Commenting on Iran

For those of you that don't know, Iran is having a huge thing going on right now. The people are really pissed off that their votes weren't counted (they claim) and have taken to the streets in the hundreds of thousands, at least.

Being a numbers guy, I took a quick look at the statistical evidence to see if there was any merit to the protestors claims. According to the official Government results, Ahmedinejad won by about 63-32 over his reformist rival Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

The protestors obviously thought different, so I did some number crunching:

Apparnetly, Mir-Hossein Mousavi isnt exactly a Persian, but a minority called Azeri Turk. In his home district, it's almost entirely Azeri Turk, and in the history of Iranian elections nobody has ever lost their own home district.

Not only did Mousavi lose among Azeri Turks, he lost his home district. This would be equivalent to Obama losing the vote in Chicago, or losing the African-American vote nationwide. It is simply unrealistic to this that this is plausible. Thus, I throw my hat in with those who believe that the election was a total sham.

Like most repressive governments, the Iranian government has sharply curtailed what media outlets could publish, restricted journalists, and essentially censored most information. But this didnt stop the Iranian people...

Like never before, they've been using YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. to get their message out. The Huffington Post actually has an incredible LiveBlog with updates by the minute. Make sure to go to their last page to start with to get everything thats been done during the course of the protests.

Now, to get into the blogging program that IES offers, I had to write a creative writing piece. Take a look at what I wrote it on, ironically enough, but here it is word for word from a month ago:

The Internet, especially blogging, will soon become the greatest tool for the spread of Democracy the world has ever seen. A powerful statement, I know, but I truly believe it will become reality. As soon as I understood how blogging worked, my imagination soared with the possibilities. Blogging is like no communication medium ever invented before it. The entry requirements are about $80/yr and an Internet-ready computer. In no other time of human history has mass communication been available at so little cost to so many people. The "little guy" can finally be heard.

We are seeing incredible growth being made before our eyes. Think about life a dozen years ago in 1997. Could anyone imagine what's going on today with the Internet? A perfect example, and the primary focus of this piece, is Twitter, a "micro-blogging" service that's taken the US [and many other countries] by storm. Essentially, it allows you to make tiny blog posts [140 characters, text-message sized] that are then forwarded to anyone that chooses to "follow" you, either to their computer or their cell phone. They in turn can forward it to their "followers", and if the information is important, it will obviously spread like wildfire. This allows one person to have a bigger voice than a gigantic network like CNN. Let's take a look at what real-world accomplishments Twitter has made occur in it's few short years of existence:

Firstly, Twitter has immensely helped to cure Malaria. In the recent race to 1 million followers, both Ashton Kutcher and CNN pledged to donate 10,000 nets if they won and 1,000 nets if they lost. A friendly competition to get the most friends became a superb avenue for fighting a vicious disease. Furthermore, other celebrities joined in and donated their own 10,000 nets. For all we know, Twitter might destroy the scourge that is malaria once and for all.

Secondly, protesters have used Twitter to great effect against authoritarian governments. In countries ranging from Georgia to Moldova, where many of the young people are unhappy with the government, they used Twitter to communicate the times and dates of protests, and were able to turn out impressive crowds.

Finally, it allows the rich, powerful, and/or famous/political people to circumvent the classic model of having a spokesman and the media, and directly communicate with their fans or constituents. Politicians in Washington have taken to Twitter en masse. While many of them have posted some pretty silly "Tweets" from their cell phones, it's also been used as a way to communicate with their constituents directly, allowing for people to get to know their representatives on a more personal level. For actors and other famous people, they can post exactly what they want, and circumvent the horror of the tabloids to tell their fans what they're up to.

These are just the accomplishments in a few short years. Let's think about the future...In under a minute, Twitter allows you to communicate with people across the world. Facebook already has over 200 million users and is still growing quickly. There is no reason why Twitter can't obtain an even larger following, as Internet access grows worldwide. Dictators will have a hard time keeping genocide under wraps when any person can yell about it to the world. I see a far brighter future in store for the world, so long as we don't nuke ourselves or destroy the planet with global warming first.

Am I prescient or what hehe. When I apply for some sort of International Relations job, Iäm so going to show them that I wrote this only month before it started becoming reality.