A Persepolis Reality

The hot, sunny days of summer always remind me of what it was like to be a kid – scrapes on my knees, no school, that familiar sound of the ice cream truck, sand in between my toes, shorts, tank tops, flip-flops and lemonade stands.

 It’s hard to imagine what life would be like if that fun and wonderment of being a kid mixed with something more dark and complex – like what Marjane “Marji” Satrapi has to deal with as a young girl in her auto-biographical graphic novel Persepolis. 

Set in Iran in 1979, Persepolis explores what it’s like to grow up and be a child of the Iranian Revolution. Marji marches around her house pretending to be a revolutionary, loses her uncle to the secret police, and still struggles to deal with the things all of us do – like listening to rock music, liking and flirting with boys, trying to be cool, and overall striving to be a normal teenager.

 The Iranian Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution as it’s sometimes called, occurred when the Iranian people overthrew the monarchy of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and replaced it with an Islamic Republic lead by the leader of the Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

This revolution is what made Islamic fundamentalism; or the political movement famous for pushing against the idea of a truly secular, democratic state and the international Universal Declaration of Human rights, which includes freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and equality between men and women (kinda uncool, if you ask me – I’m a firm believer in separating church and state). Although the Iranian people gave Khomeini the power to lead their government, he used it to create an Islamic state – specifically, one where women are not seen as being entitled to the same rights as men.

Thirty years after the Iranian Revolution, the people of Iran are again experiencing difficulty with their leaders and struggling to make their voices heard. On June 12 of this year, the Iranian people voted to elect a president, the highest official elected by direct popular vote. In the 2005 election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected to be President of Iran. Khomeini, the same man who lead the Iranian Revolution and supported Islamic Fundamentalism, is a huge Ahmadinejad supporter. When the Iranian people voted last month, the majority of the votes went to the two top contenders (much like the American system) – incumbent Ahmadinejad, affiliated with the Abadgaran political party, and Mir-Houssein Moussavi, of the Independent Reformist party.

On June 12, Iran’s official news agency announced that with two-thirds of the votes counted, Ahmadinejad had won the election with 63% of the vote, and that Moussavi had received 33% of the vote. The European Union, United Kington, and several other Western countries expressed concern over alleged irregularities during the vote, and doubt was voiced over the authenticity of the results.

 Moussavi issued a statement saying he wouldn’t “surrender to this charade”, and urged supporters to fight the decision “without committing acts of violence.” Protests in favor of Moussavi and against the alleged fraudulent election broke out in Tehran, the capital of Iran. Khomeini, now the Supreme Leader of Iran, urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad, but Moussavi lodged an official appeal against the result to the Guardian Council on June 14, claiming that 14 million unused ballots were missing, which gave the Iranian government a chance to manipulate the results.

 Although on June 29, Iran’s electoral board completed the partial recount and concluded that Ahmadinejad won the election, there is still continued protest from Moussavi and his supporters that the results are fraudulent; and rallies have broken out across the world asking the Iranian government to release political protestors taken prisoner during marches in Tehran against the election results. Moussavi is even planning to create a new political party in Iran aimed at reigning in the power of the Islamic Republic’s Leadership; and he aims to file the papers before Ahmadinejad is sworn in for a new term.

While I was struggling to begin to understand the complex situation in Iran – who voted for who? How exactly do they tally votes again? How can we tell who really won? Why wear green? – I remembered how much I enjoyed this novel, and how much it taught me about Iranian history – and it helped me understand the struggle not only Iranian citizens, but Iranian women have gone through to make an impact and be heard.

During the Iranian Revolution, women all over Iran fought to oust the Shah and start a new nation. After the revolution, they simply didn’t get the freedom they fought for – a girl can be forced into marriage at 13 (can you imagine – going through middle school and having to come home and not only clean your room, but cook dinner for your husband?), men and women are still kept apart from each other as much as possible until marriage, and a girl or woman can be arrested for simply having an ankle length skirt (wind might blow the skirt up) or having a little neck showing.

Their struggle is a reminder why we should all stand behind them in whatever way they need us – because imagine: what your American summer would be without shorts and a tank top?