TANGENTS: Comic puts Iran into perspective

by John Saccenti, Managing Editor
   I hate Iran. It wants to kill me and everyone I know.
   Iran? Haven’t liked it since 1979, when its people stormed the U.S. embassy there and held 52 hostages for 444 days. I was 9, and according to the television the entire nation wanted me dead.
   It was one of those impressions that last a lifetime. They hated us by the mob-full. They burned our flag. They burned pictures of our leaders. They vowed that we would all die and whenever I saw images of them racing through the streets like maniacs, I believed it.
   I hate Iran and I’ve never even met someone who called it home. That is, until I read “Persepolis the Story of a Childhood,” by writer and illustrator Marjane Satrapi. Ms. Satrapi is about the same age as I am. She was born in Iran and lived through the very things that scared me to death as a child before her parents sent her to Austria when she was 13.
   ”Persepolis,” is an autobiographical account of her growing up in Iran and later in Austria, her return, and what life was like for people living in the country during the late 1970s to mid-1980s. It focuses less on historical moments, such as the hostage crisis, and instead concentrates on life and feelings and how she and the people she loved were affected by what was happening.
   Ms. Satrapi takes readers on a journey that details her time as a young girl whose parents at first welcome the changes brought on by the Islamic Revolution to a young adult who missed the country her parents loved so much, despite its changes.
   She tells us what it was like to wake up one day to find out that she would no longer be able to attend her “French” school in Iran, but a new school where she had to wear a head scarf (as all women were told to do), was taught chants that celebrated Iran’s new “supreme leader” and was judged on her adherence and knowledge of Islam over academics. She talks about the secret police and how she and her friends would find ways around them to “live” the way they wanted through small acts of rebellion.
   After reading the book, which became an animated movie in 2008, and its sequel, I think that she too hated Iran, or at least, what her beloved country had become. We see how easy it is to become what others want, how it is easier to listen and do what you are told than to face the consequences, which in some cases meant a small admonishment, going to jail or simply disappearing.
   She spends time on sad moments, moments of loss, when her parents talk about how friends who didn’t support the government were killed.
   Those moments are dark and scary, but Ms. Satrapi balances that out with an exuberance and excitement that tells readers that, despite what is going on around her, she had a deep love for her country.
   Thanks to Ms. Satrapi, I feel like, finally, I know more about Iran than I ever thought I would.
   Well, I don’t know anything about Iran, but I do know more about its people, and that’s at least a start.
John Saccenti is Managing Editor of The Cranbury Press and the South Brunswick Post. He can be reached at [email protected].