When one wants to analyze the liberty of a particular society, political systems, in the mind of the observer, become a representation of the society’s freedom. I must admit I am often plagued by a similar arrogance. Being an agnostic in a secular society leads you to believe, often falsely, that shackles are a symbol second and third world countries. Even the language I use to describe other countries carries with it a diminishing idea that the west has placed on the rest of the world. The premise of my post was realized after reading the following post from Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis: “The more time passed, the more I became conscious of between the official representation of my country and the real life of the people, the one that went on behind the walls” (Satrapi 150). The walls which veiled the private lives of the Iranian citizens are not limited to the domestic domains. The second half of Persepolis demonstrates the ubiquitousness of walls created within human societies, no matter how politically free a society is. Freedom is a word that is so often ill-conceived before it is interjected into a discussion. Does not the restriction of certain actions, or “freedoms”, expand a society’s freedom.
In many regards Satrapi’s Persepolis becomes a meditation on the true meaning of freedom. When she finds herself in Vienna, she is surrounded by a youth culture that has the freedom to indulge in intoxicants, sex, and expression but were they more free than her peers in Iran, or were their constraints perpetuated by their deception of freedom? Marjane struggles with the validity over indulgence in the face of her people’s persecution: “If only they knew… If they knew their daughter was made up like a punk, that she smoked joints to make a good impression, that she had seen men in their underwear while they were being bombed everyday, they wouldn’t call me their dream child” (Satrapi 39). The microcosm of Marjane and her parents relationship becomes a metaphor for western culture and their obtained freedom. What has been done with that freedom, and what societal veils have we imposed upon our people?
The exceeding complexity of Marjane’s story is part of its power. Neither in Vienna or in Iran does Marjane believe she has complete freedom, and she holds no punches in rebuking the opressive nature of the political and religious powers in her country. While I will not pretend to have any reservations about declaring my philisophical distaste towards a system run a set of erroneous and contradictory religious ideals, I wont pretend that freedom is a concept which can be realized by western tradition or politics. Sometimes freedom means the abandonment of certain freedoms for the obtainment of others: “There was no longer a war I was no longer a child, my mother didn’t faint and my grandma was there, happily… Happily, because since the night of September 9th, 1994, I only saw her again once, during the Iranian New Year in March 1995. She died January 4th, 1996…Freedom had a price…” (Satrapi 187).
