In Continuum.

Picture from Boston.com.

If you are a frequent user on Twitter, you'd have noticed the strange green hue pulled over some users' display pictures. There isn't anything wrong with your eyesight though, so you really don't have to worry very much about that. Many users on Twitter as well as on other social network has taken up the initiative to change their display pictures to show their support for the Iranian situation that is happening right now. A lot of the users on my list, especially the celebrities, they are all changing their display pictures and voluntarily turning their faces green for a change. It is everywhere now, and I feel somewhat guilty for not doing the same somehow. But still, I have to be honest about this whole situation: I don't know it as well as I'd like to. I mean, we all know that there was an election, and we also know that a lot of people were unhappy with the results. So they are fighting back now, against the government and also the religious institutions behind the government bodies. It is a revolution in the making somewhere down in the middle east, a place so far away that we've only heard of in the news. It isn't a country that we can step on to just by driving over a causeway. It's a land far, far away, and I don't see myself trying to be involved despite not knowing anything about it.

Yet, despite all that, I am blogging about it and dedicating an entire entry to the situation. You may think of it as being contradictory, or pretentious for those who are alien to euphemisms. It would be the case if I try to make a stand and say what is right and what is wrong. It'd be pretentious if I try to justify their cause, or to criminalize the actions of the government over there. It'd be wrong to do a lot of that at this point, but that is not what this entry is about. After all, I know so very little about the situation over there, and much of what I know came from pictures in the news and videos of people being shot dead in the streets. Anything more than that, I am afraid, I merely know the surface of the issues, and nothing concrete enough. I suppose only an Iranian would really know the situation over there, especially those who have already endured the 1979 revolution. Well, even I got to know about that revolution from Persepolis, that awesome animation movie that got snubbed in many major awards last year (or the year before last, I cannot remember). At any rate, there is a revolution going on over there, and there is no questions about how things would turn out in the end for the people. Things are going to change, whether or not it is going to be for the better or for the worse.

This entry isn't so much about justifying anything, but about what I have seen and a judgment on those. You see so many people on the internet commenting on the situation there, some of them supporting the cause while others are pouring buckets of cold water over everybody else. Many believe that, like many revolutions out there, it is not going to work. Well, it is difficult to say whether or not it would at this point, but that is the kind of opinions you are going to find on the internet right now. I find it interesting how social media has become an avenue for the people within the country to voice their opinions. It reminds me of the march of the monks in Myanmar the other time, when the government tried to block the internet and preventing people from sending out pictures and videos of the situation over there. But they still leaked out, and people found ways to send them out to the world via technology. I love to see people finding ways to express their views and voice their opinions, even when the power at be tries to cover them up to the rest of the world. I mean, to know that the website that I go to everyday has become a weapon against a government and the religion behind it amazes me. Only in our generation people, only in our generation.

As the protests draw on, videos start to pop out everywhere of police shooting at the crowds, and the crowds fighting back. The most disturbing video that I have seen so far is probably the one with the woman being shot in the chest (I think), and she literally bled to death on the camera. Death is nothing new though, because everybody is going to go through it a couple of times in your life, even if it is not your own. You hear about death a lot, but seeing it on the news and on the internet is something else altogether. Seeing the process of death, seeing how it works on life and takes it away, that is something you don't see everyday. I wasn't as disturbed as when the American soldier (or was it a journalist) got beheaded in the video I saw a long time ago. It isn't as graphic definitely, but the impact is even more profound than before. I mean, we have this person who passionately fought for her rights and her freedom from the dictatorial government, and to die on the streets isn't something that is deserved by anybody at all. It was heartbreaking, I suppose, to see how humans have to resort to such actions in order to proof a point. We can't sit down and talk things out anymore, we just pull our triggers and we really cannot care less if you are unhappy with our brand of democracy.

It amazes me, you know, when you think about it. I mean, humans have advanced this far from the stone ages, when we used to clubbed each other when we were unhappy with one another. Right now, we have fighter jets breaking the sound barrier, we have satellites going around our planet and taking pictures of everything on the surface by the hour, and we have put things into orbit on distant planets, and even landing some of our drones! Technology has advanced so wide that it becomes difficult to comprehend some of them, and it never ceases to amaze me just how incredible we have developed. Yet, when it comes to political disputes, humans are still the same as how we were before. It's just that the weapon of choice is very different now, and the situation has become even more complicated. Replaced are the clubs and the wooden sticks, and now we have rifles that fire bullets into people's heads and blasting it open from four hundred meters away. It is easy to kill somebody if you want to, and the basic purpose is the same as before. We have been fighting each other for a long time, and you start to wonder when that barbaric nature inside all of us is going to catch up with other aspects of human development. You know, when is that side ever going to become more advanced and civilized?

To be in a country of peace is a great thing, and there's no questions about that. You want your job to be stable, and you want to know that your country is being run by a bunch of competent people. Singapore is one such country despite its complete lack of transparency. The monopolistic rule over the country may be criticized by some, but you cannot deny that they are running the country rather well in relative to many of its neighbors. Only when a country is going down the shitters do people really have the right, or the guts, to complain. Anyway, we live a relatively peaceful life here, the kind that goes into an uproar when a woman gets stabbed in a HDB flat somewhere in a town not too far from ours. In other countries, a woman being stabbed would be on the news for five minutes and then brushed off to the next big event somewhere else. It doesn't get a lot of attention, because social issues such as murder happens all the time in other countries. My point is that it is so peaceful here in Singapore, that every event becomes a giant event. Just think about that little girl who got kidnapped and killed a couple of years back, and how many unrelated strangers attended her funeral. Yeah, that's how it is in Singapore. It is like a giant village, and anything becomes a major event for everybody somehow.

I am not complaining about the situation here, though there are areas whereby I cannot help but want to run away from. This entry isn't about those though, so I shall not elaborate on that. It is peaceful here, but there is a part of me who wants to be involved in a protest that is on the scale of those happening in Iran right now. It's not that I desire chaos of course, because I like to know that I am not going to be shot in the head, or dragged away into black vans with a bag over my head just because I appeared in an amateur video that was shot during the protest. It's just that when you watch these videos and read about these people risking their lives and fighting for what they believe in, you cannot help but admire these young people. I mean, it amazes me, the way that they stood up to a regiment like that, especially in a country where free speech isn't necessarily a commodity that everybody has. The courage to step out and fight for what they believe in, that is the kind of spirit that affects me, even though Iran still seems like a country that the news agency made up. I want to be involved in a revolution that is on the scale, something of that kind of importance, and I want to risk my life for something that I believe in too.

But in a country like Singapore, there isn't much to fight about. Or, at least, there isn't something nearly as worthy to fight about as the Iranians are right now. Maybe I could go onto the streets to fight for student rights when it comes to SAF's treatment of students from private universities. Or, I could protest against the government's close ties with Myanmar, supplying them with weapons and naming a damn tree after one of the dictators. I can do those, but even that does not compare to what is happening in Iran right now. I mean, this is a revolution that grew out of a social media, and it is spreading like wild fire all over the world. This is a revolution against, not only the president or the government, but the religious bodies behind it. It is a complete change over of system, and people are fighting these powers at be on a daily basis. I think that moves me quite a bit, and I'd rally in the streets if I am an Iranian myself. But of course, at this point of the entry, you may deem me as being pretentious already, and maybe I am. But it's true, I'd like to be involved in something on that scale, even if I am just a reporter of some kind, hiding behind a pillar and taking notes. It'd be awesome to be surrounded by people are passionate in what they hold true.

Watching the news, I was reminded of that protest that happened a couple of years ago in my own country of Taiwan. You know, tens of thousands of people rallied the streets for a month straight while wearing red t-shirts against the then-corrupted government. It was a big thing on the news everywhere, and a spectacle you don't see on a daily basis for sure. Those people marched onto the streets in a peaceful protest against the corrupted president, and wanted him to resign from his post. They crowded the streets and surrounded many major buildings in the capital, and remained there for a couple of days straight in an demonstration against anti-democracy. Yet, the moment I saw that piece of news on television, I told my parents that it isn't going to work. They asked me why I thought that way, and I just told them that it isn't going to work. Maybe it has something to do with cynicism, or maybe it was because of statistics - how many successful revolutions are there anyway? In the end, that demonstration went to waste, and it didn't actually work at all. The president remained in the office until the end of his term, and he was replaced by a new president who really isn't much better than him.

I just feel that this major shift in Iranian politics is something bigger than anything that I have ever witnessed. Well, I am not actually there to physically witness it of course, but it is one of those things that you know is big, you know. It isn't any of our businesses of course, and it is really up to the Iranians to work things out on their own. But just seeing how things are working out there, it really astonishes me somehow. This time, it isn't about some stupid president with a thirst for money, and it isn't even against the administration per se. This is a fight against something bigger, and the people are trying to fight for something that a lot of other countries in the world truly believe in - democracy. I feel that the system isn't the best system out there, and it is a slow and tedious process that isn't all that efficient. But it is the best that we've got, and it touches me to the bones to know that there are people out there who believe and are willing to fight for such an abstract thing, you know? I mean, democracy is so abstract and intangible, and it is not something that you can cradle in your hands. It is something that is very much out there, if you know what I mean, and to know that people are doing everything they can to get it. That's human spirit right there, that's human spirit.