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Robin Wright reflects on a young generation of Arabs and Persians across the Middle East:
Technology has allowed counter-jihadis to communicate an entirely different set of values, goals and tactics. After three decades of associating the word "martyr" with suicide bombers, you now have people being called martyrs who weren't trying to hurt anyone else and died in the process of protesting. In the case of Mohamed Bouazizi, the young Tunisian street vendor who died as a result of self-immolation, he was trying to shame a corrupt government. Neda was out peacefully protesting a disputed election. Hamza al-Khatib was a 13-year-old boy in Syria who tried to challenge the arrest of his friends who had been arrested for writing anti-government graffiti on public walls. The process has generated the phenomenon of a new kind of martyrdom that isn't about the destruction of other people's lives. It is about using the most precious essence of your own life to change the political system.
The Dish 