Monthly Archives: October 2014

Whats normal

This week I wanted to talk about something that occurred to me in our ASTU 100 class while discussing the graphic narrative Persepolis. One of the more prominent themes in the book is the violence and the brutality that the common people were faced with on a day to day basis. This made me think about how in western countries many people get the idea that these violent acts and conflicts were a perfectly normal common occurrence in the middle-east. If I were to go up to a number of people and asked them what was the first thing that came to mind when they think of a middle eastern country, the majority would talk about something to do with terrorists, war, or any kind of violent conflict. What a lot of people do not understand is that the vast majority of the people are regular everyday citizens who are trying to go about their lives and don’t necessarily have any part in the conflicts. With the internet and media, people see so many videos and news reports talking about the latest ISIS attack or countries around the world sending troops to help fight these terrorists they often forget that it isn’t normal for people to do that in that part of the world, it might be somewhat common, but that doesn’t make it normal. The people living in those areas probably don’t think that it’s a perfectly normal thing to do, go out and cut someone’s head. But people here see that on the news and think oh look someone else was killed this morning and then that’s all they know about those countries because that’s all they see. For me the part of the book that really stood out was how the author mixed the normal everyday life, with the stories of the violence and how quickly she would switch back and forth between them. Before I read the book I never really thought about how there are kids there who are doing normal kid stuff, not just terrorists. Before reading the book I expected it to be exclusively about the war and conflicts, I was surprised by the way that the author mixed her memories of what we would consider a normal childhood, with the memories of the violence and brutality.