. There are two key things about the Iranian elections that I believe we are looking at the wrong way. Some will disagree, that would be good if we could discuss it here or anywhere.
The first thing we look at the wrong way is the election itself. In the institutions in Iran there was a predetermined winner of the election and, if someone else had won, the policies of the government would not have changed. This was NOT an election about differing political agendas or a debate on freedom. The mullahs in Iran rule the country and have ever since they deposed the Shah. They will continue to run the country and there is little dissent or question of that in the short or long term. The demonstrations after the election were not any different in Iranian terms than the challenge of Al Gore to the election in 2000. Thats just the way they challenge close elections, and it isn’t clear that it was even close, it was just disappointing so people protested in the streets. The police response to that may have been excessive, although there was much property damage and violence in the original protests so a brutal police response was ensured. So. in the end, we once again have watched an international event unfold that was predictable and culturally rather insignificant through our lens to recreate the revolution. It is actually more compelling that we never reacted this way when the Iraqis actually tried to overthrow the government after the first Gulf war, were beaten, shot. imprisoned and gassed,by the thousands, to no outrage at all. Which leads to the second thing we look at the wrong way.
Twitter does NOT report the news. Facebook reports gossip. It is social media and the telephone game applies. Every story changes and gets worse or better based on who retweets it. It is not an accurate portrayal of foreign events. The Iranian government shut down social media because it is not factual or because some of the facts were embarassing, no matter, it is still not “reporting”. Pictures of injured “insurgents” were substituted for stories on how they came to be injured. Did they storm they police station? Did they threaten the Ministryof Science? Did they hurl rocks? Did they antagonize the guards? Were the police just overzealous because they could be?
Some of the back and forth was retarded, single twitterers talking like they were part of a huge insurgency, it was protests and the demonstrations arranged by the other side became just as big over three days. This was not a revolution, thousands weren’t killed and imprisoned, it wasn’t a pogrom, many of the key protest leaders were arrested and released, the opposition leader was never imprisoned or detained, yet, we had a green day to support the cause.
Do I support the Iranian government, no. Do I think what went on the last few days made any difference in that. No. But it did prove, like in our election, that if enough people play telephone that the facts become inconsequential, and we are fast approaching a society that is completly mindless, driven by the story of the day as repeated with three clicks on the Twitter app, fact or fiction. This seems a dangerous wakeup call for all of those who consider what happened in Iran, and I promise I have seen this in print, the same as the techniques used by the Obama election team.
140 character attention spans are not good, and backyard fence gossip is fun, but not news reporting.
Just a different view.
So, while I look forward to an intelligent and intense discussion on this topic, it will be my last in the social/political arena. As one of my favorite writers said (intentionally paraphrased): Goodbye, and thanks for all the fishes…….
I guess I could have seen this coming from the last post. But you can still run your outpost as a watering hole for friends. I hope you reconsider, you do add value to the conversation even if we rarely agree.
Points above have merit, though I think this was a somewhat bigger deal than you represent above. It’s hard to imagine events on this scale happening in the normal course of politics in Iran: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/world/middleeast/18iran.html?_r=1&hp
As for Twitter’s triviality, my only criticism is that it’s important to recognize that the historical separation between the report and the reported does not apply with twitter. Iranians shared their perception, other picked it up and echoed it, and at some point the perception effected the reality. This is a loop that happens in conventional media, perhaps, but over much longer timeframes, and among a much narrower group of highly influential people.
This can be good or bad, my point is simply that it is.
Thanks for the feedback Mike, this is an important post to me. I probably downplayed the significance of the actual events because I really believe the two sides are a mirror not a prism. The impact of Twitter, et al, is to accentuate one point of view, Christiane Amanpour said it best today, the US doesn’t understand what any of these actions mean because after thirty years on the outside we have no context. Often in the past, as recently as the expectations we had of the Iraqi exiles, we pick a side when neither is good. For the first time President Obama has impressed me with his silence. The reflection aspect of Twitter is to constantly reinforce a point of view, as alternatives get lost in the crowd dynamic. It is the ultimate outcome of sound bite training, but I fear facts are not required to generate belief or action.
As this is an important discussion on both topics to me please feel free to share it.
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