Another Revolutionary Joke
There is a question all historians must ask. It is simple, and yet there does not appear to be an answer: are violent revolutionaries naïve or malicious? It must be naivety, for how could we continue to have revolutions that turn into tyrannical governments without a total lack of historical context? And yet, so many of these revolutionaries, so many of these glorious Marxist-Leninist philosophers, are profound students of history.
In her graphic novel Persepolis, Satrapi seems to take the approach of naivety, using her fictionalized childhood self to guide the reader through the Iranian Revolution. The ridiculous historical naivety begins in the introduction, wherein Satrapi, with a tone of spite against Western imperialism, remarks that the Allies invaded Iran during WWII. Satrapi notes that the Shah “sympathized with the Germans” and so declared Iran neutral. It’s an astounding statement. She both recognizes that Iran was sympathetic towards the Nazis, the arch historical evil, and yet does so in a way as to excuse Iranian complicity. As anyone with a basis in historical reality would understand, the Shah was not ‘neutral’ (nor does that term even exist) but supported the Nazi regime. Indeed, the Nazis and the Shah engaged in economic cooperation. Such economic cooperation bolstered the fascist government while also threatening British territories in the Middle East and India. Moreover, the Iranians, now “neutrally” supporting the Nazis, engaged in some of the most virulent anti-Semitic political discourse since the Jewish massacre of 1910.
Unfortunately, Satrapi falls into this same fallacy throughout the remainder of the graphic novel. While her central character believes in the power of expanding her knowledge to understand complex problems, she still suffers from the naivety of revolutionaries. The main character seeks to understand the causes of the revolution against the Shah, yet she never bothers to explore the royalist perspective. She studies Marxist theory and yet fails to learn about the horrors of the Soviet system. She idolizes the revolution’s heroes yet is surprised when the new government devours those heroes. It’s almost as if she never bothered to ask what had happened to Trotsky or other Bolshevik leaders during Stalin’s purges.
As the Islamic Republic turns more tyrannical and the repression grows worse than under the Shah, the narrator doesn’t blame revolutionary ideology but instead seems to believe that the Islamists are an aberration. It’s an incredible lack of insight for someone with such a desire for knowledge. One would only need to study Russia, Cambodia, China, North Korea, or Cuba (to name only five examples) to discover the results of Marxist or violent revolutionary theory. Yet, the narrator describes the Islamic Republic’s oppression as an anomaly and not a feature of the violent revolutions. The “war within” — or persecution — only grows worse as the war with Iraq intensifies. Again, in an act of remarkable ignorance (or perhaps purposeful censorship), the admirer of Marx and Lenin never mentions that Iraq is a socialist country. Not once are the tenets of Ba’athism noted, nor is there a discussion of these contradictions. Instead, the narrator reverts to pure jingoistic hatred of the “Arab invaders.” There is, as always with Satrapi, complete disregard for any legitimate worries on the part of the Arabs. To Satrapi, Iran can do no wrong, and that war is merely the result of the Arabs’ inferior ethnic background.
The narrator doesn’t grow or expand her knowledge; she becomes consumed with a singular untenable heuristic. Her ignorance and contradictions lead to the absurdity of the novel’s end. The narrator rebels against the state not through a Communist ideology but by secretly adopting the trappings of Westernized culture. It’s hard to put the last chapters into words: the Marxist, anti-imperialist, jingoistic Iranian uses pure representations of American culture to explore her identity. She then flees to Europe to enjoy a life of Westernized, capitalist freedom.