If you're on Twitter and follow anyone with much of a social / political reckoning, chances are you've come across the call for
#greenavatar . Chances are you've also picked up on a few Tweets about
Iran where there may have been a democratic election. Or there may not. And there's the rub.
Yeah, yeah, Middle East in turmoil - same old, same old; but what about this green avatar malarky, Dan?
Wagwan?
Well, the idea is you edit your
avatar to become a plain green block (or green hue your exisitng photo with iPhoto) to show your support for... er...
Well, here's my problem. What is this green avatar a symbol of?
The
black (blackout) avatar on Twitter made sense. It was a political statement using an apolitical symbol. A person could indicate their protest at the
New Zealand government's decision to ban users from the net for suspected file-sharing (without trial), and blackout their avatar. It was a display of digital solidarity - day by day more avatars went black; not all by any stretch, but enough to be noticable and eerie. Something was up. Something wasn't right.
The real win was that black avatar meant one thing and one thing only: a protest at the New Zealand Government's policy.
THAT policy, right there, right then. Not the whole NZ government, not their health care policies (afterall, who outside of New Zealand was really across all of these issues?), just that one thing we could agree wasn't right.
A black avatar had no other affiliations. It wouldn't be mistaken for support of another political party, another campaign, (ok maybe the
Goths, if they were running for High School Presidency...); but whether you were conservative, liberal, eco-warrior or bible fanatic, you could black out your avatar to make THAT statement of protest and know that that was the only statement you were making. It represented a single (common) intent.
The
green avatar has none of that assurance. It's ambiguous at best. Why? Because green is the associated colour of Iran's unelected opposition coalition party in these contested elections. So when you paint your avatar green there are inferrences that can be drawn beyond support for 'democracy', 'liberty', 'freedom of speech'. The green avatar is consciously linking to the
Iranian opposition reformist coalition party - and do they really offer any utopian dreams? You probably know that many people are furious that this party hasn't got into power through this election, but what else do you know? Yes it all looks pretty dubious in the re-election of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (
Julian Coles presents an excellent analysis here), but what do you
know?
Just because a political party stands against an oppressive, (you might say) dangerous, insular regime, it doesn't automatically mean that party stands for everything you'd like it to. I hear they're reformist, they're progressive...
It feels like 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' - is the logic blithely at play here. Coincidence that it's attributed to an
old Arabian proverb, but there's an awful lot of assumptions being made in this.
President Barack Obama, when being pressed to condemn the election result and the Iranian regime's response to protests (and support the opposition), has stated:
Please, don't stop showing support / fighting for democracy, for freedom, for human rights. That's not what I'm after here. But can we find a different colour or symbol for it? One that won't leave me feeling queasy about my blustering niaveté in a few years' time...?
Keep th' faith,
Article Dan
NB: Nick Donnelly's comments are represented with his kind permission.
PS - The comments system on Posterous is sometimes flakey. If you try to leave a comment and it doesn't let you, please let me know on twitter @article_dan or email
articledan@rocketmail.com and I will repost (providing it's not abusive).
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