“We aren’t allowed to have any opinions. People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but it doesn’t stop you having your own opinion. Even if people are still very young, they shouldn’t be prevented from saying what they think.”

– Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

This young teenager grew up in the confinement of the Holocaust. Under Hitler’s regime, the dictator ordered for an ethnic cleansing of Germany, believing that only Germans were “the master race” of the world. As a Jewish girl, Anne and her family were forced into hiding, and struggled under Nazi policies.

“When I finally understood the reasons for the revolution I made my decision.”
“Tomorrow we are going to demonstrate.”

-Marjane Satrapi in Persepolis, panel one (38)

And this young girl matured in the face of the Islamic Revolution and Iran-Iraq War. At the young age of 10, she was exposed to crude demonstrations and startling bombings but held both bravery and curiosity to her own high standard.

The story of Persepolis was first introduced to me just this year and my thoughts on a memoir of history – a graphic memoir – drifted back to Anne Frank and her diary whose story has been translated into a variety of mediums. My mind wandered back to this Jewish girl because in a way, her experiences in Germany mirrored Marji’s struggles in Iran. This relativity brought about a – maybe disconnected but – interesting investigation because both girls grew up in times of adversity.

History expressed from a textbook is one form of opinion but having the story clarified by a young child or teenager is a whole different story; especially from a woman’s perspective. Growing up, we are still trying to perceive the world around us, and in essence, society’s norms – it’s an inevitable human instinct to conform to a variety of standards. At a time of revolution, I feel as though it is harder to grasp the world around one’s self because of the confusing chaos two antagonistic factions have the ability to provoke. There is no static state in which children are able to feel comfortable and safe in, and instead, are compelled to live in a dynamic fear. Through these two memoirs, it’s evident that it has been tough for both Anne Frank and Marjane Satrapi.

It’s unbelievably striking to notice the resemblances between these two’s recollections of war and conflict. Both Anne Frank and Marji Satrapi subtly advocated the need for a voice against the whole of society. As young members of society, and -even more specifically – as women, they barely had the authority to be insurgent towards the government and their respected laws. Marji was constrained to merely talking about the current events with her family and friends, occasionally trying to integrate her own opinions into conversations. Anne was literally isolated in hiding – thus barely retaining a voice and took to writing her experiences on paper. The two also shared the commonality of holding a place in the “upper middle class”. Marji was distinguished from others because she had a maid who didn’t eat with them and in addition to that, her father drove a Cadillac. Anne and her family fortunately had the support of Germans who helped them in hiding within the Secret Annex.

Now, I want to take this conversation in an astray direction to attempt to relate the past with the present. In Grade 7, I was placed in a leadership position within my elementary school to raise money for various causes. In October, because I had been involved with eight other classmates, my teacher gave me the opportunity to attend We Day, an event that inspires youth to create change in the world and become leaders in their local communities. With this event touring Canada again in October for its ninth year, I wanted to contrast the impact Craig Kielburger has accomplished with the barricade Anne and most importantly, Marji involuntarily faced.

Craig Kielburger is a modern-day Canadian activist who created the Free the Children organization at the age of 12 in the hopes of eradicating child labour. He was a middle-class kid who held the same courage Anne and Marji presented through war. (However in contrast, he was living in Canada in 1995, when it was considered generally stable and was not facing severe adversity. Other parts of the world were indeed struggling, which was in part, a catalyst for his position on contemporary global issues.) In a matter of months he was able to take a trip to South Asia and explored the servitude environment children his age and younger were forced to live in. Coming back from this journey, he grew to become a motivated, self-aware young man; he wanted to change the lives of those in need. What makes this interesting is the fact that Craig had the resources to stand up for what he believed in; he had the connections to promote his cause through people his mother knew and he had the skills and knowledge to confront Parliament and news stations. He proved to Canada, and the world, that a child his age had the strength to make a difference. His memoir is retold through ongoing We Day events that take place annually.

Anne and Marji had not had the same opportunity, stuck in a time of both oppression and war, but on the contrary, it is important to note that Craig’s beliefs were not against the wishes of the Canadian government. Child labour is a major issue in a spectrum of countries, being prevalent to this day. Anne and Marji’s positions were existing ideologies that were not welcomed by the governments that were currently ruling. Somehow, these two still withstood the opposition.

The contrast between mid-twentieth century and the turn of the twenty-first century societies baffles me. The distinction between these three countries and their governing techniques through time proves to show the effect of revolution and how it can advance modern-day societies. The phenomenon being that kids like Anne and Marji who both seemed to be unable to change their world, were absolutely able to do so through telling their personal stories with war. That Craig is still currently making a difference today. All three of them have legacies that live with all of us and change the way we see the world ourselves. I wanted to reach the point that as kids, teenagers and young adults, we have the capacity to fight for what we believe in, ignoring whatever may come in the way.

I hope I didn’t bore you with my 1000+ words,

KYLO