John Burns of the NYT describes the virtual exchange of the Iranian uprising: the BBC Persian service. It, together with FaceBook, Twitter and the blogosphere, are what the Iranian government consider the center of the resistance against it.
As Iran’s ruling ayatollahs tell it, the main strike force plotting to end Islamic rule in their country is not on the streets of Tehran but on the upper floors of a celebrated Art Deco building in central London. … The propagators of an “all-out war” against the Islamic republic, as Iran’s semiofficial news agency has called them, are a group of 140 men and women who work at the BBC’s Broadcasting House, a stone’s throw from the shopping mecca of Oxford Street in London. Mainly expatriate Iranians, they staff the BBC’s Persian-language television service, on air for only six months and reaching a daily audience of six million to eight million Iranians — a powerful fraction of viewers in Iran, with its population of 70 million….
In the protests, an archaic political system has been shaken by the use of powerful new weapons: foreign-based satellite television channels like the BBC’s that beam their signals into Iran, social networking tools like Twitter and sites like Facebook that act as running diaries on the upheaval and as forums for coordinating protest activities, and cellphone videos that have captured the confrontation in Tehran for worldwide audiences, perhaps most importantly in Iran itself.
While Burns’ article may contain an element of hyperbole, there is no denying that information technology in its various forms has played a pivotal role in the dramatic events of the last weeks. Napoleon once said that a revolution “is an idea which has found its bayonets”. Where the Iranian bayonets are to come from is unknown, but at all events there must first be an idea; a source from which resistance is to originate, grow and spread. Now the idea is there. The news networks and the Internet have provided a fertile field for its spread of the idea; whether it will find its weapon is yet to be determined.
The irony of Barack Obama’s policy of reticence towards Iran is that it comes at a time in history when words would have had the greatest effect. Three years ago I gave a presentation in Israel arguing that encouraging blogs and other “Internet sensors” to multiply in the Arab world would create a kind of runaway transparency which would objectively work in the cause of peace. These ideas are described in a contemporaneous blog post called The Blogosphere at War at the old Belmont Club site. I said the creation of multiple information paths would create the architecture for facts themselves to perform an “end run” around the disinformation campaigns routinely practiced by Hezbollah. It would break down the apparatus of lies which totalitarian states used to deceive and enslave their population. I argued that we could never know the truth about future Qanas for as long as these multiple information paths did not exist. No information warfare organization has created them, but time itself has amended some of these deficiencies. Today in Iran, we are seeing, I think, the fruit of those “end run” information paths. And while neither the BBC, nor Facebook, nor Twitter are of themselves creating a revolution, they have provided the Iranian people the tools to do it. It sounded so far-fetched back in 2006. Today it is reality. Three years ago I wrote:
It is possible in principle to tune parts of the blogosphere to better serve the needs of information warfare. For example, certain types of blogs are sensitive to picking up particular signals at levels which the general press would be pressed to match. Blogs which monitor and transcribe Arabic language media broadcasts, for example, report on what would be regarded as arcana by many major news outlets. Many MSM organizations simply leave foreign language broadcasts beneath the media Event Horizon because they are too expensive to access. But blogosphere, with its potentially unlimited number of Finders can simply post away, leaving it to the Thinkers and Linkers to separate the signal from the noise and to amplify significant of interest. The blogs can even be tuned to pick up human atmospherics. Lisa Goldman of On the Face and Charles Chuman of the Lebanese Political Journal maintained an Israeli-Lebanese blogospheric dialogue even while both countries were at war. It was a dramatic human interest story that had the mainstream media riveted; but it was also an amazing demonstration of how even in wartime memes flow between sites on the Internet.
A number of Internet institutions have consciously attempted to improve the receptivity of their networks to certain signals. YouTube has made it far easier for the blogosphere to pick up video content and Flickr has performed the same service for still photographs. Today the blogosphere not only sucks up words, it sucks up images and sounds as well. Harvard Law School’s Global Voices project has encouraged the formation of blogs in Third World countries in order to float up stories that would otherwise go unreported. All these efforts are functionally Web 2.0 efforts to encourage publics to add content to the Internet. Collectively they have pushed an huge amount of data above the Event Horizon which would have gone unreported; and in volumes that may eventually dwarf that generated by the MSM. It is possible that in the long run the global public will come to rely on fellow Internet users to learn about the world more than it will from professional journalists. The blogospheric revolution may be just beginning.
Although the number of Thinkers as well of the number of Finders is bound to grow organically, it is in the obvious interest of information warriors to encourage more Thinkers — the equivalent of analysis cells — to follow issues of interest. First-class Think sites can dramatically improve the ability of the blogosphere to respond quickly and accurately to information that breaks across the Event Horizon. Blogs which follow particular countries or track certain issues, such as Regime Change Iran, begin to ascend a learning curve and progressively improve their ability to identify important issues and gauge the reliability of various sources from experience. The speed at which Thinkers can work enabled the blogosphere to respond within the “Golden Hour” of public discourse during the 2006 war with Hezbollah; and it responded with a velocity that at occasionally confounded the calculations of disinformation professionals who never dreamed that such an avalanche of scrutiny was possible.
I hardly ever find myself saying of my own past posts to to Read the Whole Thing. But the case of Blogosphere at War it might be worthwhile. Yet in retrospect it’s obvious that no government or political organization, however well intentioned were ever going to Johnny Appleseed the Internet with active information warfare terminals. I was foolish to bark up that tree. Every government and every politician wants to the control the message. A constituency that can’t be easy led by politicians, that gathers its own data and reaches its own consensus, if only to a limited extent, is a leader’s nightmare. It was probably inevitable that the creation of alternative information paths had to be left to the private sector, which had no governmental ambitions of its own.
That may work out for the best in the end. Perhaps it’s wrong to think that a word from Barack Obama can change history in Iran any longer. They, not he, are the people they’ve been waiting for. A self-driven, self-informing public may not need a One to lead it in the long run. If President Obama has chosen to stay silent at this time, then maybe it’s him who really missed the last chance to be heard before the tide of history moves on.
Tip Jar or Subscribe for $5
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
14 Comments
1. whiskey:Wretchard, what you say only applies to information activities in the West, and is overwhelmed by the conventional wisdom and the fear of the elites of any confrontation with Islam or anti-Western forces. For example, the Stoning of Soria M, has gotten vile reviews by the liberal usual suspects and condemnation from NOW because they are objectively pro-Islam/Sharia.
What matters is guns, gunmen, who controls them, and how willing they are to kill people, and how efficiently they can kill. Information activity is about zero usefulness with Iran. What matters is men on the street with guns killing people. Money to pay the killers. And so on.
Jun 28, 2009 - 10:56 pm 2. Thrasymachus:The Western left can’t censor what you read so they make some information and sources taboo. Certain people and viewpoints are not wrong ut just socially unacceptable. The vicious trashing that these people get from TV comedians is how they are marked off.
Jun 28, 2009 - 11:01 pm 3. wretchard:I am not so naive as to think that information can do everything of itself. Information while not a sufficient condition revolution is a necessary one. But once a cause acquires a following and legitimacy — and this is an informational event — the guns and alas — the opportunists — eventually follow unless someone actively works to stop it. You can be sure that if Western politicians don’t seize the moment someone else will attempt to wrest control of a burgeoning force. Not everyone is encumbered with scruples, even in Washington, though they may be unencumbered of the wrong set. When events are on the move it is a question of “act now or remain forever silent”. Voting present only means someone else gets to cast the deciding ballot.
Jun 28, 2009 - 11:05 pm 4. Morton Doodslag:Yet once again, Wretchard’s thesis falls apart with the Muslims. Even if Muslims are (for the moment) particularly at odds with this or that oppressive manifestation of Islam, they are nevertheless committed to the larger impulses which comprise Islam itself: external Jihad to spread Islam Uber Alles, and internal Jihad to be “good Muslims” by purifying their practice of same.
Just because they’re fighting against the current crop of Islamic Nazis in aTehran, those 140 Persian BBC anti-regime activists (no contradictions there…?) are ALL apologists for Islam. Just so, it is axiomatic that ALL Muslims are apologists for Islam. For our purposes, this Iranian insurrection signifies little in the long run. Until Muslims are prepared to reject Islam altogether, they will continue to produce viscious uncivilized social systems such as those we see ubiquitously across the entire swath of Islam.
All the giddy excitement is woefully misplaced.
To be clear, I am pleased to see any subversion by Muslims against other Muslims at all times. Until we are prepared to wreak massive destruction on the aparatus of Islam, fomenting dissention within the House of Islam is a good temporary alternative. But sadly, we have so accepted the “fatal kiss” accusation/pretext that Muslims will eternally hurl at us (being eternal enemies of our civilization, after all) we aren’t playing ths destructive subversive role we should if we were wise in this war. Instead, silly Westerners continue to reinforce the Muslim position that “Regime change” in this or that Islamic shithole will fix their ongoing dilemmas, rather than “religion change”. So I really don’t think much will come of this current kerfuffle in Iran. That will remain impossible in the long run under current circumstances.
Jun 28, 2009 - 11:43 pm 5. Lifeofthemind:The idea must find it’s bayonets.
Jun 29, 2009 - 12:31 am 6. no mo uro:Training local resistance groups is the purpose behind the US Special Forces. People forget the the Green Berets were set up as a Training Command, not a Combatant Command. Ideally one to three men who were fluent in the local language would parachute in and after being met by someone waving a big wheel of cheese and a bottle of wine one would marry the boss’s daughter and lead an army out of the hills.
The tech question, again?
Technology does provide the possibility of undermining regimes like Iran but it is no guarantee.
There will always be censors from governments. And there will always be those who are a half-step ahead of those censors with some new technology. But will those be enough for a critical mass of opinion? And is that critical mass a plastic number, dependent upon the level of fear and violence that a government is willing apply to resist reform? I think the recent events in Iran force us to conclude that it is. A sea change in Islam’s overwhelming tendency to use violence to force conformity, or the decline of Islam in its entirety, will need to happen regardless of what information technology exists.
On the domestic front, I can say that after 9/11 I thought we were in a time of Chamberlain-esque denial about a hot enemy similar to 1938. But I think that now is much more like that time. And I think that until something truly awful shocks the wealthy elites and their legions of overeducated, underintelligent wannabes in government, the entertainment industry, and the education industry, that we won’t progress regardless of what information technology is there. There’s just a big contingent of people out there who will crave security of status and income stream security over liberty, and, inertia being what it is, it will take some great force to move them.
Shibboleths abound in a situation like ours, as Thrasymachus points out. The scolding and branding by entertainers is just the most visible sign of this partitioning and shunning. Suburban ’super’ moms, going through life believing that motherhood is a contest for which there is an Olympic medal, will not let their children associate with kids whose parents hunt or are NASCAR fans for fear of what all the other cool ‘progressive’ mommies might say. They’ll send their kids to college regardless of whether or not that’s really the best thing for the kid, because they’re terrified of the negative social consequences should their other Olympic-mommy peers find out that little Courtney or Jared become a tradesman or soldier or some other non-approved person. Doubtless there are other examples of this.
I’m all for getting more information out there and using tech to its fullest. At one time, not so long ago, I believed that that was all there was to it in terms of reclaiming America from the Gramscians. But
Jun 29, 2009 - 4:48 am 7. Wadeusaf:I’m not sure that increasing channels of information by itself can change this.
There is a point where the smaller blog raises the attention of a larger well known blog and that attention increases the potential numbers of people who are reached. No while facebook and the tweeters are of no real account in and of themselves, when Andrew Sullivan began blogging a running account of what was happening the numbers of folks who read, and the numbers of movers and shakers who became aware of what was happening grew by powers of ten.
The Iranian government began to feel the heat, nearly instantaneously on election night. And the attempts to shut it all down began. The Iranians began by blocking the BBC signals. The BBC merely changed satellites. The stubborn opposition and not the BBC began a signals war with the Iranian Government and official internet sites. The outcome was that the Government shut down all but the most primitive of communications systems both inter and intra country including their own.
Some sites were left alone, only because the opposition wanted folks to be able to read Khamenei’s rant and blather. Which they had no problem allowing when compared to the PBC’s fare. Which At the height of the demonstrations were…”very cautious, reminding viewers of what they can confirm and what they can’t, and of who their sources are,” said Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “And they don’t allow people to use their broadcasts to slander their opponents, which is more than you can say for the state broadcasting network in Iran. The paradox is that it’s precisely because they are seen as objective and impartial by Iranians that they come under such severe attack.”
Because the means of broadcast are more easily turned on and off by a totalitarian regime, with less economic or even political impact then would result in a free society, the struggle can be suppressed out of sight, out of the view of the powerful blogs and information magnates, behind closed doors.
Rise Again’s
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Chairs thrown and tables toppled,
Hands armed with broken bottles,
Standing no chance to win but,
We’re not running, we’re not running.
There’s a point I think we’re missing,
It’s in the air we raise our fists in,
In the smiles we cast each other,
My sister, my brother.
About the time we gave up hoping,
We never find these locks still open,
Stumbling on stones unturned,
The hurt we feel, we all have earned.
The lines we’ve cross in search of change,
but all they see is treason
[Chorus:]
Although we have no obligation to stay alive,
On broken backs we beg for mercy, we will survive,
(Break out) I won’t be left here,
Behind closed doors.
Bonfires burn like beacons,
Guiding the lost and weakened.
Flames dance on crashing waves,
Guiding ships who’ve gone astray
Time out, let’s stop and think this through,
We’ve all got better things to do,
Than talk in circles, run in place,
Answers inches from my face.
[Chorus]
Black eyes, broken fingers,
Blood drips and I let it run,
down my lips and to my swollen gums,
When hope is non-existent,
Our instincts all scream “Run”,
We never turn our backs or even bite our tongue.
Songwriters: Barnes, Brandon; Chasse, Christopher; Mcilrath, Timothy; Principe, Joseph Daniel
At least until something better comes along.
Jun 29, 2009 - 5:13 am 8. Mike Sylwester:Perhaps it’s wrong to think that a word from Barack Obama can change history in Iran any longer. They, not he, are the people they’ve been waiting for. A self-driven, self-informing public may not need a One to lead it in the long run.
That’s a better description of the situation than the idea that the situation was caused by whatever Obama has or has not said.
Jun 29, 2009 - 5:49 am 9. Wadeusaf:“The irony of Barack Obama’s policy of reticence towards Iran is that it comes at a time in history when words would have had the greatest effect.
The measure of preparation that the Iranian Regime had undertaken even four years ago tells me that a cautionary warning would have had the greatest effect. But by the time such a warning could have been issued, the Mullahs had already determined what their course of action would be. How can you shame a Sociopath?
“Three years ago I gave a presentation in Israel arguing that encouraging blogs and other “Internet sensors” to multiply in the Arab world would create a kind of runaway transparency which would objectively work in the cause of peace.”
It worked, within the limits of its ability. To sustain such a revolt would require the ideas to have already found their bayonets. If anything president Obama’s message of non communication belied the charges of US Government complicity. For anything the President said to have had an effect some measure of muscle should have been readied for flexing. There was little chance that the words of the administration could have effected circumstances in Iran unless they could have swayed some Mullah’s to side against Ahmadineajad. That Rafsanjhani’s family members were held hostage indicate little chance of that happening.
Jun 29, 2009 - 5:52 am 10. Utopia Parkway:Whiskey, The rulers of Iran will go down, not when the opposition has more guns than them but when the Revolutionary Guard refuses to use its guns against the opposition. The Iranian rulers are well aware that their biggest threat comes from within and have prepared for this day for years. They can’t be beat by force of arms, at least not from within.
Promulgation of information on the net is one way that the opposition can spread the word of what is happening and can influence their opponents to change. Its decentralized nature makes it difficult for the Iranian rulers to shut it down. Curiously Iran is dependent on the internet for its business and other interests. This has made it impossible for Iran to simply shut down the internet but rather has tried to filter it. There are many problems with spreading of info by the internet, including the regime spreading false info under false flags, but in the end I think it is a great egalitarian endeavor that will help to bring down tyrannies.
Jun 29, 2009 - 12:28 pm 11. krontekag:Obama couldn’t even raise a weak “hey… stop it…” when it counted.
He has rendered himself insignificant (and unfortunately the US along with him) in terms of world affairs, by proclaiming the US unqualified to comment on Iran. His lightweight responses to the new Honduran crisis will further cement his irrelevance. What little he has provided there is support for the ousted unconstitutional dictator.
Jun 29, 2009 - 4:28 pm 12. E. Nigma:OR you could think of this as net-centric warfare in reverse. The terror and insurrection cells that created havoc in Iraq for the US Army and Marines eventually were largely rooted out because the Iraqi public was fed up with the senseless violence.
Who’s committing the senseless violence in Iran?? Or is it “sensible” justified violence? Preserve the state, at what cost?
+70 million people are involved. What is the critical number to sustain a network of effective resistance, with a larger cloud of people sympathetic but unwilling to completely commit? How committed are the Revolutionary Guard soldiers, if their own families and friends turn against the regime?
How much disorder can Iran take before the wheels stop turning, and things just don’t get done?
In physical systems, there is such a thing as energy, order and disorder (entropy). It will take an immense amount of energy by the central government in Iran to maintain order, as time goes on. What if the human units of “order” begin to get fatigued by the exertions of imposing “order”? The violence and killing and all; are they as ruthless as the Gestapo or the Cheka?
How much dis-order can a connected net-centric group of dissidents create, short of violence and mayhem?
Strikes, slowdowns, modest acts of disobedience, organized resistance all over the country. It’s only supercially the BBC, as that gives the Iranian government an outside boogeyman to blame and create fear of the “other” for the great number of undecided Iranians. Information and the truth can persuade the mass of “undecided” Iranian about the course of the future. It’s not just about guns and bayonets.
Everything begins with an idea.
Jun 29, 2009 - 5:19 pm 13. SpeakEasy:Morton,
Jun 29, 2009 - 6:31 pm 14. SpeakEasy:I think you are slightly short-sighted WRT Islam. In the interests of full disclosure let me first say I am not a fan. But I seem to recall my own religion, Christianity, got a little militant and had to reform. It is possible to follow the teachings of a religion without giving it complete ownership of your life. Given their past western leanings, I would say Iran is one of the most likely nations under Islam to adapt and reform. Sure, I could be wrong but so could you.
It was pointed out once (Thomas Friedman perhaps?) that the least stable civilized nations were still based around tribalism. I see it all as an evolution of civilization rather than a stagnation. Perhaps we are seeing the evolution of Iran rather than the revolution. The Iraqis are no longer dragging their knuckles but are also not fully erect. Given time and encouragement they may start using tools.
Jun 29, 2009 - 6:42 pmSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.