CAIRO — The icons of revolutions past have found rebirth in Tehran.
Opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi has been cast on Twitter as the "Gandhi of Iran" who speaks of his own martyrdom and, while not naturally an inspiring figure, has led hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets. In criticizing the crackdown in Tehran, President Obama has quoted Martin Luther King Jr. and reminded the Iranian government that "the world is watching."
Rebellion is about passion, but it's driven by universal themes and images. It is moved by the clear delineation of two sides, which in Iran's case are a police state, where militias roam and camouflage-clad police race around on motorcycles, and a protest movement humming with text messages citing bygone heroes and video of anonymous bloodied hands rising toward cameras.
Twitter may be the sound bite of the new century, but it takes more than 140 characters to rally a nation. The electronic discourse streaming out of Iran onto online social networks feeds on images that offer the power of poems and anthems. Hence the references to King and Mohandas Gandhi -- unimpeachable moral authorities -- against the stony visage of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, the white-bearded ayatollah who has scolded protesters and sent out security forces to force them back.
These dueling images, while not articulating the complex scope of what's unfolding in Iran, play out in the media and in opposition slogans. They skip through cyberspace. A recent exchange between three people commenting on a protest video posted on YouTube reveals how such visceral forces are at work instigating international, multicultural debate over Iran's fate:
"Imagine all these people marching straight to the government house and taking the so called 'dictators' out of power. I tell you no force will be able to stop them."
Reply: "No, no, no, no. Did nobody learn from Ghandi!? Violence begets violence, it solves nothing. They toppled the British in India without raising their fists, they can do it here as well. It just takes time and dedication, persistence and unfortunately suffering, but a peaceful force will always win out over a violent one. Google Ghandi and learn something."
