Dear readers,
I found this quote by Marjane Satrapi, which I really liked so I decided to share it with you. She says :
“The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bitter than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bitter than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.“
In her novel “Persepolis“ Satrapi wanted to give the Iranian people faces, tell their story and proof that they aren’t only numbers in the news. That is what Satrapi wants to tell us with her quote. We are all human beings and even if we come from different cultures we all have a head on our shoulders, lungs, a nose and we all have the need for safety and a happy life. But we often forget that because it seems pointless and unimportant compared to global issues like wars etc. and cultural differences seem unbridgeable.
“The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me“ and I think that people have to realize that.The population of a country is not their government even in democratic states, the government just represents a small part of the population. Even the terms of “East and West“ have become synonyms for conflict and problems forcing people into categories, creating stereotypes and prejudices. This does not help solving the conflict at all. It makes it more and more complicated and intensifies the “good vs. evil“ thinking and the dehumanizing of the so-called enemy in peoples minds. As Judith Butler writes in her book “Frames of War: When is life grievable?“, about the people who seem a threat to our life “… I am wondering whether there is not also a differential way of regarding populations, such that some are considered from the start as very much alive and others more questionably alive […] or as living figures of the thread to life“ ( Butler 42) claiming that individuals can generalize other people to an extend where they are only “figures of the tread to life“ which is also a process of dehumanizing. Satrapi tries to raise awareness for the fact that we are all humans and that a country’s government and its population are not the same.
But there are still so many unanswered questions. How is it possible that humans can dehumanize other human beings until they seem “not alive“ anymore? And what can we do against this process? How can we raise more awareness and tolerance?
Baris Uzel
February 29, 2016 — 10:15 am
Hey Paolina, I must say pretty much everything I read on this post was well said. The fact that governments represent a tiny portion of the population even if it may seem like they have been elected by the majority is a fact often ignored. Because it is ignored, it results in the misconception America = Americans or Iran = Iranians. This, in fact, is very dangerous as it builds hate towards the population of a country after undesirable actions by its government. While hate towards the population is generated due to the actions of the governments in the developed countries, in places where the state does not have enough sovereignty, actions of other groups or organizations are taken basis to judge and build hate towards the population. The most relevant and obvious example would be how the Muslim or Middle Eastern population is regarded as evil after 9/11, although the organization responsible for that was just one single group. That’s why it is highly important to recognize the difference between populations and organizations whether they are governments, multinationals, or terrorist organizations. If we manage to do that, then I think we would live in a world where there is much less hate and much more “grievable lives”.