[Imc-pl-torun] Can independent, grassroots iranian media stop US attack on Iran?

[boud]

hi iranians against a war on iran, and indymedia friends,

(pl) przepraszam dla (en) - moim skromnym zdaniem, to wa¿ny i pilny
temat; cel jest rozpocznynaæ wp³yw informacji.  Najmniej 100.000
irakczyków byli zamorderowanych; tym razem mamy (technicznie) 200 raz
lepiej szans powstrzymywaæ rezim cheneya/busha od ataku na iranu.

(en)
Probably most of us already know that the Cheney/Bush regime plans to
carry out mass murder in Iran; but not before June 2005. IMHO most of
us would also like to stop this.

IMHO we (present indymedia network + iranian antiwar bloggers + others) 
have a much better chance of being able to stop the attack on *Iran*
than we had for stopping the attack on Iraq, for two reasons:

(1) The iranian internet community (now) is about 200 times bigger
than the iraqi internet community was back then. (e.g. iranian blogs)

(2) Iran has a genuine, local political, "democratic" process of
struggle between "reformers" and "conservatives"; iraq did not.

(1)+(2) imply that Iranians have a *much* better chance of
distributing news locally and interacting with international activists
and news distribution in ways that will weaken Cheney/Bush propaganda
efforts locally, world-wide and especially in the US.

The no-war-on-Iraq campaign's weakest point was (probably) that Iraqis
were technically (internet) and socio-politically (fear of repression)
unable to defend themselves in information distribution against
Cheney/Bush/Karl-Rove propaganda.

But this time, about 5 million Iranians use the internet, and have
relatively less fear of socio-political discussion. We have the 
technical communication power to stop this war! Can we make the
people-to-people connections necessary for this to work?


* To the iranians:

If you are interested in discussing what might be possible
interactions between the iranian blogosphere and the indymedia network
so that together we can stop this planned mass murder, please feel
free to ask questions on (e.g.) the 
(imc-europe at lists.indymedia.org) mailing list, (publicly archived:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-europe ) and of course
you can see how local, autonomous indymedia open publishing sites work
  http://beirut.indymedia.org
  http://cyprus.indymedia.org
  http://www.indymedia.org.uk
or the global site
  http://www.indymedia.org
or our documentation wiki (a bit chaotic)
  http://docs.indymedia.org
or our mailing list archives (most are public)
  http://lists.indymedia.org

Indymedia does not have any leaders or representatives - i'm active in
the town where i live (Torun in Poland) which contributes to
http://pl.indymedia.org and this email only represents my personal
views as one indymedia activist. But i'm copying to relevant indymedia
public mailing lists - so that the information will start circulating.

If you're interested in starting something like indymedia in Iran,
you might want to read through:
  http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewImcHowTo
but we do not like the idea of "imposing" the indymedia model anywhere.
What's more important is for networking to happen, for information to
flow and be useful and used and to stop the war from even starting.


* To iranians and indymedia people:

i've written some of the above thoughts down here on the indymedia
wiki in a bit more detail with lots of URLs:
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcIranPossibilities

Please feel free to make use of the page, modify it, add stuff,
reorganise it, repost the links on local indymedia newswires,
whatever.

The indymedia network is an extremely powerful, decentralised tool
which IMHO is more developed than it was 2 years ago - and the Iranian
internet community is 200 times bigger than the Iraqi internet
community was 2 years ago. IMHO we are in a much better position this
time to tell the Cheney/Bush regime "No! Mass murder will not be
tolerated!" and to disable its propaganda efforts.

Let's stop this war!

solidarity, pozdrawiam
boud (imc-pl-torun volunteer)