Iran, Independence Day and the Limits of Online Politics
Cross-posted on techPresident
For now, the nascent revolution in Iran seems to have stalled. With its leaders in hiding and the government trumpeting “confessions” from organizers and journalists, I can only imagine how Iranians hoping for change must feel. For sympathetic outsiders, the dominant emotion is helpless frustration, since we can’t DO anything to help, regardless of how many videos we watch or tweets we post. Even if we could act directly, we’d only provide the regime with more fuel for its campaign to pin the protests on outside agitators.
The problem is, of course, that the government in Iran has access to more than just rhetorical ammunition: they have men carrying rifles with real bullets. For all of the potential of the internet to change political communications, it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of power, which a philosopher of note (Chairman Mao) once said comes from the barrel of a gun. As Katrin Verclas asked after one too many techno-utopic presentations at last week’s Personal Democracy Forum, has the speaker been to North Korea lately?
4 comments July 5th, 2009 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us
