I am Neda: Revolution, Social Media, and the Tiananmen Square Connection

[hethatishere]

...She lies in the Tehran street with her headscarf half-off, blood pooling around her jeans and white sneakers.

"Don't be afraid, Neda dear, don't be afraid," a white-haired man says desperately in Persian. Another man presses on her chest, trying to keep her alive.

Scarlet blood gushes from her nose and mouth and courses across her pale face. Men

Comments

[sxoa]

Its not just the images of the protests from 1989 in Tiananmen Square but the protests themselves. The current generation of students and young adults in China (excluding Hong Kong) knows essentially nothing about the protests. University students when asked who have even heard of it say things like wasn't it for economic reforms or against communism or things of that ilk. Incidentally most of the economic reforms in China were already begun with the death of Mao, before the Tiananmen Square protests. They really were mostly about the democracy stuff if I remember right.

Comparing the two accurately right now though is not really possible. The Tiananmen Square protests happened over 20 years ago whereas the Iranian protests are happening right now (and the Neda's death happened less than a week ago). Eventually the Tiananmen Square protests were turned into the Tiananmen Square Massacre when the army stepped in with guns and hundreds died. They were unsuccessful at bringing real change to the country. We have yet to see where things are going to go in Iran. And where they will be 20 years from now.

Once we see where things go it is *possible* that she will become "our tankman" but I am HIGHLY skeptical of this outcome for two reasons.
1: Attention span: With the fast pace of Internet culture today even something as poignant as this is likely to be swept aside by tomorrow's next big thing. I mean we're poised to have an honest-to-god nuclear war on the Korean peninsula (again unlikely but who knows when you have crackpots on both sides with fingers on the buttons).
2: Informational divide: These things are in our face all the time because we are Internet users with varying degrees of net-savvy and interest in world events. Likewise we associate with similar people. But this skews are point of view on what is "normal" dramatically. What percentage of the world uses the Internet? Lets see, quick Google search... 23.8%. But wait! you say, its also in the mainstream media now as well. But the mainstream media also has a flood of other information that people are being exposed to, and many people n the US just don't care that much about one dead Iranian women when there's important things like which teenage starlet was caught drunk this week vying for their attention. And the mainstream media suffers from the same sort of attention span issues. As more news comes up "old news" is swept away. Neda isn't on the front page of the BBC anymore. Admittedly there is an Iranian story and in that there is a link in the side bar to an article about her, but how long is that going to be there?

Its possible though, I'm just not holding my breath.