erosdiscordia
cutting the other edge
Youth of a Nation
Jun 17th
I’ve put aside my graduate research into youth movements and the media, to watch the real thing.
Sitting in my university library, my back to the musty, Cold-War-smelling books. In front of me is a computer, opened to about 50 Firefox tabs. I can’t imagine that I’m alone in this setup. Students have a well-deserved reputation for fanning this type of revolutionary flame. And while, at 30, I might be teetering on the “youth” line, my circumstances have pushed me into mind-bendingly meta territory.
See, I study people like myself, right now. Like you, reading this. Like the kids we’re watching in Iran. There’s a magical alchemy in the interrelationships between mass movements, the era’s available media, and the effects of both on authoritarian regimes. I’ve felt for many years that it’s an understudied intersection. Aside from well-documented conflagrations in the past, the traditional media and its consumers have dismissed the political outlook and motivations of younger people.
There’s a disconnect: the stirrings and grumblings of young folks are seen as generic, transient rebelliousness; but when that discontent flares into revolt, people seem surprised.
And even now, the whole Iran-media thing is viewed as a sudden trend—Twitter Is Upon Us.
But passionate kids have always reached for whatever alternative media is there. This time, we just happen to have one that works better than The Media.
Tehran’s Green Zone
Jun 16th
Flickr user DD/MM/YYYY:
“My frustration was that if we wait for the time to be right, it will never come and be less likely to be able to come.
“From Valiasr to Vanak, to Parkway and on to Tajrish the roads were filled with people showing peace signs and marching in silence. “Your hands are your slogan”, said those with fingers on their lips, occasionally hushing the crowd.
“It was an incredible feeling seeing a sea of people and hearing only a quiet hum of voices.”
photo uploaded to Flickr by DD/MM/YYYY
News Isn’t Dead.
Jun 16th
Have you ever seen this in your home?
No?
That’s because you live in a free country, and someone else has done your fighting for you.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Committee to Protect Journalists
Tehran Protests
Jun 15th
I’ve been tangentally following public opinion in Iran for a few years now, an offshoot of the whole International Affairs grad-school-immersion thing.
While the area isn’t my specialty, its demographic situation is fascinating. I’m particularly interested in countries that have seen, or have potential to see, large youth movements. Two-thirds of Iran’s population is under 25, born since the Revolution in 1979. What perspective does that enormous cohort have on the clerics who choose their country’s path–and therefore, their futures?
Is that what we’re seeing now?
There have been stirrings of frustration for some time. Economic and political freedoms are going to matter more to the young, who have less to lose in conflicts like this, and more to gain from social change. People who a month ago might have denied any interest in protesting the government, find themselves turned into ideological soldiers.
It becomes a question of what they are armed with, psychologically speaking; and how much their opponents still recognize their humanity.
When conservatives in any country target the media itself, attempting to break the free movement of information, it can make citizens who remember recent moves towards modernization wonder what they will lose next. This goes double for those old enough to remember the Westernization tendencies of the Shah.
The Iranian people might choose conservatism for the same set of reasons that many societies do–feelings of nationalist pride, a desire to protect or advance their traditional culture, a perception of outside threat. And I do agree that the belligerence of the U.S. towards Iran in recent years may be married to Iran’s choice of President–a mutual relationship.
But the Iranian people have to decide for themselves if attempting to stay still, or move counter to modernization, is really in their best interests. Can a compromise be struck between preserving their distinct culture, and their young population’s needs for new opportunities? I’m afraid the kids are having their say right now…I am afraid of the answer they’ll receive.
Some alternative perspectives…
BBC’s Iran Elections Special Report page
Fark.com’s latest Iran thread
Sadly, No!’s Iran post
Huffington Post Liveblogging
photo uploaded to Flickr by .faramarz
This summer…
Jun 13th
“No Man’s Land”, 2001
May 30th
Rarely has a movie knocked me on my ass quite like this one.
Set in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the civil war in 1993, it follows two enemy soldiers, Ciki and Nino, who become trapped together in a trench between battle lines. Ciki’s friend has been booby trapped by Nino’s side, the Serbs: he is laying on a bouncing bomb, which will explode if he moves, and Nino can’t disarm it. The two enemies must watch over him until help comes in the form of UN troops—if it does come.
Branko Djuric, who plays Ciki, was incredibly easy to watch. He has a sort of dangerous innocence, and his mobile facial expressions add almost a second dialogue to his part. I found it difficult to look away from the screen, and not just because the movie’s in subtitles—I didn’t want to miss one moment of the nonverbal interaction of the actors.
“No Man’s Land” won Bosnia an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Director Danis Tanovic takes a well-used plot device—enemies thrown together in unexpected intimacy—and a simple stage-set backdrop, and transcends them both with a vengeance. The film drops violence, humor, satire, horror, and pathos, with no warning, building in the viewer a raw and incredible emotion.
The characters are extremely human in a way that stings. The shots are close up; you feel trapped right there with them. No punches will be pulled; but you’re alive enough to take them.
Many reviewers of this movie focus on its portrayal of the absurdities of war, with the two soldiers as symbols of the entire Yugoslav conflict. It affected me more directly—I saw it as a reflection of the ridiculousness of interpersonal hatreds, of how arbitrary and yet intractable they can be.
But the best aspect of the movie is that it avoids the tendency of a typical war film to either shy away into abstraction and analysis, or numb itself with bloodspill and spectacle. Here, themes take a backseat to reality, just as in life. The bullets are less important than the pain, both emotional and physical, that they cause. Movies like “No Man’s Land” are mirrors, showing us a vital humanity that we all have, dangerously, in common.
First real iTouch post
May 22nd
I’d written a post on my friend’s iTouch back on Inauguration Day, just to see what I thought. Would the touch keyboard be totally obnoxious? Would the whole thing feel like a bulky, or conversely flimsy, POS? I knew I needed something of the sort—I had no PDA at all, and only an older, used Nano in my car for portable music fun. But I wasn’t going to spend $400 without trying one out. I was surprised back in January, by how much I loved the little thing. And the wait since then, as I slowly accumulated the money to buy one (thanks financial aid!), has only made this post sweeter to type.
This is one amazing hunk of plastic and glass.
I’ve got it in a simple leather flip case with a magnetic closure. As it will be in one of the pockets in The Purse Of Doom, I felt that a substantial screen cover would be wise. The only downside to this type of case is that it is slightly attention-consuming to use any letters or scroll bars near the edges, as the leather cover buts right up against them. Thumb-typers shouldn’t have that problem, but I’ve always been the hunt-and-peck sort, and my index fingers sometimes brush the leather when I type “P” or “Q”. The upside is that the iTouch saves my ass with an autocorrect feature. It will also add a period and a space when you double click the space bar, which is nice.
The first app I bought was Rejeweled, and I’m embarrassed to report that I spent about four hours playing it yesterday. Today was a bit more productive—I got a number of work apps, including the WordPress app that I’m using right now, which works like a charm.
I had to get “Don’t Panic” engraved on the back. Douglas Adams was my personal religion’s prophet. All these toys I grew up reading about in SF books and watching on futuristic shows—”Star Trek”‘s communicators, Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide—we now have ‘em. Call me a nerd, but I can’t wait to see what we do with them once the novelty wears off and people start pushing their limits.
A lot of times, I miss the boat technologically when it comes to the new toys. I tend to milk whatever tech I’ve got until it’s on it’s last legs. That’s how I wound up with a five-and-a-half-year-old Powerbook G4, no upgrades ever, running Panther. Why do I do it? I don’t know. I suppose because, despite all my hot air to the contrary, I’m really not that self-indulgent when it comes to buying myself things. Product of my upbringing: make things last. It feels ridiculous to buy things that I don’t absolutely need to survive—but that’s no way to live.
One of the things that most strongly reinforces my desire to live is being reminded that I don’t have to settle for just surviving. Would you laugh if I confessed that my new toy helps?