Change is happening, society is transforming and evolution is occurring all around us, whether you realize it or not. Sometimes it happens quietly, barely recognizable to those not directly involved, other times it reaches out, grabs hold of you and shakes you until you are forced to take notice. Well I have been shaken, along with much of the world, by the recent protests in Iran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the disputed election results.
The will of the Iranian people has been truly inspiring and the world is taking notice. Keep in mind I have no ties to Iran, know little of the country’s politics and have seemingly nothing to gain by the outcome of the protests. What is occurring over 7,000 miles away though should be considered nothing less than a political revolution and social evolution. Whenever a group of repressed people stand together to fight for undeniable universal rights, whenever violence is used to repress the voice of a people, whenever society rises up against the tyrant of injustice, everyone, young and old, should take notice, for we have everything to gain and so much to lose.
The political and social unrest seen recently in Iran is hardly a unique or isolated event. So it begs the question, why is Iran so special? Why are people taking notice? This is where the evolution comes in. Technology, even in its most primitive form, has served to bring people together and it is technology that will allow humankind to overcome the All Too Human.
The invention of sharpened tools allowed the earliest societies to form by allowing specialization of labor, i.e. hunters and gatherers. Telephones, automobiles, and airplanes, all served to make the world smaller, allow ideas to flow from place to place freely and quickly. Long has mankind struggled to free itself from the bonds of ignorance; technology has always been its greatest weapon. For the human race to advance, for universal truth to be revealed, ideas must be shared without restriction. This is the principle of enlightenment.
“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Nothing is required for this enlightenment, however, except freedom; and the freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters.”
Whenever a person is denied the right to express his ideas freely and speak of his own will, enlightenment cannot be attained. Throughout history, oppressive individuals have attempted to keep man in the dark by cutting off the alimentary canal of our universal existence, knowledge. A tyrant has many weapons at his disposal: guns, bombs and tanks to name a few; but none as deadly or destructive as their ability to restrict freedom of speech.
Genocide, human rights violations, election fraud, all made possible by the inability of the people to share information. The reason government violence is often successful is the fact that we, the rest of the world, are vaguely aware of its happening. Even if word gets to us of what is happening it still doesn’t seem real, we see no images; we assume it is much ado about nothing.
No longer is this the case though, no longer can the voice of the people be muted, thanks to social networking sites like Twitter, Youtube and Facebook. Silence, the tyrant’s main weapon has been stripped away, and in its place the loud cries for freedom, justice, and “typing” can be heard. Thanks to technology, protestors in Iran have been able to share their videos and stories of oppression, in real time. With a click of my mouse I can access thousands of tweets from Iranians detailing the brutality being inflicted upon them and the resilience of the people. Suddenly I am moved into action, how could this be taking place? How can freedom be denied like this?
The whole world over has read these tweets, seen these videos and been exposed first hand to what it takes to achieve real freedom. And to the world’s benefit, they care. Overwhelming support has “tweeted” in from people in America, Britain, Asia and all over the world. People who have no affiliation with Iran are attending demonstrations in their own country to show their support for brave people in the streets of Tehran. We have been able to see that while two countries may have hostile relations, such as the U.S. and Iran, the people of these countries do not. For in the end people are people, and the culture gap perhaps not as large as we had thought. When we watch videos of violence online we do not see Iranians suffering, we see people suffering, and that cannot be tolerated. The world has seen injustice, stood up and shouted, “Yes, we care!”.
One must think that events like the Holocaust would never had occurred if videos from concentration camps could have been posted on the Internet in real time or if messages of the mass genocide could have been spread around the web. Thanks to technology, the tape of oppression is being ripped from the mouth of justice.
Thus, this social revolution is evidence of the evolution of the human condition and spirit. Ideas are able to flow freely, enlightenment is occurring, and humankind is ascending to the pinnacle of its existence. Thanks to technology and sites like Twitter, we are now able to better combat the spread of ignorance. Universal truths are slowly being revealed, real justice is being spread, and man is overcoming the All Too Human.
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