For those who are over, say, 40, this is not a new story.
We sat in front of our analog televisions and watched crappy little Trabants stream through the Brandenburg Gate. The composite bodies were the same colors that one finds in a nursery, and the masonry wall which had served to protect communism could no longer contain the smoke from the Trabant's little two-stroke engine.
The first protests had been in June, in China of all places. For nearly two months, protesters called for democracy and liberty. They built an homage to the Statue of Liberty on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Their call was one for human dignity and civil rights.
And on 4 June, 1989, they were crushed. The organizers were carried off to secret prisons and the protesters were dispersed by tanks and arms fire. It seemed that the hope of democracy was destroyed on that day.
But it wasn't. By the end of October, peaceful civil protests were rampaging throughout the Communist bloc. But Berlin holds a special place.
Two years earlier, President Ronald Reagan had exhorted Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, "Tear down this wall!" It was seen as daring and indecorous, a challenge which was full of the bravado of a victor in battle without a shot being fired.
And on 9 November, 1989, we turned on our televisions and saw a joyously unthinkable event. Germans wielding picks and sledgehammers were bashing the Berlin Wall to smithereens! They were having a huge party tearing it down. Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan were nowhere to be found.
It is this memory which informs a guarded optimism. In the last month, we have watched autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt deposed by popular uprisings. These are not the uprisings of turbanned fanatics with an extreme interpretation of Islam.
These are young people who use cell phones and the internet. They are not bent upon retribution for the misdeeds of the autocrats beyond their departure. Aside from their newfound technical prowess, they look like their antecedents in Beijing and Berlin in 1989.
This is beyond huge. The illusion of universal fanatacism in Muslim countries has now been shattered, although one may still appropriately question as to a Wahabbist connection to fanatical movements. In Cairo, you saw young men who had awful jobs and went to their Friday prayers and behaving peacefully.
If one were to turn on the television, one would see their Farsi-speaking counterparts in Teheran on the morning of 15 February. Other reports invoke the nations of Yemen, Bahrain, Algeria, Jordan and Syria. There are no Imams proclaiming fatwas-just people demanding accountability from their leadership.
As it happens when peace breaks out, authoritarians are threatened, but there is no room for their voices. On the deserts of Northern Africa and Southwestern Asia a new thing as old as the sun has broken free-the desire of people to have choices and liberty to decide what is best for the future.
In fifteen or twenty years, should someone walking into a Saipa dealership in New York or Toronto be curious about the little car built in Iran and ask, they will be reminded of this moment. They will see images of happy Saipa owners driving their cars down the Neda Agha Soltan Expressway in the brochures.
Perhaps there will be old men who remember the day when Iran was a place that terrified them. They will recall three wars fought to do something which was accomplished with plastic keyboards instead of bullets and bombs. They will recall the names of places like Fallujah and Kandahar.
While things could still go badly wrong, please remember this: nothing impedes the undesirable like daring to imagine the best possible outcome. This is the motivation behind higher education and Mega-ball lottery tickets alike. As of today, positive outcomes have become possible.
This possibility is the greatest gift that the Middle East could have gotten.
We sat in front of our analog televisions and watched crappy little Trabants stream through the Brandenburg Gate. The composite bodies were the same colors that one finds in a nursery, and the masonry wall which had served to protect communism could no longer contain the smoke from the Trabant's little two-stroke engine.
The first protests had been in June, in China of all places. For nearly two months, protesters called for democracy and liberty. They built an homage to the Statue of Liberty on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Their call was one for human dignity and civil rights.
And on 4 June, 1989, they were crushed. The organizers were carried off to secret prisons and the protesters were dispersed by tanks and arms fire. It seemed that the hope of democracy was destroyed on that day.
But it wasn't. By the end of October, peaceful civil protests were rampaging throughout the Communist bloc. But Berlin holds a special place.
Two years earlier, President Ronald Reagan had exhorted Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, "Tear down this wall!" It was seen as daring and indecorous, a challenge which was full of the bravado of a victor in battle without a shot being fired.
And on 9 November, 1989, we turned on our televisions and saw a joyously unthinkable event. Germans wielding picks and sledgehammers were bashing the Berlin Wall to smithereens! They were having a huge party tearing it down. Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan were nowhere to be found.
It is this memory which informs a guarded optimism. In the last month, we have watched autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt deposed by popular uprisings. These are not the uprisings of turbanned fanatics with an extreme interpretation of Islam.
These are young people who use cell phones and the internet. They are not bent upon retribution for the misdeeds of the autocrats beyond their departure. Aside from their newfound technical prowess, they look like their antecedents in Beijing and Berlin in 1989.
This is beyond huge. The illusion of universal fanatacism in Muslim countries has now been shattered, although one may still appropriately question as to a Wahabbist connection to fanatical movements. In Cairo, you saw young men who had awful jobs and went to their Friday prayers and behaving peacefully.
If one were to turn on the television, one would see their Farsi-speaking counterparts in Teheran on the morning of 15 February. Other reports invoke the nations of Yemen, Bahrain, Algeria, Jordan and Syria. There are no Imams proclaiming fatwas-just people demanding accountability from their leadership.
As it happens when peace breaks out, authoritarians are threatened, but there is no room for their voices. On the deserts of Northern Africa and Southwestern Asia a new thing as old as the sun has broken free-the desire of people to have choices and liberty to decide what is best for the future.
In fifteen or twenty years, should someone walking into a Saipa dealership in New York or Toronto be curious about the little car built in Iran and ask, they will be reminded of this moment. They will see images of happy Saipa owners driving their cars down the Neda Agha Soltan Expressway in the brochures.
Perhaps there will be old men who remember the day when Iran was a place that terrified them. They will recall three wars fought to do something which was accomplished with plastic keyboards instead of bullets and bombs. They will recall the names of places like Fallujah and Kandahar.
While things could still go badly wrong, please remember this: nothing impedes the undesirable like daring to imagine the best possible outcome. This is the motivation behind higher education and Mega-ball lottery tickets alike. As of today, positive outcomes have become possible.
This possibility is the greatest gift that the Middle East could have gotten.
