Persepolis: A Window into My Own Ignorance

As I began reading Persepolis, the autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, it quickly became apparent that I am completely ignorant about Iran. However, I think there is an overwhelmingly large percentage of westerners that are just as ignorant as I. I can assume this based on two things: first, that if it were not true, it would be difficult for me to be so ignorant, and second, enlightening people like myself was the goal of this book.

I can not speak on behalf of the western world as a whole, but as an American, I often equate Iran and Iraq in my head, thinking of Iran as another oil rich middle-eastern fundamentalist Arabic nation with a crazy leader and next in line on the American war path. At the surface, much of these adjectives are not far from the truth, however they very much represent a small percentage of extremists that hide the rich Iranian culture and history that lives on in its citizens.

First some simple facts. Iranians are not Arabs. They are modern day Persians and have never actually gotten a long with the Arabic world, especially Iraq. They speak a modern version of Persian, often referred to as Farsi. Iran has only been an Islamic Republic for 30 years. Yes, it is embarrassing I did not know these simple things, but I bet most Americans would get these questions wrong if asked randomly.

Before Iran became an Islamic Republic in 1979, it had a secular liberalized government and was in the midst of modernizing and westernizing itself. Prior to 1950, the British had control over the Iranian oil industry and profited enormously while providing Iran only 20% of the profits. In 1951, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, a western educated politician, was elected as prime minister through a democratic process. During his short time in power, he took the initiative to nationalize the Iranian oil industry, shutting out the British. This allowed Mossadegh to gain tremendous popularity amongst the population. The Brits retaliated by attempting to create a world wide boycott on Iranian oil. As their attempt to force Iran to return control to Britain failed, they turned to the US for help.

The reasons for which the United States ended up helping the Brits is highly debated. The US had great interest in the oil industry, which through helping England eventually led to approximately 40% control in the Iranian oil industry. However, it is also speculated that the US was even more motivated due to the Cold War and the suspicions that the Iranians were tending towards communism. It is most likely the case that both these motivations led the US to their actions to help Great Britain remove Dr. Mossadegh from office. In 1953, the CIA went through with Operation Ajax, which removed Dr. Mossadegh from his post and replaced him with Gen. Zahedi and reinstating the former Shah. This led to the arrest, imprisonment, and sentence to death of Mossadegh (though he ended up serving three years in solitary confinement in a military prison and then living out the rest of his life under house arrest). With this arrangement, the British regained majority control in Iranian oil and as mentioned above the US was given approximately 40%.

It was only a matter of time until this installed government fell. The next party to take power was the fundamentalist Islamics through the Iranian Revolution (also known as the Islamic Revolution), leaving a previously advancing nonsecular country in the hands of extremism. It is this point in time where Marjane Satrapi in the first volume of Persepolis makes it her goal to stress the fact that this belief in extremism was the minority and the people did rebel. However, in the end, those with the power make the rules.

The citizens of Iran have still not given up hope towards moving forward again. Just this year there was a public election in Iran. Inevitably it was rigged. However, there was a enough support for change that the results of the polls sent the citizens to the streets in protest.

Where would Iran be today if we never infiltrated and overthrew their government for our own ideological and monetary interests? Would you trust us?