Agree with jsfox.

Why ineed? Isn't THAT the eternal question, posed 19 more times as well...and counting.

Recommended for the comments.

Why Neda? Why, Indeed.

Has there ever been anything so poignant as that short clip of a woman's last moments? One might think it was staged, it's framing so perfect. Will Neda's death be the ikon of the Resistance?

Maybe the Iranians do not need the US to support their fight. I find it incredibly arrogant that they would feel more strongly and be more determined if the US advocated their cause. It exists separate from the US. We should get a grip on that fact. The world does NOT wait for what the US to validate their voice. That is just our ego-centrical imagination catering to the blind nationalism of false patriots and the like. I wish the Resistance fidn success and democracy thrive in Iran, but democracy begins at home.

You know what. Fuck You.

She wasn't protesting. She and her father were watching the protestors when she was fatally shot. That is what makes it even more tragic. It goes to show that their clerics do not try to distingish between the protestors and passer bys.

Course, some would say had she not been there, she would not have been shot.

Perhaps, but I say, had the protestors been allowed to protest peacefully, and the theocrats were not so hell bent on being a totaltarism society, this would not have happened.

This is sort of like wondering if Victor Hugo would have abandoned the Quasimodo character if he had been good looking. Personally, I feel certain that Neda would be an icon of the uprising regardless of her looks. So I don't buy your thesis, truthseeker. Kind of silly to argue about it though - how would one prove it either way.

Roland Barthes wrote in his introduction to "Empire of Signs:" "This is a book about Japan. Not the real Japan, but the Japan that exists inside the French imagination." I think we owe Neda the person our respect and sympathy. Neda the Icon, however, has no history, never breathed, and forever dies each time the video is viewed.

Go ahead guys, tell me how many missing black girls have been shown in the front page of CNN.com.

Just a quick guess: zero.

Because the media views white girls as more attractive and by extension best selling than black ones, unfortunately.

It's a good thing that guy standing in front of the tank in Tiannamen Square was a looker.

Is it Truthseeker's point to once again browbeat the world for confessing its stereotypical view of women by favoring female beauty over female brains?

Or is Truthseeker a misogynist, angry that this woman gets all the love?

Should we care?

Hm. Rachel Corrie was relatively homely, but it did not stop rabid Israel haters from using their image.

But who knows, perhaps the impact of her tragedy would be much bigger if she looked like Neda Derakhshan.

I remember years ago an essay that someone read on NPR. It was at least 30 years ago, and I still remember the essence of it, so it must have made an impression. It was about how people can get all wrapped up in a story about a kitten or a puppy that is in danger, while glossing over headlines about people getting blown away. I think it was in reference to stuff that was happening in Vietnam, where we actually saw footage of suffering and death.

Back then we saw what was REALLY ugly: the GI's in the trenches, (we actually feared we might see our very brothers (except the Bush's and Cheney's} who were exempt.

The NPR segment was questioning why we can hear an animal story and rise to the occasion, but steele ourselves against the latest bad news about our human citizens.

The answer that was offered was this: If we see an animal in a shelter we can take it; we can make a difference. I felt good about this 20 years ago. For some reason it falls flat on my deaf ears now.

If we, as citizens can't make a difference to our best and brightest, we are lost.

If MCB is reading this, I want you to know this is also how I feel. If you want to ridicule me for it, it says more about you than it does about me.

This matters.

I think other people have noticed as well why her death has special resonance.

For many Iranians, though, the death of a young woman has special meaning.

“We know a lot of people have died, but it is so hard to see a woman, so young and innocent, die like this,” a 41-year-old who gave his name as Alireza said Monday.

Women were particular targets after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began to strictly enforce previously loosened restrictions. Thousands of women were arrested or intimidated because they did not adhere precisely to Islamic dress code on the streets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/world/middleeast/23neda.html?_r=1

That's not to take anything away from Neda, but to note that there are many Nedas which I'll grant the original poster put quite harshly.

If you weren't so ignorant would you have written your post?