CNN did a piece on images that have inspired change. Here’s the Jewish-Iranian-American writer Roya Hakakian in that “piece”:http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/24/neda.iconic.images/.

“Every revolution needs icons and symbols — an image that embodies a sense of universality of blight and at the same time innocence,” said Roya Hakakian of Connecticut, a writer, poet and journalist who was born and raised in Iran. “The image of Neda does both.”

What outsiders have seen over the past three decades, she said, are fist-pumping men decrying America, images of hostages and “the burning of Uncle Sam effigies.” Americans, she continued, have gotten to know little beyond the talk of Hezbollah and Hamas support, discussions of nuclear bombs and the rants of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for, among other things, the destruction of Israel.

“We come from different corners of the world, but we see the same thing,” Hakakian said of the video of Neda’s death. “You don’t need to be Iranian. You don’t need to be her neighbor. You don’t need to know her name. … Anyone can watch this and come away with the sense of injustice and what’s taking place, and I think that’s why it’s catching on.”

An interview with Hakakian here: