Jon Snow broadcasts from the ancient Persian capital, and finds that the bloggers got there first. Listen to the podcast
What a country! Look at this place for a start. Where are we? The sumptuous centre of Persian Islamic art a few miles from... the far less sumptuous rather more contentious centre of Natanz, where nuclear enrichment continues somewhere under the mountains marked only by stacks of excavated earth, a few low-lying buildings, watchtowers and anti-aircraft batteries.
Yet it feels a million miles from here as does the amazingly ill-tempered row between America and Iran. Funny old world...
How much easier it is to hate and fear people you hardly see and don't want to hear. In this Iran's president may have helped with some of the more extreme rhetoric that he has uttered.
But you know, Iran is probably one of the most internet-savvy countries on earth. Bloggers abound and the web here is not just the hassled preserve of reformists. There are mullahs and traditionalist sites and bloggers too. The conservative website Baztab boasts a million hits a day.
The access to information here from beyond Iran is considerable, despite the traditional domestic media restrictions. This week I visited a Mullah training centre in Qom, and found that the young clerics had not only accessed the Channel 4 and More4 News websites, but had printed up and translated reams of what they had found there. Irreverent blogs, a caption competition and more.
Our News from Iran site sports a mullah with a black turban in its banner. Why, the clerics asked? I told them I didn't know. They were non-plussed. They knew everything about their site, I knew very little about mine.
Suddenly I was aware that globalisation has changed my job as a journalist for ever. Never again will I be able to go abroad, jump to conclusions, report and the rest, safe in the knowledge that my efforts will never be tested locally. Well from now on, assume they know exactly what you have said.
Just as they know what is being said about them from Vienna to Washington and New York over these past days and weeks. On the other hand, despite the Internet nothing beats actually coming to the epicentre of a crisis, and looking at it first hand.
Crisis? What crisis? In the 30-odd years since I first came here I have never seen the country so united. The outside world has succeeded in uniting Iranians about what they see as their inalienable right to nuclear enrichment. As never before.
Whatever they may think about their own leadership, they think very little of ours, seeing double standards everywhere. What about Israel, India and Pakistan, they keep asking me? All three embraced by the west, having developed everything nuclear without ever signing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
No senior American politician has been here to try to develop relations since Iran's revolution in 1979. Maybe it's time they did. Of course amid this tension they won't. In the meantime, I suppose there's always the Internet.
Listen to the podcast or subscribe to Jon's weekly podcast here.
Jon,
Thank you and your team for bringing us one week of excellent report from Iran.
And thank you for paying attention to our comments which should be a lesson to BBC and CNN. What surprised me the most was the interview with Ayatolah- Montazri, which I mentioned in my comments last week but never thought that you are able to interview him, so well done!
It is good to know that there are still people in media who do care about what people have to say.
Shahram
Posted by: Shahram | Tuesday, 14 March 2006 at 05:20 AM