It was 3:30 in the morning June 19th when I started writing this. I was curled up under my blankets in bed with my Blackberry - I was refreshing twitter to get the latest news about the post election rally's. I felt helpless and ironic all at once; comfortable in my bed but gripped by the reality unfolding across oceans from me.
I am overcome with emotion still - I am sharing a minute of this persons life, their real life, happening right then and right now. The twitter posts (I am still too new to twitter to call it a tweet without feeling like a complete tool) have a time marker...half a minute ago it says. I picture this student on the other side of the technology and share the urgency.
I care about these people! I want them to do well, I admire them, I want them to...survive. One person using twitter was off the air for over 20 hours and other users began to air concerns. Collectively we care about these complete strangers and we want them to be free and to live. The two twitter users that I am following the most inside Iran also cause me to worry when many hours go by with no news.
We realize we are more the same than different. The people of Iran want what we want in the US. Freedom and to have our leaders truly representing our needs, interests, and concerns.
Imagine if online social networking is what changes the world. I have learned more about Iran in a week than I have learned my whole life. I want them to do well. They are heroes.
Since I wrote the above post it is now a few days later - June 21st, 2009. We have seen real horrors and murder unfolding before us through our computers and televisions. Few in the world will be the same after this experience; especially those living....and dying in Iran.
There are haters on the web complaining about the Internet traffic devoted to this and proclaiming our utter lameness as Americans in becoming interested in the Iranian situation but not having a clue about the region prior to this. To them I say..."So What!" Honestly it is better late than never that our ethnocentric, individualistic, and attention deficit disordered nation actually notices that there is a world outside of our shores. I am sorry it took this terrible event and that people suffering and reaching out to us through the web is what opened our eyes.
I really am hopeful that this opportunity to understand that we are more the same than different in this world will not be lost.
I think it would be wonderful if we build on this shared global experience and collect more stories and images from other places of both joy and pain.