Never Forgetting
In my blog today, I want to go back to something we spoke about during the first few weeks of ASTU: the theme of ‘never forgetting’ which was introduced to us in Marjane Satrapi’s graphic narrative Persepolis. In the introduction of the narrative, Satrapi ends by stating, “one can forgive but one can never forget”. This theme occurs throughout the narrative: Uncle Anoosh explains to Marji that their “family memory must not be lost” (60) and at the end of the book, Marji’s grandmother tells her “don’t ever forget what I told you” (151), which is once again, repeating the same theme.
The war in Iran gave a bad name to the people of Iran and Muslims in general; “the wrong doing of a few extremists” was generalized to an entire nation and even to an entire religion, even though, as Satrapi has shown us in her narrative, many were just innocent victims of the whole conflict. Marji, at a young age, experienced more loss and trauma than most people do in their whole life; she saw her uncle, who she considered a hero, taken away from her, many of her friends had to move away due the situation in Iran and she eventually herself had to leave her country and her family behind in order to have a better life. No matter how old Marji gets, I feel as though these events are some that will always stick with her and ones that she can never forget.
Evidently, Satrapi did not forget how her life in Iran was because she eventually wrote Persepolis, which in a way is a memoir of her life during the war. As much discrimination and oppression as she experienced during that time, she never let that completely get to her. She still loves her country and is proud of where she comes from. She wants the people of the West to understand that a few corrupt individuals don’t make an entire nation corrupt and she doesn’t want those who lost their life defending their country to be forgotten. That is a key reason as to why she wrote Persepolis in the first place.
Coming from Pakistan, which is, unfortunately, a country with extreme corruption and violence, I to this day always hope that eventually, this violence will die down and Pakistan will again become the beautiful and safe country it once was. But being so far away from my country and only being a small voice amongst hundreds of thousands, there isn’t a lot I can do to change the situation of my country. That’s how I think Satrapi felt and that is why she wrote Persepolis. She wanted people to know her story of the war, she wanted a voice and she never wanted it to be forgotten.