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NedaAghaSoltan
Middle East Erupts: Orchestra Seat to the Revolution
By Donna Trussell - Politics DailyIf the powers that be had realized the global implications of the Internet when it was invented, they probably would have found some way to kill it. Take a look at these early pages and the very first World Wide Web site. Then take a look at this CNN footage of the intrepid Ben Wedeman in Benghazi. In just two decades, the earth has shifted. I suspect the 1989 slaughter of unarmed protesters in Tiananmen Square could not happen today, or at least not without severe international repercussions. Same with Rwanda. One wonders how much sooner Hitler and Stalin might have been stopped if the ...
Mobs and Democracy: The Facebook-Twitter-YouTube Revolution
By Donna Trussell - Politics DailyYou may think you've seen this movie before. Just two summers ago, in fact, in Iran. Never say never, but I'm saying never. You've never seen anything like what is unfolding today in Egypt. Just when it seemed humankind was doomed (pick your poison: pandemic, climate change, famine, drought, nuclear war) up pop Tunisia and Egypt. Overnight, it seems, the world has entered a new era. As The New York Times put it: It was a spectacle that would have been unthinkable less than two decades ago, when Middle Eastern governments strictly censored any subversive images. Now, it seems, all ...
'Anonymous' Captured Neda's Death, and Now the Polk Award
By Donna Trussell - Politics DailyIn Farsi her name means "voice." Almost instantaneously, screengrabs of 26-year-old student Neda Agha-Soltan, shot through the heart on June 20, 2009, by the Iranian regime's hired guns, became the face of a movement. So powerful was the 40-second video of Neda dying before our eyes, the regime tried to denounce it as a fake. When that didn't work, they blamed Neda's death on unarmed protesters and the CIA. ...
Enough With Lament: Why This Decade Should Be Celebrated
By Andrew Clark - Politics DailyNow that the eve of a new decade is upon us, the pundits are looking back at the 2000s, and they're judging it a train wreck. Time Magazine heralded the goodbye to the Decade From Hell, calling it the "most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post-World War II era," going so far as to create a slide show titled "The 10 Worst Things About the Worst Decade Ever." In a clever wordplay, the Washington Post lamented that the decade should not be called the Aughts, but the "Oughts," in memoriam of all the achievements that "ought" to have happened in the 2000s, ...
Neda Soltan, Aung San Suu Kyi, Natalia Estemirova: Justice Takes a Vacay
By Alex Wagner - Politics DailyLike a lot of Americans, I'll be taking some vacation time in August to kick back and relax. Maybe some sun, some sand, some swimming -- and, um, definitely some beers. Even our own president has shown his belief in beer as balm for times of stress. (Personally, I would have killed to hear Joe Biden pontificate over the brew summit -- talk about a non-sequitur jamfest!)Anyway, recent actions around the world show that I won't be the only one on the beach wondering whether that's sand or Cool Ranch powder on the Doritos I'm eating. Looks like those fuddy-duddy stalwarts, Justice and Rule of ...
Iran's Protests: Why 2009 Won't Be a Repeat of 1999
By Ria Misra - Politics DailyTen years ago Thursday, the world watched as students from Tehran University in Iran took to the streets in protest. It seemed to many as though history were repeating itself when protests -- which seemed to have been cooling in the face of a government crackdown -- began anew in Iran, both in commemoration of 1999 and in reaction to the recent election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. CNN estimates that Thursday's protest at Tehran University had 2,000-3,000 people when a clash with the state militia began. The protests in 1999 lasted a week. The dissidents were jailed and some were ...
Ahmadinejad, Neda, and the Politics of Misdirection
By Ria Misra - Politics DailyMahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered a public investigation into the death of Neda Soltan -- but don't expect a turnaround from claims that the state militia had nothing to do with it. "Interference by enemies of Iran" was among the culprits that Ahmadinejad cited, as well as "propaganda by the foreign media," and -- according to Iran's ambassador to Mexico -- maybe the CIA. The timing of Ahmadinejad's sudden interest in Soltan's death is no coincidence, nor is it likely the result of the incumbent stumbling upon the video while browsing YouTube -- it comes just as officials finish their recount ...
Before Neda, There Was Soraya M.
By Carl M. Cannon - Politics DailyNeda Agha-Soltan is the lovely 26-year-old woman who has become the martyred face of the Iranian people. A lover of pop music, she was heading home from a music lesson last week when the car she was riding in was stuck in traffic caused by the demonstrations in Tehran. ...
The Many Faces of Dissent: Women in Iran's Election
By Ria Misra - Politics DailyDonna correctly says that dissent in Iran has been given a new face -- and it's a woman's face. But it would be more accurate to say that dissent in Iran has been given many new faces. Well before the video of Neda Agha Soltan's tragic death spread around the world, images of female protesters -- often young, often in hijab and wearing green armbands or face paint -- were common. It's no coincidence. Women turned out in huge numbers both on the campaign trail and at the polls for Mir Hossein Mousavi. Now it's those same groups of women who have largely been disenfranchised. ...
Dying for Freedom
By Donna Trussell - Politics DailyNeda Agha Soltan's path is not well trod, but it's clear. These days the names Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are rolling off of everyone's tongues. MLK and Ghandi are indeed the stars of nonviolent resistance, but a more apt comparison might be Nazi Germany's Sophie Scholl. ...
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