In his book, Tribes, Seth Godin mentions that, “no one watches a medicore youtube video they’ve seen before”.
This resonates with me because on the one hand they are so much mediocre content that has been viewed a million times and yet so much amazing content that not enough people have seen.
Still, it was time for a video to accompany the Iranian Democracy EP. What better than real images of a real situation. This is what I did. I did a google image search for Iranian Election. Then I took the images, more or less in order that google ranked them, from the first 15 pages. Why the first 15 pages only? Because I wanted content that “people” think is most relevant and after 15 pages of images the song Sour Grapes was over. I dropped the images into imovie and voila! A video made in less than 15 minutes. In between me loading it up on youtube and coming back to tagging it, about 20 minutes, it already had 38 views. That is a success for me and for the Iranian people whose images make this video relevant.
Here is a story that I remember, but first I should point out that I can’t remember where I heard or read it. If I read it then it may have been in The king and the priest. Eitherway where I read it or who told it to me is not that significant. Honestly, whether it is true or not is not very significant either. What is important is the point of the story.
Many many years ago, when The Shah of Iran was still in power and Saddam Hussein ruled over Iraq, Saddam wrote a letter to the Shah and suggested he kills 10,000 protestors, suggesting this will stop all future uprising. This letter was written, allegedly, prior to the 1979 revolution when another uprising by the people was cracking open the foundations of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran.
The Shah of Iran then responded by saying that he could not do that, that he is the King of these people, sworn to only defend and protect them, and that this marks the difference between a King and Saddam Hussein.
In a historical context this is quite an interesting story. In the face of Iranian people revolting against his kingdom the Shah did not fire back because he ultimately believed that a king should not kill his own people. This ultimately cost him his throne which he lost to a priest – Ayatollah Khomeini.
The priest then lead a theocratic and strict Islamic regime, under which a government that was not accepting of dissent punished dissent by imprisonment and possibly death.
Thirty years later, judging by the unrest, that has not worked and once again 10,000 people have formed an uprising. The Priest is long dead and a President is left defending the Priests legacy and his own power. He is neither as brutal as Saddam Hussein or as ultimately weak as the king; and every model of power from the region has failed.
The King died in exile.
The priest’s vision is coming to it’s eventual end.
Saddam Hussein died by hanging.
The Presidents only chance of long term success is surely in the model of true democracy but is he and the nation truly ready for an Iranian Democracy?
When my wife had first started to date me she told her parents (who are the loveliest people in the world – and I adore them) that she was dating an “Iranian” who lived in “New York” and was a “Rock star”. With this one short description my wife gave her parents three mini heart attacks.
Rock Star = He is going to ruin her life
New York = He lives in the big bad dirty city
Iranian = Not without my daughter
The movie poster for Not without my daughter describes the movie in these words: In 1984 Betty Mahmoody’s husband took his wife and daughter to meet his family in Iran. He swore they would be safe. They would be happy. They would be free to leave. He lied.
Still to a whole generation of Americans the movie seems to have become the token description of Iran and Iranians, especially Iranian men. I have heard “Not without my daughter” mentioned so many times when someone has found that I was born in Iran.
This is where the story comes around. My father in law (who I have to say may be one of the smartest and most knowledgeable people I have ever met) and I were discussing the political situation in Iran over the weekend and he said, “You know what the people are doing in Iran, standing up and fighting for freedom, is really changing people’s opinion of them and separating them from the government and the politics. A lot of people still of Not without my daughter when they think of Iran”.
This is amazing. There is a generation of Iranian youth who have never been to America, who have most likely never met an American, who are standing up, using their mobile phones, twitter accounts, and facebook pages, to rally and form a movement for their own democracy but in so doing are changing the opinion of a generation of Americans who 30 years ago were burnt by another Iranian movement, which back then was also fighting for its own democracy.
I was close to using the, by now highly used, photo of Neda Agha-Sultan but it just felt wrong. Her face at the time of her death has become a symbol of this movement but still, she is someone’s daughter, and I, for one, do not have a right to use her image. So, I chose this photo of the crowd in green, which is now the colour of the movement for freedom.
The music has been uploaded to Tunecore and should appear on Itunes pretty soon. I have done my best to choose the right options so the music is available for as cheap as possible but somewhere in there I think I was bound to an $8.89 price on Amazon. Fingers crossed that I am wrong.
A movement is thrilling. It’s the work of many people, all connected, all seeking something better. The new highly leveraged tools of the NET make it easier than ever to create a movement, to make things happen, to get things done.
This is Seth Godin predicting the political situation in Iran in his book Tribes. He just didn’t know he was predicting it, I bet!
So, taking a small leaf out of his book, I would like to try and start a little movement of my own. Music for Iranian Democracy. Bon Jovi and Richie Samobra are already onboard with their Farsi cover of Stand By Me.
But I would like to invite all musicians, singers and songwriters of all genres of music to submit music for the Iranian people – and maybe if we gather enough great music we can create a compilation that can be sold and the proceeds can be passed down to the families of those like Neda Agha-Soltan.
Obviously our own EP Iranian Democracy (soon to be released) will be part of this; and in keeping with the guidelines of Seth Godin’s book, Tribes, we will only use the tools of the net to leverage this. No radio, no traditional press, no traditional TV.
Let’s see how far we get!
To submit an MP3 or a Youtube link to be posted on this site please simply send a copy of the MP or the youtube link to buddaheadmusic@mac.com.
