Hello Readers,
In our Astu class this week, we read Persepolis and we had discussions about this wonderful book.It’s about a little girl which is the youth of the Author who witnesses the changes that happen in Iran with the Iranian revolution and the Iran- Iraq war. After reading it I realized that there are so many ways to approach the book.It has a lot to tell. For example, we can analyze the form of the book and its contributions to the context or we can talk about the representation of feminism, but one part of the book specifically affected me.It made me think about how religion is being used for benefits. In the book, there was this part that explains how 12-year-old Iranian boys decide to go to war by being “hypnotized”. They are being convinced with a false image of the afterlife and brainwashed with this idea. They give plastic keys to kids and making them believe that it’s the key to heaven.
It made me think about the middle ages in Europe. The church had all the power and used religious beliefs to keep its power. The pope was selling lands from heaven and he was convincing people to donate money to the church in order to purify from their sins. The exact same thing is happening with extremist and functionalist terror organizations as well in nowadays. For example, ISIS making suicide bombers to believe that the thing that they are doing is for god and It serves a great purpose. They are believing that they are going to be rewarded for this action. The way how religion is being used for self-interest was always the same. It just changes form during the time.
In Political Science we talked about “power” and how it’s being used to manipulate. In Persepolis, we see how the repressive regime of Humeyni changed the way people think and act. In my opinion, just like other political leaders, he was using religion to strengthen his position. Erdoğan, the current president of Turkey is doing the same thing. I assimilate the actions of him with the regime of Humeyni. It’s not that extreme but most of Turkish People who know the background of Iran and the fast change in the regime has a sort of phobia about this issue. After 2000 with the rise of the conservative party in Turkey ( Ak Parti) people started to look at the similarities with Iran and started to compare. There was always the same question in the head of people. “Would Turkey turn into the regime of Humeyni?”After reading the book, I started to question this as well. I saw a lot of conservative leanings In Turkey like Iran.
To sum up, religion was always been a sensitive issue and this sensitivity was being the target. When we look at the world and the relationship between power and religion abuse, it looks like it’s not going to change any sooner.