A dream of Iran...
I had a dream last week about Iran and the United States, and it scared me out of a deep sleep. I purposely wiped my mind clean of the dream's details. I am powerless over the events in this country and in Iran; I can only do what I can to make myself be in the service of God and humanity a little bit more each day. For now, that involves working my recovery program so I'm not zoned out on food, making as much of my daily life as possible be acts of prayer, and to make sure that people are aware of the situations that befall us on this Earth because we are not looking for spiritual solutions to our problems. That's all I can do. I'm just, as a friend has said so often, "another bozo on the bus."
But God obviously wants me to participate in this business of being a world citizen. While I was working on this post, I've been checking my Twitter stream. After clicking on a link to a story, I read this blog post from The Daily Dish:
"My next door neighbor is an Iranian immigrant who came here in 1977. He just received a SAT phone call from his brother in Tehran who reports that the rooftops of nighttime Tehran are filled with people shouting 'Allah O Akbar' in protest of the government and election results. The last time he remembers this happening is in 1979 during the Revolution. Says the sound of tens of thousands on the rooftops is deafening right now."
Earlier this afternoon, I re-tweeted (re-posted, for those who are unfamiliar with TwitterTalk) the following:
ALL internet & mobile networks are cut. We ask everyone in Tehran to go onto their rooftops and shout ALAHO AKBAR in protest #IranElection
Another bozo on the bus, remember. Yeah, one of many. As it turns out, that tweet went all around the world, resulting in thousands of Iranians up on their rooftops, shouting:
13 Jun 2009 07:14 pm
The Revolution Will Be Twittered (Angela's aside:I LOVE this reference to Gil Scott Heron's song from the 70s, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised!):
Mock not. As the regime shut down other forms of communication, Twitter survived. With some remarkable results. Those rooftop chants that were becoming deafening in Tehran? A few hours ago, this concept of resistance was spread by a twitter message.
(It's at night in Iran, so some of the images are difficult to make out. But you know they are protesting.)
Hmmm. Here's the rest of the blog post from the The Daily Dish by Andrew Sullivan:
That a new information technology could be improvised for this purpose so swiftly is a sign of the times. It reveals in Iran what the Obama campaign revealed in the United States. You cannot stop people any longer. You cannot control them any longer. They can bypass your established media; they can broadcast to one another; they can organize as never before.
It's increasingly clear that Ahmadinejad and the old guard mullahs were caught off-guard by this technology and how it helped galvanize the opposition movement in the last few weeks. That's why they didn't see what those of us surgically attached to modems could spot a mile away: something was happening in Iran. If Drum is right, the mullahs believed their own propaganda about victory until reality hit them so hard so fast, they miscalculated badly and over-reached.
The key force behind this is the next generation, the Millennials, who elected Obama in America and may oust Ahmadinejad in Iran. They want freedom; they are sick of lies; they enjoy life and know hope.
This generation will determine if the world can avoid the apocalypse that will come if the fear-ridden establishments continue to dominate global politics, motivated by terror, armed with nukes, and playing old but now far too dangerous games. This generation will not bypass existing institutions and methods: look at the record turnout in Iran and the massive mobilization of the young and minority vote in the US. But they will use technology to displace old modes and orders. Maybe this revolt will be crushed. But even if it is, the genie has escaped this Islamist bottle.
Maybe that's what we're hearing on the rooftops of Tehran: the sound of the next revolution.
Allah O Akbar!
No one, not even the powerful, can thwart God's Will! Ya Baha'ul'Abha!
The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.
(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 250)
But God obviously wants me to participate in this business of being a world citizen. While I was working on this post, I've been checking my Twitter stream. After clicking on a link to a story, I read this blog post from The Daily Dish:
"My next door neighbor is an Iranian immigrant who came here in 1977. He just received a SAT phone call from his brother in Tehran who reports that the rooftops of nighttime Tehran are filled with people shouting 'Allah O Akbar' in protest of the government and election results. The last time he remembers this happening is in 1979 during the Revolution. Says the sound of tens of thousands on the rooftops is deafening right now."
Earlier this afternoon, I re-tweeted (re-posted, for those who are unfamiliar with TwitterTalk) the following:
ALL internet & mobile networks are cut. We ask everyone in Tehran to go onto their rooftops and shout ALAHO AKBAR in protest #IranElection
Another bozo on the bus, remember. Yeah, one of many. As it turns out, that tweet went all around the world, resulting in thousands of Iranians up on their rooftops, shouting:
13 Jun 2009 07:14 pm
The Revolution Will Be Twittered (Angela's aside:I LOVE this reference to Gil Scott Heron's song from the 70s, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised!):
Mock not. As the regime shut down other forms of communication, Twitter survived. With some remarkable results. Those rooftop chants that were becoming deafening in Tehran? A few hours ago, this concept of resistance was spread by a twitter message.
(It's at night in Iran, so some of the images are difficult to make out. But you know they are protesting.)
Hmmm. Here's the rest of the blog post from the The Daily Dish by Andrew Sullivan:
That a new information technology could be improvised for this purpose so swiftly is a sign of the times. It reveals in Iran what the Obama campaign revealed in the United States. You cannot stop people any longer. You cannot control them any longer. They can bypass your established media; they can broadcast to one another; they can organize as never before.
It's increasingly clear that Ahmadinejad and the old guard mullahs were caught off-guard by this technology and how it helped galvanize the opposition movement in the last few weeks. That's why they didn't see what those of us surgically attached to modems could spot a mile away: something was happening in Iran. If Drum is right, the mullahs believed their own propaganda about victory until reality hit them so hard so fast, they miscalculated badly and over-reached.
The key force behind this is the next generation, the Millennials, who elected Obama in America and may oust Ahmadinejad in Iran. They want freedom; they are sick of lies; they enjoy life and know hope.
This generation will determine if the world can avoid the apocalypse that will come if the fear-ridden establishments continue to dominate global politics, motivated by terror, armed with nukes, and playing old but now far too dangerous games. This generation will not bypass existing institutions and methods: look at the record turnout in Iran and the massive mobilization of the young and minority vote in the US. But they will use technology to displace old modes and orders. Maybe this revolt will be crushed. But even if it is, the genie has escaped this Islamist bottle.
Maybe that's what we're hearing on the rooftops of Tehran: the sound of the next revolution.
Allah O Akbar!
No one, not even the powerful, can thwart God's Will! Ya Baha'ul'Abha!
The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.
(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 250)
Consider! The people of the East and the West were in the utmost strangeness. Now to what a high degree they are acquainted with each other and united together! How far are the inhabitants of Persia from the remotest countries of America! And now observe how great has been the influence of the heavenly power, for the distance of thousands of miles has become identical with one step! How various nations that have had no relations or similarity with each other are now united and agreed through this divine potency! Indeed to God 103 belongs power in the past and in the future! And verily God is powerful over all things!
(Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of the Divine Plan, p. 102)
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