I agree with Anne Applebaum’s piece in Slate on how Iranian women are inspiring Muslim women throughout the middle east, particularly her take-down of the popular theory that it was a Twitter/Facebook revolution. While these social networking sites certainly played a role in publicizing the brutality of Iran’s regime during the media blackout, she deftly reminds us that good old fashioned hard work made the protests a reality. She states:
“Still others want to call this a “Twitter revolution” or a “Facebook revolution,” as if zippy new technology alone had inspired the protests. But the truth is that the high turnout was the result of many years of organizational work carried out by small groups of civil rights activists and, above all, women’s groups, working largely unnoticed and without much outside help.”
Applebaum goes on to point out that while women’s rights are often considered “secondary issues” sacrificed to larger security and economic concerns, one must not forget that “regimes that repress the civil and human rights of half their population are inherently unstable. Sooner or later, there has to be a backlash. In Iran, we’re watching one unfold.”