Over the last few days I've obviously been pretty struck by all the goings on in Iran.
Despite the awful reality of a rigged vote and the horror of the violence and death that has resulted, the people of Iran demonstrating in their thousands has been inspirational. 'We' in the 'West' so often perceive Iran and its neighbouring countries as part of that unhelpfully termed group, "the axis of evil".
What's particularly terrible about that phrase, is that it dehumanises the people and promotes generalisation. What the demonstrations have shown us, is that despite the aggressive rhetoric of the Iranian leader, the people, en masse, are fighting against it.
Whether or not they are successful in annulling the result of the election, they have ensured sympathy from the international community, their plight giving rise to the usual raft of nonsensical but well intentioned gestures (e.g. turning your twitter avatar green!)
Also interesting though, is that it appears twitter has played an important role in coordinating the demonstrations and providing a means of getting pictures, video and audio out of the country (thus inviting this aforementioned sympathy) in the midst of a media blackout - no censorship on the old information super highway!
Quite to what extent this role has been exaggerated it's hard to tell but perhaps for the first time we have an answer to the question, "Social Networks? - What's the point?
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