Why the header is now green
Maybe you’ve been following the recent events in Iran extremely closely - with Twitter, an RSS feed, and BBC News running on the television 24/7. Maybe you have absolutely no idea what’s going on - and could care less (educate yourself). Either way - there is important, potentially world-changing stuff going on in Iran right now.
Being the news junkie that I am, I’ve been following it all pretty closely - especially on Twitter, which was the best source of news on Iran from last Friday until Wednesday, when our media started to say, holy shit, these tens of thousands of people protesting an unfair, undemocratic election might actually be newsworthy! and began acting like they gave a damn.
I give a damn. There are a lot of young people protesting in Tehran - probably about my age. As far as I can tell, we’re not that different - at least not in the ways that really matter. Many of them are students with hopes, dreams, and aspirations. They want to be treated fairly. They want to be heard. And so when it became apparent that their presidential election had been stolen from them - not lost, but stolen - they took to the streets in protest. What started out as protests quickly became a movement, as the regime clamped down on communications and more people took the the streets.
Green is the colour of the movement. It represents many of the things that I take for granted - freedoms that are so deeply embedded in my way of life that I have difficulty seeing that they’re there. I don’t know how much I know about Iran’s current government is accurate, but if the little bit that I know is correct, then the protesting Iranians are amazingly courageous. There aren’t many things people outside the country can do to help, but I’ve tried to do something (changing my Twitter location to Tehran, for instance. Or even Twittering about what was going on in those early stages - to get the word out. I tried setting up a proxy, but that was beyond my technical ability, even with ). I’ve changed the header’s colour to green to show my solidarity with the Iranian people, and their hope for a freer, fairer country.