30 years on from the ’79 Revolution comes an awakening in Iran. And it bears similarities to Tiananmen, some 20 years ago, in the wave of uprising, despair, hope…a faint whiff of momentary freedom to express, dissent and simply let out some long building frustration.

As with all decent revolutions students are to the forefront and are certainly bearing the brunt of reprisals. And those reprisals will come thick and fast, hard and long, brutal and deadly. That’s just the way it is.

The Iranian authorities are somewhat stunned looking like they have been slapped by a wet fish.

“Where is my vote” people ask. Down the back of the sofa in Ahmadinejad’s office probably but the reality is that we don’t know that answer. But certainly the polling in advance of the election suggests the actual result might be rather different to the official one.

This is a big story and like Tiananmen it has captured the interest and hearts of many around the world. The connected generation has been pounding keyboards collating and disseminating information through social media with Twitter, especially, providing an outlet for up to the minute street reports.

Journalism schools will be setting 140 word max reports as part of their testing soon.

@persiankiwi has been a star with 24,000 hasitly assembled followers. Streaming news just took on new meaning. Instead of having the same story respooled and playing non-stop for 24 hours, we are getting a blow by blow account of what’s happening on the ground. It will be interesting to see how traditional media outlets can respond to this.

Given that most of them have been expelled they may not be much help. It suggests that any concerned citizen in any given country on any given day can provide a source of news. You just need a phone and away you go.

Imagine if we’d had mobile phones and Twitter in Tiananmen Sqaure. I wonder what difference it would have made to how China handled the situation.

What interests me most about this is that its an internal action. No regime change here…no hordes of US soldiers and targeted bombs..no neo-con fantasy of parachuted democracy. It’s the Iranian people trying to have their say. That is such a difference to its poor neighbours to the east and west who are mired in US inspired conflict.

In a way the outcome in Iran right now isn’t that important. It could end up really ugly or not. It’s hard to tell but the wheels have been set in motion. The world is watching and supportive of the process of peaceful demonstration.

There may be punishment, deaths, torture but realistically the authorities have limits in that area given the widespread dissent.

As Gandhi once said of British authorities trying to crack down on peaceful protest:

“But how many can be given such punishment? Try and calculate how much time it will take of Britishers to hang 300 million of persons”

Early in 2008 I commented on the shaping of a post-imperial world where the flow of investment funds, and coporate takeovers, was coming from the East to the West, with China, India, Russia and the Gulf States recycling $ reserves and new found wealth into weak and failing companies in the West.

The catastrophic implosion of the US financial system in the last year has merely emphasised this change in the balance of monetary might.

So when Kiva, that beacon of social entreprenuership, decided to offer loans in the US itself, there was a huge intake of breath. The US needs microloans??!!!

Of course it does. How do small businesses get funded? Normally by people taking out second mortgages, borrowing from friends or ramping up credit cards. In fact I’m told many businesses fund cashflows problems using personal credit cards. Why?

Because banks have a model where they lend on housing as collateral…oh yeah that worked well…not.

The old fashioned approach to banking (one my father was involved in for 42 years) was lending to small business people and supporting them through the ups and downs of the business cycle. Investing in people and creating relationships of trust.

I think we are headed back to this and it’s peer to peer lending that is making this happen. The web itself has allowed these bonds to be built, that’s what networks are after all. Lots and lots of micro connections. Isn’t that the amazing thing about the web? It’s so huge and vast yet it’s simply a conglomeration of molecules connected together.

I know I’ve been bagning on about this for ages but banking, like media, will be forced to change. The micro world is causing new networks to be created, new bonds to be formed and new efficiencies to be found.

Harnessing the power of the web is allowing this to happen.

Microfinance has shaken up the banking world. I enjoyed reading Matt Flannery’s piece on the Kiva story.

Microjustice will no doubt change the legal world in due course.

We already have microrelationships, micromedicine surely on the way.

And the biggest prize of all………..microgovernment.

The change is coming, the inexorable march of system reorganisation is humming away in the background. It’s not top down, it’s an unseen mass movement with no control function. A pure chaotic system in action, free to develop and receive feedbacks in real time.

Who would have thought a lender from Domenica would be funding a borrower in the US.

Yes times are changing.

I always remember this day and this event. Mainly because it screwed up my plans to cross China and get the Trans Siberian railway home after 20 months backpacking. As it was my girfriend and I were in Sust the last village before the Khunjerab Pass that links Pakistan with China and is the highest order crossing the world. It was a glorious spot with the towering Karakorams in the distance. Anyway the plan was set until we met this English bloke walking down the road to us. He’d just crossed over the border which had been shut and told us what had happened.

Remember this was BG (before google!) and before email even. News came via GPO Poste Restante and the travellers grapevine. So that was the end of that idea. It’s actually the closest I’ve ever been to China which is still on my list on places to visit.

But a lot has changed since that fateful day in Tiananmen Square and yet much has remained the same. The Chinese authorities began their media clampdown many months ago by suspending YouTube and more recently by blocking Twitter (what a compliment!) and Bing (Crosby??). As well as the usual quiet word in the ear of any one thinking about protesting or even acknowledging the anniversary.

So fear still rules. But fear of what exactly? Many Chinese are pretty happy with the way their economy has grown and how the modern world has been welcomed in. Sure not everyone has benefitted but there is a certain pride within the nation that much has been accomplished in recent times. Times like this are a real test for an authoritarian society. Dissent cannot be tolerated at any level.

But truth is a slippery ball and when one looks across to Hong Kong, where over 100,00 people gathered to mark the occasion, one can see that the attempt to censor and punish any kind of inquiry or examination is really a waste of time. People know.

China is a unique country with a long history and strong culture. Change comes slowly but hopefully those in charge will come to see the futility of repressing protest completely and censoring mass media. One thing though is for sure:

Tank Man is an enduring image of the 20th Century and no amount of propaganda or control can ever change that.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

The focus so far has been on freedom, equality and the application of the rule of law. But no article better enshrines the fear many people live with, namely that someone will come to your house and take you away.

Arbitrary arrest and detention are weapons of fear. They walk closely in hand with torture, which can be liberally applied in some dark, dank cell where no one is watching.

This is a weapon for crushing democracy and freedom. Countries like Burma continue to use it today to make sure their population is suppressed and bathed in fear.

When you go to bed tonight spare a thought for those who sleep lightly whilst waiting for the knock at the door.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law

Of course they do.

The question is: what law?

A kangaroo court is a law of sorts. Or perhaps Sharia Law appeals? If you think stoning a woman to death is still an appropriate punishment.

Or perhaps you could be under “house arrest” for 13 years.

Yes recognition as a person before the law is important but perhaps not as important as the law itself and its application in a fair and open manner.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

This seems pretty obvious and to many the days of slavery would seem to be long past. Unfortunately that isn’t the case. The trafficking of people (modern day slavery) continues to happen on a global scale.

Not many countries are unaffected in some way by this hideous activity. It’s long past our historic notion of black slaves taken from Africa to the Empire and beyond. Today slavery consists of bonded labour, early or forced marriage, forced labour, slavery by descent, forced sex work and extreme forms of child labour.

None of it is pleasant.

It’s true that our economic system prizes cheap labour and so in a way encourages that drive. Certainly it makes one think about why and how this still happens? Certainly people look to escape poor circumstances and that can often lead them into the hands of traffickers of hope but deliverers of hell.

But wherever you are reading this from don’t think your country is immune to this. It isn’t.