Recently I read Persepolis which is a graphic novel written and illustrated by Marjane Satrapi. Persepolis is the story of her childhood in Iran during a time when the country was divided by conflict. My favourite part of the book were the illustrations. The drawings are done with not a lot of fine details, and are colored only with black and white but still manage to add to the story as well as carry messages not included in the writing. Though it was an interesting book, I had trouble relating to certain parts of the story because where I live I have never had to worry about many of the issues that Marji, and her family or friends had to deal with. I don’t live in a part of the world where political and religious ideologies are forced onto me, so I don’t fully understand what those people went through when a party took over their country and forced people to dress and act a certain way, or be punished. During my lifetime Canada hasn’t been in any major conflicts such as the Iran-Iraq war, so it is hard for me to really understand how terrifying it would be to live during a time when you don’t know if you are going to have a place to go home to when you finish a day of school. Though I do appreciate the hardships that people in those situations face, it would be wrong for me to say that I understand what they have gone through and that I know what it is like to live in those circumstances. I was surprised by the amount that I learned about Iran as a country and its conflicts with other countries as well as its internal issues. Though I did have trouble relating to the characters in the book, I did enjoy the story.

In the essay “The Role of Interpretive Communities in Remembering and Learning”, author Farhat Shazhad writes about the effect that an individual’s community can have on the way that they perceive and remember events. She conducted an experiment involving ninety nine university students from a variety of national backgrounds and cultures, and asked them to give an account of their memories and thoughts about the war on terror. One of the students interviewed was an eighteen year old second generation immigrant from India. He wrote “I don’t know, all I heard is partial and biased stories told by our media and politicians.” (Pg. 310). He says that he doesn’t know what to believe, because he has only heard one side of the story. He recognizes that sources of information such as media, can send out extremely biased information regarding an event because of private interests. I feel the same way about the war on terror as he does because the only ways that I learned about the war on terror was by watching television, or discussing it with people. Both of those sources can provide extremely biased opinions based on what they want to believe, or what they want other people to believe. When listening to other people give their opinions on issues such as the war on terror it is important to remember that just because they believe that they are correct about something, doesn’t make it fact. It is very hard to know both sides of the story unless you have actually witnessed whatever you are discussing. When listening to another person’s point of view it is important to think about what they have said and sometimes question it because of the possibility that they do not know all of the facts.

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