Neda: An Unintended Symbol
Iconic photos of the event appearing in newspapers and television galvanized the nation and inflamed the anti-war movement in the U.S. Millions of students protested and nearly 1,000 colleges and universities were shut down after the Kent State shooting.
Yesterday, a young woman who was part of the crowd in Tehran, either protesting or simply watching the events unfold, was shot in the chest, apparently by Iranian Basiji security forces on rooftops.
Her death was recorded on video, and the gruesome end of her life sped digitally and virally around the world on social media sites, such as YouTube and Facebook.
"Neda," as she was known, has in a matter of hours become an icon for the Iranian protest movement.
Her image has become memorialized in posters, including one in style similar to those that represented the Barack Obama campaign. Clearly, this isn't what she had planned to do with her life.
The Vietnam War took nearly three more years after Kent State to reach an end. In the Internet era, with information escaping the communications black hole in Iran at warp speed, a change in the "tenor" and "tone" of Iranian government could happen sooner rather than later.
In any case, Neda will have played an unintended and central part in the next chapter of Iran's history.