Hello again fellow ASTU classmates, this week I will be talking about how revolution as described in the book Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi compares and differs to other political revolutions that have happened in the past. I will be examining how the revolution is described and its affect on the people of Iran, in comparison to the Ukrainian revolution that started in 2013 compared to the Islamic revolution in Iran from 1978 to 1979.

Satrapi at the start of the revolution shows that she is open to change and that she is willing and wanting for the government to change as she openly goes to protests to voice her opinion on the government. The first example of Satrapi going to demonstrate is on page 38 where she and Mehri deceive Satrapi’s parents and protest on black friday. This is significant because as the author tells us she decided to join the protests because she finally understood the reasons for the revolution and its meaning for all of Iran that 2500 years of oppression on the people finally had the chance to end. There was also a a majour political motive in that the Shah had become far too powerful and too close the the Americans politically. This gave the people the idea that their head of state was being controlled by the Americans. As described in the book (on pages 50 and 51) is the degree of fear that the Iranian secret police instilled in the people as it imprisoned more than 3000 political prisoners that were eventually liberated, but they had already become infamous for their ruthlessness and for the fact that they would torture and execute political prisoners. The revolution brought new leadership with the Islamic republic that took the country back to its roots of being a Muslim nation and in some cases bing almost as bad if not worse than the previous regime. It prevented the country from moving forwards politically and socially as only the Islamic religion was taught in schools and all bilingual schools were forced to close. The revolution brought about change but as described throughout the book Persepolis possibly the wrong change.

The Ukrainian Revolution is not very different from the Iranian revolution as its motives were similar but its effects are far different. I chose to compare these two revolutions because I  personally know someone who lived in the Ukraine during the revolution and how he experienced revolution is different to how Satrapi did. When I would talk to my friend he would tell me how exiting it was for him to be living in the Ukraine during this time of change. This is something that was quite shocking to me as I personally would be quite afraid as to what the eventual severity of the the protests would be; and for what would happen after the revolution would be successful or a failure. This is partially where Satrapi and my friend differ as Satrapi throughout the revolution portion of the book describes her mixed emotions of the events and how she is at some points fearful of what happening. For example on page 51 where her friend describes how he was tortured she is visibly shocked and in a way afraid that such a thing may happen to her as she opposes the regime. My friend however never seemed to be fearful but always exited about what was happening and about what was going to happen. He was also much older than Satrapi was during the Revolution and he also had access to sources such as Facebook where he would openly voice his opinions on what was happening and on the corruption of the current government that was in power at the moment. Politically the revolution in the Ukraine ended better than the one in Iran in my opinion as a leader was installed that the people wanted and who represents them democratically and who is opposing Russia with the crisis that is currently going on in the Eastern part of the nation.

To summarise we have two examples of two different people experiencing revolution differently. This is in part due to the fact that no revolution is the same and that one had access to social media and the internet and the other did not. Now what questions can we extract from this:

How has the act of revolution changed with access to social media and the Internet?

Have the sole purposes of revolutions changed over time or is the core motive still the same?

As always your questions and comments are aprreciated in the discussion section

Bibliography:

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York, NY: Pantheon, 2003. Print.

Chung, Jonathan. “Comparing Revolutions.” Prezi.com. N.p., 08 Apr. 2014. Web. 02 Oct. 2015.