Two days ago I stumbled on this video on Neda, the cute young being shot on the chest
and with her father crying helplessly became the poster child for the protest.
The scene was bizzare and someone managed to capture it in a video - was this all set up?
I hate to ponder on this question. Given the desperation of man... one cannot take anything
for granted. But anyway for the moment let beleive that it really happend.
(watch 10 incredible youtube videos on Iran)
I posted a comment in minekey'
The video power of Neda will be more powerful than the atom bomb that blew
apart Hiroshima" at the minekey and got some sane responses. Eric Pari said
"It's a tragic event, but I don't think it will be more powerful than
Hiroshima, not for the western world at least. Medias flood us with
people dying everyday and even if the death of a young woman is tragic
it just cannot be as powerful as a whole city blown away in a fraction
of a second"
And I responded saying " Oh yes, human life/lives have very little meaning anyway... But he
power of the camera seems to exceed that of a gun... Having said that
the information overload and the attention issues may numb us over a
period of time... Well that when civilization will reach its nadir"
Larry responded saying "What a horrible thing to happen!! It would appear that she may not
even have been part of the demonstration but only an innocent
bystander. Sadly in a country such as Iran, which has a long history
of human rights abuses, demonstrating against the government is
guaranteed to get people killed. What an absolutely beautiful woman,
who should have lived another 60 years. It would be great if this
event did lead to changes, but I doubt that it will ever have the
impact of Hiroshima, one of the most horrible acts ever perpetuated by the west in the
history of mankind. When I saw the video of Neda, I almost threw up,
or passed out, because in addition to the horror of her death, it
brought back seeing my wife lying on her back with blood coming from
her face 3 weeks ago (she lived). To be there and watch that poor
woman die, and nothing anyone could do to help her is terrible.
Oh yes, with so much of imagery floating around the feeling of the viewed gets numbed thereby
allowing the next imagery to wipe out this one, proabably a demo on augmented reality can wipeout Neda from the mind.
I read this article inthe NYT "The End of the Beginning" by the oped columinst Roger Cohen
Mr N Ram in his tweets calls this "hyperanalytical, high-falutin, muddled op-ed piece" but
there some interesting points that I want to take from Mr Roger and present it to you out here.
1 Iran’s 1979 revolution took a full year to gestate. The uprising of 2009
has now ended its first phase. But the volatility ushered in by the
June 12 ballot-box putsch of Iran’s New Right is certain to endure over
the coming year. The Islamic Republic has been weakened.
2. All the fudge that allowed a modern society to coexist with a theocracy
inspired by an imam occulted in the 9th century has been swept away,
leaving two Irans at war.
3. Iran has squandered a huge opportunity to bridge the gulf between the
regime and an increasingly sophisticated population thirsting for
greater freedom. A vibrant election campaign opened a door. It has been
slammed shut.
4. The first is that the supreme leader’s post — the apex of the structure
conceived by the revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — has
been undermined. The keystone of the arch is now loose.
5. The hypocritical but effective contract that bound society has been broken.
The regime never had active support from more than 20 percent of the
population. But acquiescence was secured by using only highly targeted
repression (leaving the majority free to go about its business), and by
giving people a vote for the president every four years.
6. A faction loyal to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
fiercely nationalistic and mystically religious, has made a power grab
so bold that fissures in the establishment have become canyons.
7. They have their way for now, but the
cost to Iran has been immense, and the rearguard action led by Ali
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a father of the revolution, and Mir Hussein
Moussavi, the opposition leader, will be intense.
8. Iran’s international rhetoric, effective in Ahmadinejad’s first
term, will be far less so now. Every time he talks of justice and
ethics, his two favorite words, video will roll of Neda Agha Soltan’s
murder and the regime’s truncheon-wielding goons at work. The president
may prove too much of a liability to preserve.
9. at the very peak of its post-revolution population boom, the
regime has lost a whole new generation — and particularly the women of
that generation — by failing to adapt.
Thirty years from the
revolution, the core question of this election was: Must Iran stand
apart from the forces of economic and political globalization in order
to preserve its Islamic theocracy?
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