Why We Fight
Revolution, revolt, rising, uprising, whatever you’d like to call it – it’s incredible what things begin to stem the impetus for enabling people to believe that they can effectively make a grand sweeping (or sometimes even moderate) change through their own bonding as a group and demonstration against whatever oppressive regime may have been identified for the day, month, year. In the case of Middle East, Marjane Satrapi and Iran, the means are clear and the oppressor clearer – no one enjoys a system that defines itself on class and offers no social mobility.
I found Persepolis to be remarkable in the way that it relates the story of Satrapi’s understandings in the goings on of the revolution. As an older woman looking back on her youth, there is much to be gained from her new position of knowledge as she understands what she was attempting to understand when she was younger. Authenticity is never lost in this representation as we still feel and see her wide-eyed awe at the events occurring around her. I thought most poignantly from her original life goal of wanting to be a prophet and end suffering aptly marked her “innocent understanding” as I’d like to deem it. She had an idea that there was some very real wrong occurring around her, but she had not yet the knowledge in order to understand her scope within the battle and how to make herself most effective. It is rather ingenious and quite believable to portray the idealism of a child in thinking that they can end whatever hardship they see before them simply by believing in themselves – she thought she had the answers and yet as she became more educated, her position quickly changed. I refuse to go as far as to say she was dissuaded from her original position but it does seem as if the “reality” of the situation in Iran became equal with a certain feeling/sentiment of despair.
Her father says at one point, “In any case, as long as there is oil in the Middle East we will never have peace.” Such a short line says so much and can almost stand alone as a sort of terse understanding of what we see in current-day Middle Eastern affairs. The fact that this story is now removed several years yet still rings so true might give a bit of affirmation to Satrapi’s goal of being a prophet. In my Riot & Rebellion class, we often talk about revolutions and why they occur and how they are carried out and it is interesting to see the way that Satrapi attempts to explain it from her position growing up amidst the Shah’s removal. All the reasons for a typical revolution are there: oppression on a state-wide level, personal infringement of rights (however one deems them being limited is open to subjective interpretation) and a general sense of unrest amongst the people often engender a lashing out against whatever despotic power currently exists at the helm.
In relation to Bespaloff’s essays, the idea of force is prevalent here as well. There is no way that Satrapi doesn’t feel compelled to make some sort of difference. The question from the beginning is never one of involvement or non-involvement but instead of how best to make a difference and discerning what role she must play. This speaks to the idea of Fatum as ruler of the gods and the gods as ruler of the people in Bespaloff. There is no true control, only force and one’s role within force and reaction to force. We can only do so much as we are destined to do and from there on out, the future is written.
As I attempt to finish Persepolis, I can only wonder where the next steps lead. I can easily see why this book became so widely popular although it is still quite troublesome that David B. doesn’t get his recognition for creating the style Satrapi then follows in, so clear via the memoir capitulations she employs.
