I will second, the graphic novel is excellent. Up there with Maus in terms of showing you a new perspective.

Even Khomeini was in exile in France until the shah was deposed.

> Left Iran for Europe again at 24 and continued her art studies in Strasbourg, France.

> Now lives in Paris as a French citizen. Since publishing "Persepolis," has not been back to Iran.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/0...

It says so right in the title so I may have misunderstood your question.

Also, I know France practiced (and probably still practices) a good deal of academic "cultural outreach", promoting their culture and especially their language abroad.

And unlike the UK and US, they had no historic bad blood with Iran (Mossadegh et al.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement

You can read plenty of good about Iran if you read something other than geopolitical news. It's a very interesting country with an incredibly interesting history and language. The news is a pretty poor source for much of anything except for "events are happening" or "politicians have an agenda in [area]" -- I don't mean to belittle those. Both of those matter, but really no one should consider the news to provide thorough treatment for any large topic.

It's always a joy to talk shop with a guy in England, a guy in Iran, and a guy in Poland in the same thread.

> Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iran (2006) is a travel book written by British travel writer Jason Elliot.

And a fascinating history of mathematics as well.

I do recognize that the type of person who I might encounter in the workplace is an educated, accomplished, English-speaking person who has likely gone through cultural adjustments to operate in an American workplace. So there’s a filter there.

But when you get to know people, especially when they talk about their family and childhood, the idea that a nation is full of bad people full of hate is just laughable.

I also believe that your claim of seven "official allowed" haircuts is bs, as with almost everything I ever read about Iran.

Source: I see that Tehrani men have the same variety of haircuts and facial hair styles as in any other city on the planet.

It didn't send its military for that reason, if that helps.

Hell, if you read Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, you would find plenty of similar examples. The haircuts are just the cherry on top of that authoritarian cake.

Also, the west is not just the US. Trump failed to find anyone willing to join him in his military adventures.

https://www.bbc.com/news/10527088

And it didn't stop here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-32587418

A few of my friends went there and I talked with a few Iranians whose families moved out. Yeah, the people are welcoming and you can have an amazing experience there, but it's still a theocratic regime. All the things you did happened because those who want to control everyone simply can't be everywhere at all times.

You don't see people in the west getting the death penalty for their political activity like you do in Iran.

My country also tried to interfere with people's private lives decades ago, but fortunately that system collapsed.

You can't make the argument that the common person enjoys the same freedom in Iran as they do in the west.

(you just moved the goalposts from "officially allowed" to "an official announcement")

In your link to a BBC article from SIXTEEN YEARS ago, the closest it comes to saying "officially allowed" or "official announcement" is...

"published a guide".

There is no "officially allowed" list of seven haircuts in Iran.

It literally does not exist, and yet you are now trippling down on your disinformation.

> I wasn't personally insulting nor aggressive in any comment I have made. I didn't spread disinformation. This thread is inherently political by nature, and I have been objective.

> It just goes to show, even here on HN, if you don't stick to the "THIS SIDE GOOD THAT SIDE BAD" narrative, your voice WILL be restricted.

> Again, RIP Marjane, you taught me a lot about Iran and the world.

You're not shadow banned, but comments peddling objectively false conspiracy theories and whining about downvoting do not play well here.

"Conspiracy" Theory: "CIA/MI6 coup of 1953 that overthrew Iran's democratically elected government to protect Western oil interests"

Evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... "On 19 August 1953, Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh was fired by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran .... It was instigated by the United Kingdom (MI6), under the name Operation Boot and the United States (CIA), under the name TP-AJAX Project or Operation Ajax. A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after Mosaddegh nationalized the country's oil industry."

If you find any evidence that says CIA/MI5 were not behind the coup of a democratically elected government to protect Western oil interests, please let me know, I'm very interested in this topic.

"Conspiracy" Theory: "verifiable institutional actors with control over media outlets, public figures, and politicians -pointing to a systematic, decades-long negative framing of Iran"

Evidence:

State Department records list CIA “Political Propaganda” work in the TPAJAX files. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1951-54Ira... "CIA Confirms Role in 1953 Iran Coup" (from the National Security Archive) https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/ "American and British involvement in Mosaddeq's ouster has long been public knowledge, but today's posting includes what is believed to be the CIA's first formal acknowledgement that the agency helped to plan and execute the coup."

Since then, there is substantial evidence Western/U.S. coverage and official discourse has repeatedly framed Iran through threat, extremism, nuclear danger, terrorism, and regime instability. Rather than me spamming links, I will just say this evidence is very easy to find and read. If you have any evidence to the contrary, please present it.

"Conspiracy" Theory: "you almost never read anything good about Iran?"

Evidence: Go to the websites of major Western outlets such as BBC News, The Guardian, NYT - search for "Iran" and look at the first 50–100 headlines.

Then categorise them into things like: War/conflict Nuclear program Sanctions Human rights Economy Tourism Culture Science Daily life

Objectively, you will find mostly negative or negatively framed stories. If you find any evidence to the contrary, I'm very interested.

Are there any other "conspiracy theories" I have mentioned that are "objectively false"?

That's an objectively false conspiracy theory. We don't even need to touch the Iran ramblings.

1) I open a private window and view this thread - there are five total posts by me. 2) when logged in, there are seven posts - this is what's called "shadow banned" 3) in the private tab, one of my posts is flagged, it's specifically the one where I say "this is what happens in our world when you don't uncritically and simplistically stick to one side bad or one side good"

Your response: "You're not shadow banned" HN response to my post: [flagged]

--------------

You: "objectively false conspiracy theories"

Me: "CIA/MI6 coup of 1953 that overthrew Iran's democratically elected government to protect Western oil interests"

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

Title: "CIA/MI6 coup of 1953 that overthrew Iran's democratically elected government to protect Western oil interests"

In the opening paragraph:

"On 19 August 1953, Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh was fired by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran .... It was instigated by the United Kingdom (MI6), under the name Operation Boot and the United States (CIA), under the name TP-AJAX Project or Operation Ajax. A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after Mosaddegh nationalized the country's oil industry."

Your response: "ramblings"

You're really not very good at being faced with objective facts that interfere with your worldview, whether it's HN or Iran.

But complaining about upvotes and moderation is bad decorum and will get you downvoted out.

Which ironically enough proves the precise point.

I am actually, objectively, being shadowbanned, for precisely the reason I pointed out. It's easy to confirm.

Honestly it's incredible how many people here claim to have consumed her work and clearly missed the point of it entirely.

The second half of Persepolis was much more difficult for me, and I never know how to feel about it. I think above all else Satrapi deserves a lot of credit for describing herself realistically rather than trying to paint herself as a good person. (not that she was a bad person, but that she didn't shy away from parts of the story that show her in a poor light) I have a lot of respect for her honesty in the second half of the story, however her time in exile in Europe seemed to be one of self-indulgence, meandering, and minor self-destruction. All of which are understandable for someone who has been through such a traumatic turn of events, however it was a bit sad that the young, rebellious child that was so likable did not seem to survive the conflict.

Great literature does not exist to be heartwarming but to speak fundamental truths, however uncomfortable they are. Persepolis cleaned up as you implicitly desire would cease to be the great work that it is.

I'd quibble with your choice of words there, although I agree with the overall point - ultimately adult reality is the only thing that satisfies, warts and all, everything else is a waste of energy.

This is even true by proxy in more fantastic works, where the point is to communicate aspects of adult reality in less direct ways.

There is a very clear cultural divide here on this between the americans and everyone else, which is kind of funny given Girard was working in the US when he famously formulated it so clearly to a mainly american audience.

— J. Lacan, lesson of April 15, 1975, in RSI.

https://anonpaste.pw/v/ab148fcf-6827-4b8c-a6d1-a9239d643ae7#...

It seems like you're disappointed it wasn't a modern "noble savage" myth, that it was realistic instead of a fairy tale about a person coming from a bad place to a good place and being happy, wholesome, and free.

This kind of mythology is a pretty big problem in the western world right now as is the kneejerk reaction to it.

I read Persepolis a few years ago, and it’s hard not to come away with a similar impression. The first part often does resemble a fairy tale of sorts, while the second part is a pretty dark story of teenage alienation. The contrast is jarring, and it goes well beyond “duh nobody’s perfect”.

Both parts are excellent in their own right, and quite unlike any other book I’ve read, but there is indeed something strange going on in part 2. Most readers will remember this, I think.

1. Departure - from a humble background the subject leaves amid struggle

2. Growth and Initiation - the subject discovers who they are building themselves into the hero they'll become

3. Heroic Return - the now hero makes a return to their beginnings to great success

Instead, Persepolis is a much more realistic story and each act is around three very different kinds of strife experienced by our hero and only in the very end a kind of coda where things go well.

My criticism of the criticism is that Persepolis is tremendously more realistic than the hero's journey and people are jarred by it because it doesn't represent their imagination of what real world struggle is like, the fact that it upsets people is one of those deep core societal issues because of the wrongness of the lens people see the world through.

For reference, I also really enjoyed the Catcher in the Rye, and there are some superficial similarities: a young person is scarred by events in their lives and succumbs to depression. (there are a myriad of differences between the two stories -- I'm not drawing an equivalence, just making one comparison)

Catcher in the Rye is probably best read as an angry teenager: you meet Holden Caufield and he's witty, cynical, funny, defiant, etc. You might fall in love with the character, but what you ultimately learn is that he's a miserable failure; he lost the battle with his depression and so many of the people he was cutting down were just normal, decent people trying to enjoy their lives.

Crucially, we never meet Holden when he is young, bright eyed, and innocent. The narrative structure shows us who he is right away, and we the reader learn that this is actually quite a bad thing throughout the course of the story.

Persepolis works a bit differently: we spend the first half of the book with innocent, bright-eyed Marjane and we fall in love with that character. The character we fall in love with is taken from us by the events of the story, by living unsupervised in exile, etc. It's nothing but sad. It's well-written, it's very memorable, but I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling unhappy about an unhappy turn of events.

May be, but to someone going through similar life experiences an honest story might give their internal emotions some validation. Art can do wonders in that "I am not the only one" aspect.

Ethan Hawke talks about that aspect of art here https://youtu.be/WRS9Gek4V5Q?si=P2Hz1ZnXWlP93f2U

One of my favorite videos.

Indeed, the story is quite Western overall, which is perhaps unsurprising, given that the author had already been living in the West for over a decade when she wrote it.

Even back then the mullahs and islam were looked upon as an external occupation force to some extent. Now 10x worse of course, but even back then. A lot of people seem to want to see some sort of alternative/sufficiently different state/society succeed, even if that means totally falsifying history.

To whoever is downvoting this: it is not even a criticism. Just a description. When you discuss stories, Americans will frequently insist on the "hero story is the only one possible fun story" and simultaneously interpret bad ending as punishment for moral failure. French wont argue that all that often. And European literature is in general more likely not be that.

And second, using "western" as synonym for "american" wherever the author knows a lot about American and just assumes everything in Europe is exactly the same is something I noticed multiple times on HN.

I'm paraphrasing The Hero with a Thousand Faces which is a study of world mythology, not 20th century American storytelling. This hero story is found around the world but PARTICULARLY in descendants of the proto-indo-european culture, particularly ancient Greece and the western Roman empire.

It's not "happy endings" I'm talking about but the hero being taken out of their world, finding themselves and growing, and returning... a hero, the story of individual progress and success.

I am saying that hero journey as you desribe it is absolutely NOT the only western narrative, if you include non american literature. And I am saying that when someone insist on that being the only narrative, they are typically american.

And someone else (who probably reads more american then me) told me even american literature actually contains other narratives too.

There is almost nothing more Western than this kind of self-criticism: blaming oneself for not having imagined a wider range of possibilities. By the time this reflex reaches your shore, any criticism you might address to it has already been pre-assimilated into its canon. Worse: you may not even be heard, because the whole discourse is already busy talking about the voices it has supposedly suppressed.

That is the trick. It is often less interested in articulating what was actually suppressed than in endlessly reaffirming that something was suppressed. Self-criticism becomes a passion of the self: the subject punishes itself for not being the idealized Other, and in doing so expands its own range of motion.

Criticism becomes assimilation: it uproots you from the very world it claims to redeem. And the only way out of the double bind is to set off for distant shores, carrying the trial with you.

I got a few breaks as well as a kid too. I think teenage boys end up being a community investment and people are cleaning up broken windows, stolen cars, graffiti, and worse as we hope the kids grow up.

I think that slaps on the writs that lead to adjusted member of society are waaay better then felony crimes charges that lead to life of in-out of prison with much harder way to integrate.

People who are treated like you was have overall much better results then people who have book thrown on them as youg.

I genuinely dislike troublesome teenagers, but I also think that your story is a success story of the "dont destroy them" approach.

Vulnerable young people becoming low level drug dealers (often for lack of other options) isn't exactly a rare story.

If Speigelman had a slightly deeper historical insight he might have drawn the connection between the byzantine precision of American race law and what Hitler had hoped to accomplish in his own "Wild West". Both end products of the secular wave of colonialism, with Hitler's being at least a hundred years too late, held back by the late stage of German nationhood.

Suffering is no guarantor of virtue. Extremes of violence can brutalize not just individuals but entire peoples. Which is why we should not look to victims as prima facie exemplars, but with empathy and deeper understanding.

[1] the "Bloodlands" of Tim Snyder

It was only recently that I realized the problem I have with it: it's a tacit nod towards the broad thesis of secular colonialism (and later of Nazism): h. sap is naturally separated into different scientific kinds. Each acting according to its nature, and of course some of which should never be mingled.

I'm enough of an adult to separate metaphor in a work of art from actual reality, but not everyone is, and that metaphor - if you take it seriously - will have a lot of nasty and all-too-familiar second-order effects. Many of which we would recognize in the harsh lessons of the last century.

Hitler's not a cat, and Spiegelmann's not a mouse. They're humans, making human decisions. Tomorrow I could be Hitler, or you could be Spiegelmann. It can happen to anyone.

It is an incredible book and I feel grateful for it.

But of course the other kind of people very rarely have someone writing international bestsellers on their behalf, so this is all we’ll get.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_Rex_fire

The simple humanity in this candid description brought a small tear to my eyes. I'd say that the classical approach to this is a dry, clinical description of a depression stage, or a description of a how and not a why. Very welcomed in the age of AI slop!

Grief is not just metaphorical, severe bereavement can affect health in very real ways.

Died of sadness did make me wonder about something self inflicted.

"It usually appears after a significant stressor, either physical or emotional; when caused by the latter, the condition is sometimes called broken heart syndrome"

In any case if two relatively young people die in a short interval of time would be wise to look for environmental effects (a hidden toxic) just to be safe. Had seen people to do the stupidest things with insecticide, blissfully ignoring that this may carry permanent effects on their health. If there is a toxic, to identify its type, and how it may end there, would be extremely important. Slow poisoning to eliminate opponents with the benefits of plausible deniability is trendy among some criminals, and should be researched and discarded.

I have not dealt with such a change but have dealt with grief. Try to catch the sun rise. It is incredibly beautiful.

It will probably hurt because the instinct is to want to share the beauty to enjoy it. The good thing is that you can, with the version of your significant one you hold in your mind. I am serious, do catch the sun.

Grief hits in overpowering waves. Over time there is space between the waves. They will always be there but they become survivable.

All the best.

I also think that women have a harder time with this than men, possibly because maternal death in childbirth used to be so much more common. But this is just a guess. Certainly until it happens to you its not the sorts of things that you think about too much, and once it does happen you tend to speak to people who are going through the more acute phase of it since they are still actively processing it.

May she be at peace now, and her work cherished.

-- Marjane Satrapi

Maybe a love so great you cannot go on without it is better than no such love. I wish her nothing but peace, but this such a tragic loss for the world. 56 :(

Also, fuck sadness. It's a healthy human thing, sure, but so is giving it the middle finger. Take care, all of you, and maybe smile at a person who needs it today, just because fuck sadness.

I’ll always remember the outrage I felt when they go to the hospital when her father needs heart surgery and they have to pretend not to know the hospital director because he was previously their janitor and they were afraid to embarrass him by acknowledging that and not getting treatment. Absurdity.