As you can see, I’ve gone green, and not in the environmental sense. Along with more people than it’s possible to count, I’ve gone green on Twitter to “Show support for democracy in Iran” by following an invitation to “add green overlay to your Twitter avatar with 1-click –.” I clicked, and as my small Twitter avatar, in my case the head shot, above, became uniformly green, something else clicked for me: never before in history has there been such a united world-wide effort to make one country a better place by listening and responding to the call of its people.
I came to Twitter reluctantly and wasn’t enthusiastic about it until now. Iranians who have taken their protests to the streets are using it to communicate with each other, to locate, mobilize and strategize, to alert and inform and encourage each other. As the government revokes and refuses to renew press credentials, blocks news reports and web sites, reformers use Twitter to let the world outside know what is happening inside. An early RT (a Re Tweet, i.e., reposting) announces, “All communication lines from and to abroad are closed. No Internet access. PLEASE HELP.” A subsequent one warns, “CNFRMD ALL ambulances must bring ALL wounded to army hospitals. DO NOT put the wounded in ambulances” and pleads, “PLS RT.” Repeat it and repeat it for all eyes and ears!
By rough count—but by any measure more accurate than the egregious Iranian presidential vote count—I note that three or four of every five twitterers outside of Iran using the maxim of 140 characters at a time to mention Iran is casting a vote of solidarity for those whose votes were so cynically, corruptly mishandled. A site beckons, “Add your username to the Green Wall to show support for #iranelection http://iran.greenthumbnails.com. And proclaims, “1990 users have added their picture! PLEASE add yours, and then tell your friends and followers! PLEASE TWEET THIS iran.greenthumbnails.com GREEN ME.” The number of “users” has increased by 66 since I began writing this piece. I urge you to go to the site and view the photos, ikons and logos of the passionately-committed on the Green Wall.
Tweeted from Iran two minutes ago: “Security forces in Iran are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches.”
Last Monday, a State Department official asked Twitter to defer a scheduled maintenance which, had it occurred, would have interrupted Iranians’ contact with each other and with all sources of information and succor globally at a critical time.
A grateful message from Iran: “Humbling to remember how small the world is.”
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