No To Ahmadinezhad as Man of Year

**donsaeid** · 12-17-2006, 07:04 AM

Person of the Year: You

Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.

The "Great Man" theory of history is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men." He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this year.

To be sure, there are individuals we could blame for the many painful and disturbing things that happened in 2006. The conflict in Iraq only got bloodier and more entrenched. A vicious s***mish erupted between Israel and Lebanon. A war dragged on in Sudan. A tin-pot dictator in North Korea got the Bomb, and the President of Iran wants to go nuclear too. Meanwhile nobody fixed global warming, and Sony didn't make enough PlayStation3s.

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It's not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it's really a revolution.

And we are so ready for it. We're ready to balance our diet of predigested news with raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing. You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television.

And we didn't just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open-source software.

America loves its solitary geniuses—its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses—but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user-created Linux. We're looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it's just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy.

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

Sure, it's a mistake to romanticize all this any more than is strictly necessary. Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.

But that's what makes all this interesting. Web 2.0 is a massive social experiment, and like any experiment worth trying, it could fail. There's no road map for how an organism that's not a bacterium lives and works together on this planet in numbers in excess of 6 billion. But 2006 gave us some ideas. This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person. It's a chance for people to look at a computer screen and really, genuinely wonder who's out there looking back at them. Go on. Tell us you're not just a little bit curious. From the Dec. 25, 2006 issue of TIME magazine

**donsaeid** · 12-17-2006, 07:06 AM

From the Magazine | Person of the Year

People Who Mattered: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

An Interview with Iran's Agitator

For a man of such outsize ambition, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tries hard to seem normal. He drives a 20-year-old Peugeot and spends a few nights a week at a modest house in a residential neighborhood of Tehran. When he visited New York City in September, his wife brought dates from Iran to save money on food. And then there is the Jacket— the bland beige windbreaker he wears even for affairs of state, projecting the image he prefers for himself as champion of the dispossessed, a global Everyman.

Little else is ordinary about Ahmadinejad, 50. In his 18 months as Iran's President, the former engineering professor turned Tehran mayor has become the most voluble, polarizing leader in the Middle East. It isn't simply his country's support of militant Shi‘ite groups in Lebanon and Iraq, or Iran's suspected pursuit of a nuclear bomb. In 2006 Ahmadinejad also appealed to audiences beyond Iran who resent U.S. power and feel emboldened to challenge it. His denials of the Holocaust and his threat to destroy Israel cause shudders in the West but have made him an icon throughout the Muslim world.

Ahmadinejad's bombast has stiffened the Bush Administration's resistance to talking with Tehran. And discontent with him is growing at home. Last week a few dozen students shouted "Death to the dictator!" as Ahmadinejad delivered a speech. Two days later, he met TIME's Scott MacLeod at Ahmadinejad's private office in Tehran for a 75-minute interview, his second with TIME in three months. Excerpts:

TIME: Why did you write your recent letter to the American people?

Ahmadinejad: Did you read it? My letter had different aims and goals. Many American citizens in the messages and letters they sent requested that I bring up my points of view directly. Many of them said that the government of America doesn't let them receive my point of view in its entirety and without distortions. So I talked to them directly. The behavior of the American government has severely damaged the position of the United States. No country in the world looks upon America as a friend. When the U.S. is mentioned, people are reminded of war, aggression and bloodshed, and that's not a good thing. In other words, the American people are paying for something they don't believe in.

TIME: Was this a public relations exercise, or do you really want a dialogue with the U.S.?

Ahmadinejad: We separate the account of the American people and the American government. With the government of the U.S., the issue is different. I sent a letter to Mr. Bush. I really wanted him to revise his behavior. But apparently it didn't have any effect.

TIME: The Baker-Hamilton commission recommended the U.S. initiate a dialogue with Iran. If the Bush Administration reaches out to Iran, are you ready to talk to President Bush?

Ahmadinejad: We believe that the decision makers in America should change their outlook. They do not consider any value for the people of the region. The Iraqi people are also human beings. Today they have a constitution, a parliament and a government. They can run their own affairs by themselves. They have no need for a guardian. If the outlook of the American management is changed, then ways will be found for solving the problem.

TIME: So will you talk to the U.S. or not?

Ahmadinejad: We want to resolve the problem. We do not want to waste time. We do not want a political game. What we want is for the rights of the Iraqi people to be returned to them. If the government of the United States changes its behavior, the conditions will be changed. Then a dialogue could take place.

TIME: You've just held a conference questioning the Holocaust. Why not hold a peace conference instead? You could invite the Israelis and Palestinians to talk about peace instead of what happened 60 years ago.

Ahmadinejad: As a matter of fact, this conference was in line with peace. Because for the past 60 years, the Palestinian people have been suppressed, using the Holocaust as the pretext. If the issue of the Holocaust became clear, the issue would be solved.

TIME: How?

Ahmadinejad: When it is understood that the Holocaust does not have any relationship with the Palestinian people, we will have two proposals for the Western and European countries. The first solution is that in the same way that you created this regime in the past, you can remove it yourself. You know well that the Holocaust has nothing to do with the Palestinian people. That was just a pretext to create this regime. And it was not a good excuse. Just cease to support it. Don't use your people's money to assist this violent regime. This is the best solution. If they do not accept the first solution, then they should allow the nation of Palestine to make their decision about its own fate. Anyone who is a Palestinian citizen, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, should decide together in a very free referendum. There is no need for war. There is no need for threats or an atom bomb either.

TIME: Israel isn't going to accept any of this.

Ahmadinejad: If the American and British governments do not support and help them, and they stop using their power and influence, they will accept.

TIME: Without a war?

Ahmadinejad: Yes. Why not? Everyone knows that the Zionist regime is a tool in the hands of the United States and British governments.

TIME: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seemed to acknowledge this week that Israel has nuclear weapons. Does that affect Iran's determination to have nuclear weapons?

Ahmadinejad: The era for bombs and atoms and weapons has come to an end. People should be talked to with reason. Where are the ones who used nuclear bombs in Hiroshima? Their era is over. Now it's the time for dialogue, logic as well as law and justice.

TIME: If sanctions are imposed on Iran for continuing with its nuclear program, will you retaliate?

Ahmadinejad: Friendship with the Iranian people is better than confronting us. Experience has shown that we have the capability to defend ourselves and take advantage of any circumstance. The Iranian people are an extremely intelligent people. They know how to make the best opportunities from the harshest of threats. And make ill-wishers regret themselves.

TIME: So what will Iran do?

Ahmadinejad: Don't be in a hurry. We believe that the American government cannot do anything against us. From the Dec. 25, 2006 issue of TIME magazine

**donsaeid** · 12-17-2006, 07:11 AM

khob mardom be in ray dadan as man of the year! This is american Free Speech! if they dont like it they do what they like!

Ok! Ahmadinezhad has said and done alot ,,,,,, lately but when people vote someone to something isnt it riht that their choice is represented?

this is so just two faced hypocracy not Democracy and Freedom!

**mike435** · 12-17-2006, 09:39 AM

Originally posted by donsaeid View Post

khob mardom be in ray dadan as man of the year! This is american Free Speech! if they dont like it they do what they like!

Ok! Ahmadinezhad has said and done alot ,,,,,, lately but when people vote someone to something isnt it riht that their choice is represented?

this is so just two faced hypocracy not Democracy and Freedom!

can you elaborate

**donsaeid** · 12-17-2006, 09:44 AM

mardom be nazareshon ahmadinezhad man of the year bode! ama time vote mardomo zad kenar! chera?

**mike435** · 12-17-2006, 10:32 AM

Originally posted by donsaeid View Post

mardom be nazareshon ahmadinezhad man of the year bode! ama time vote mardomo zad kenar! chera?

i thoght so to

but i think YOU is a more apporpriate man of the year

also their is somthing called an editor
and this is an opinion pice so editor chooses as he/she please

remeber you are entileted to your opinions, not facts

this is not an example democrocy not even close

**mike435** · 12-17-2006, 10:34 AM

oh and also i think man of the year goes to someone who has had the most affect on the world

so i think the youtube guys should have been befor ahamadinejad
bush
rumsfeld
alot of other people

**donsaeid** · 12-17-2006, 11:34 AM

i agree but tradition of this man of the year is that readers choice is the one! not editors! and he was a clear lead! but they just made him People Who Mattered

**Michellica** · 12-17-2006, 11:46 AM

man of the year vase kie in? i don't consider him a man.. che berese be man of the year!

**donsaeid** · 12-17-2006, 11:56 AM

man of the year entekhab shod

hads bezan ki

shoma

No To Ahmadinezhad as Man of Year

No To Ahmadinezhad as Man of Year

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