February 10th, 2010 — Tags: iran, Politics, revolution
It was 31 years ago tomorrow that the Iranian Revolution (sometimes called the second revolution) succeeded in sending the Shah of Iran out of the country. Thus began 3 decades in the history of Iran marked by war [1], violence, and hardships. For Iranians of my generation, those times will not be forgotten and for future generations they will be just another chapter in history.
I mentioned all this, to say that tomorrow Iranians are planning to go out and let out a collective scream against the current government and all things that has made daily life hard for them.
Let’s hope all those who go to make their voices heard come back home safe.
Related Posts:
- Failure of Social Media Apparent With Recent Iran Unrest
- Elections in Iran
Free Hoder (eventhough he’s kind of a jerk)
January 29th, 2010 — Tags: internet, iran, Politics, Video
Source: Search Engine
Done with with a touch of humour this piece brings up a few good points. All the more reason more people should subscribe to Search Engine podcasts.
Failure of Social Media Apparent With Recent Iran Unrest
June 19th, 2009 — Tags: iran, Politics, Social Meida, Web 2.0
The recent elections in Iran have reminded me of something I was pondering for a while.
I listened to an interview with Ethan Zuckerman about
the multilingual web and put it in the back of my mind. But now that the events in Iran are escalating the need for a multilingual web becomes even more important. In the first two days of uprising (June 13 and June 14) there was a lot of news reports coming in from people on the streets. They were filing them on social media (twitter and friendfeed) but mostly in Farsi. The at that point the rest of the world wasn’t able to make the most of these reports. There was even a meme created on twitter about how CNN missed reporting this election: #cnnfail. Slowly as the reports came in English, other sites tried to aggregate the torrent of news. I especially liked what twazzup did with their Iran Unrest site. They were smart enough to notice that more content can be added by search for Farsi keywords and capitalize on this gap.
I now fully agree with Ethan Zuckerman, and think we need the web to become inclusive of all languages. If we can easily and quickly translate between languages on the web, news and information can flow more freely. Of course there are inherent problems in translating various languages, and I think currently without human intervention that can’t be done easily. Case in point is that the site balatarin started to ask for volunteers to translate important Farsi language blog posts.
However, things like this will not take off until the big players get involved. And today I heard that google has entered the game by adding Farsi translation services. It still has a long way to go, but it’s a good start!
Elections in Iran
June 11th, 2009 — Tags: iran, Politics, Video
In a few hours people will be going to the polls in Iran. I think this will be a historic election, not because of the involvement of people. The people have woken up, and this wave is going to be hard to stop. Whoever gets elected will have to start listening to the populous. Iran has entered the 21st century and I am very excited for it!
And a song that shows an interesting parallel. The song was popular during the 1971 1979 revolution and is now the song of the front runner candidate (not that he’s in any way affiliated with the original movement that represented the song).
Imagine
June 3rd, 2009 — Tags: john lennon, Life, peace, Politics, Video
Tamtams and journée des Patriotes
May 25th, 2009 — Tags: Life, Montreal, Politics, Tam-Tams
I was walking home yesterday, when I saw a huge crowd and what appeared to be a protest next to Mount Royal Park. My first guess was the usual Sunday Tamtams, but when I got closer I saw a large number of Fleurdelisé. I assumed it was just a pro-sovereignty rally and continued walking to go record a bit of the tamtams madness. But last night while doing my rounds in the blogosphere I found this interesting article on the topic which answers my questions about the rally and I think it’s a good read.
And here’s the video I took yesterday, but unfortunately I had my earphones on and didn’t get any of the audio. I have to say the sounds of hundreds of drums playing was incredible!
Game Theory in Public Policy
April 26th, 2009 — Tags: iran, Politics, Video
It’s an interesting notion to use mathematics in the setting of political policies. What’s a little chilling to me is what would happen if the math suggested something like an all out attack on a nation? Are we to believe the math hard, cold math just because it is unbiased and doesn’t lie? Is the assumption (the 90% assumption) that reality will follow these predicitions?
Luckily what Bueno de Mesquita predicts is a good outcome for both Iran and the west.
On Current Canadian Politics
March 22nd, 2009 — Tags: canada, Politics
In the past few months since the brouhaha in parliament ended, and the parliament came back to resume its normal business there has been a distinct absence of something. I realized this the other day when I heard a news report about our Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Trade traveling to Afghanistan. I realized that the ruling government of Canada has not been in the media since much.
It’s no secret that Stephen Harper, and his government are not fans of the media and like to put out propaganda more than informing the public. But at some point the duty of the elected representative is to inform the public. We elected these guys (albeit with a 34% majority!) to rule, and it is their job to tell us what they are doing. Ruling in secrecy is something we like to think the other governments do, but apparently we are very good at it!
So when are these guys going to start being transparent?
Omidreza Mirsayafi 1981-2009
March 21st, 2009 — Tags: iran, Life, News, Politics
He was my age. I’m not sure what he studied, and what he did to make a living. But on his time off he was a blogger, and criticized Iranian society and government openly. Last year he was sentenced to two years in prison for “insulting the authorities”. And now he is dead. Just before the new Iranian year. Many bloggers are lamenting his loss: here, here, and here and here’s an English language post. And the interview with Omidreza’s lawyer is here.
War Propaganda
January 12th, 2009 — Tags: gaza, israel, Politics, Video
With the war going on in Gaza these days, there’s a lot of talk on various places on the web. However, the Israeli government is making an effort to blanket the media with its own propaganda (As happens in any war…).
Well, something always slips through the cracks
Note: After doing some basic research into the time and date of this video, it looks like it’s not from this year’s Israeli incursion. The sad truth is, I’m sure the same thing is still going on today.