Like a bad version of "The Blair Witch Project," amateur video of riots and protests in Iran fill CNN's airwaves. Covering the turmoil in Iran has become en vogue, and publicly declaring one's alignment with Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the emblematic opposition candidate who lost in the last Iranian rigged election three weeks ago, has become as culturally trendy for some as a Free Tibet bumper sticker.
There's something powerful about watching all of the protests. Threatened with tear gas, billy clubs, physical injury and even death, millions have taken to the streets of Iran in defiance of the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Maybe it's because we like rooting for the underdog, or because as Americans we can't stand to sit idly by as other nation's pseudo-democracies crumble, but supporting the protestors in any way has become a patriotic duty.
In Los Angeles, thousands of Iranian-Americans and other Americans of all national backgrounds joined together in protests to show their solidarity with the Mousavi supporters in Iran. On Twitter, thousands have turned their avatars a shade of green, the color most associated with Mousavi's campaign. And in Washington, D.C., both houses of Congress passed near unanimous resolutions condemning the state-sponsored violence and the obviously rigged presidential election.
Now, many say, is the time for our president to act.
Eric Cantor, the skipper of the rudderless and beaten ship that is the modern Republican Party, has called for President Barack Obama to speak more forcefully about the newest Iranian situation. Conservatives, after all, have never been very conservative with their foreign policy approach, eulogizing the virtues of small government but never shrinking from the vices of big military intervention abroad.
Obama, for the most part, has remained stoically cool as ever. "The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching," Obama wrote in his official White House statement earlier this week.
The whole world is certainly watching, but why?
Why have the media started to binge drink shots of Iranian election coverage? Why, all of a sudden, has being well-versed with the turmoil in Iran been a necessity for checkout-line conversation in the Whole Foods and Fresh Markets of the country?
Why isn't Darfur on the tip of everyone's tongue? Is a massacre in broad daylight not sensational enough? Why aren't the chatty newsreaders reading news about Robert Mugabe's blatant ignorance of the Zimbabwe provisional government guidelines rather than reading catty remarks from their Twitter followers? Are any credible public figures outraged that the latest incarnation of a Burmese constitution still gives the national military the most power in the Asian nation?
There are hundreds of mini-Irans across the world, where votes are never counted and dissidence is meted out with bullets and unjust detention. Likely, it is very near impossible to shed light on every one of these hot spots of death and oppression.
We do need to pay attention to Iran, and we need to stand by those in Iran who are demanding more rights, more freedom.
But let us not forget the lives that hang in perilous balance throughout the world. Calling for freedom and true democracy should never be a self-interested act. History has already seen too many self-interested calls for democracy. They have all been bloody.
Matthew Christ is a political science sophomore. His column appears weekly.
