RR #2 (Persepolis)

Harry Chin

Professor Knapp

English 1A

7 April 2013

Unspoken Truth

       The book Persepolis illustrates the struggle of Marjane, a young girl’s childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution who was trying to discover the truth. From a young girl, who was innocent and bliss when she was given knowledge of what was happening around in her country, she became tainted with all the knowledge of violence and torture happening and turned into a girl who stood for what she believed in. Marjane was a young child who always believed everything she heard from the news. Some would say this is ignorance, but actually it was innocence just like any other child that believed the world was perfect. That was until she slowly became aware of what was actually happening. This scenario is similar to a child who has been told that Santa is a real being who actually comes down to every chimney during Christmas Eve to deliver presents and then the child eventually discovers that Santa was not real. The fact that nobody told Marjane about the truth of all the horrid actions that were happening to the ones close to her was because everybody, even her family, wanted to protect her from the outside world. They always concealed the truth or even not mention a single thing about what was happening. But her family could not conceal her in a shell much longer. She eventually discovered the truth through her schoolmates, the media and her uncle. She learned about all the corrupted actions in her country such as violence, war, and enforced religious norms.

 She finally understood why the truth was not usually spoken. One of her classmate’s fathers was a fighter pilot for Iran. Suddenly a major incident happened and many of Iran’s fighter pilots were destroyed. Her classmate’s father was killed and they were supposed to give speech about something memorable about the war. After class, Marjane tried to comfort her classmate. Marjane told her classmate, “Your father acted like a Genuine hero, you should be proud of him”. She responded, “I wish he were alive and in jail rather than dead and a hero” (Satarapi 86). This is when Majane realized why the truth was concealed and sugarcoated from her. The country that she lives in has an unspoken truth. What I mean about unspoken truth is that there are truths where you would rather not tell people because you believe it will hurt them.  In the case of Marjane’s classmate, she realized that every person takes the truth in a different way. I believed that everybody needs to know the truth no matter how much it seems like it is a negative. In this essay, I want to write about one’s path towards understanding why the truth is unspoken in a certain society.

 

Works Cited

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: [the Story of a Childhood]. New York, New York: Pantheon, 2003. Print.

Narrative Report (Full)

Harry Chin

 
Professor Knapp

 English 1A

 7 April 2013

Revolutionary Leaders: Mir Husayn Musavi

              Mir Husayn Musavi was a great man who helped the Iranian economy and gave people a voice against the corrupted actions by the government. He wanted to create a peaceful environment and connect ties between other countries. Mir Husayn Musavi was born on March 2, 1942 in Khameneh, Iran. During his university life, he was a member of the Islamic association at his school. Zahra Rahnavard was born on October 31, 1945. She was an artist and politician who had similar views to Musavi and also believed in women rights briefly based on what the Guardian News states. Mousavi had particular beliefs on how things should run in the country. Mousavi states, “There are two ways of confronting the country's problems. One is through a management style based on adventurism, instability, play-acting, exaggerations, wrongdoing, being secretive, self-importance, superficiality and ignoring the law. The second way is based on realism, respect, openness, collective wisdom and avoiding extremism.” (Bozorgmehr). Through this speech, he was convince the people and be able to apply his beliefs onto them during his presidency.

 In 1969, Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard got married. Mousavi and his wife played a big role during the Iranian revolution. That is exactly what he intended to do. Musavi protested on the street against the government monarchy. Eventually the protesters were able to overthrow and replace the monarchy government system with the Islamic republic. In August 1981, the prime minister and president of Iran were killed in a huge explosion. A couple months after on October, a new president was elected in Iran called Ali Khamenei. He then attempted to appoint the prime minster position to one of his close men, but the Iranian parliament did not allow it. Khamenei had strong negative feeling against Mousavi because of his political views, but finally a compromise was made with the parliament allowing Mousavi to run as prime minister of Iran. On October 28 1981, both Khomeini and the parliament finally agreed to have Mousavi become the 79^th prime minister of Iran. He became prime minister on October 31, 1981. All was going well at the beginning of it. But soon, many conflicts arose between these two. In 1988 after the Iranian war, there one huge conflict between these two parties that caused Mousavi to step down and resign from his position. People believed that Musavi might have been involved with the killings of innocent civilians. He decided to retire from politics for a while.

On June 12, 2009, Mousavi was ready to tackle on the world of politics. He was a reformist candidate for the election for presidency in Iran. The final voting results showed that he lost to his opposing candidate by a huge difference. Musavi and his followers suspected that the voting results may have been manipulated. Some citizens believed that the current leader of the parliament rigged the election to keep the current family in power. It was later revealed that the current government did try to hide the fact that the election count was rigged and Musavi decided to take action yet again. Musavi, a leader, called for his group of followers to create a large protest against the Iranian government. He knew something had to be done to stop the government’s ability to conceal their corrupted actions. According to the News Republic, Musavi start a movement called the Green Movement in which the people wanted to remove the current president from power. Initially, this movement was for Musavi’s campaign, but later it represented unity and belief of the people in Iran. Today, Mousavi and other leaders with similar beliefs are coming up with new peaceful assertive ways to spread this belief. Also, they have renamed their new group to The Green Path of Hope. By doing this Mousavi wants the people or Iran to be educated with the truth, not the lies that the government has be telling them.

Works Cited
 

"Ahmadinejad accused of tainting Iran's image in TV debate - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. N.p., 4 June 2009. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

Milani, Abbas. "The Mousavi Mission | New Republic." New Republic. N.p., 17 Feb. 2010. Web. 14 Mar. 2013. <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/environment-energy/the-mousavi-mission#>.

"Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard Rendered Incommunicado Once Again | BanooyeSabz." BanooyeSabz | Translator for Iran's Green Movement. N.p., 6 Apr. 2012. Web. 14 Mar. 2013. <http://banouyesabz.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/mir-hossein-mousavi-and-zahra-rahnavard-rendered-incommunicado-once-again/>.

Stritof, Sheri, and Bob Stritof. "Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard Marriage Profile." Marriage -- Free Advice and Tips to Help Make Your Marriage a Success from About.com. N.p., 27 May 2009. Web. 14 Mar. 2013. <http://marriage.about.com/od/politics/p/mirmousavi.htm>.

Tait, Robert. "Mir Hossein Mousavi's wife led the way on women's rights in Iran | World news | The Guardian." Latest US news, world news, sport and comment from the Guardian | guardiannews.com | The Guardian. N.p., 16 Aug. 2009. Web. 14 Mar. 2013. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/16/zahra-rahnavard-mousavi-women-iran>.

Reader Response #1 (Persepolis)

Harry Chin

 

Professor Knapp

 

English 1A

 

3 April 2013

                                       Reader Response #1: Persepolis

Persepolis is a short comic based on the author’s childhood in Iran throughout the Iraq and Iranian war. It begins with a young girl named Marji as child who after the Islamic war. During that time, the government made it a law that girls in the country had to wear veils. Marji has had a hard time understanding the meaning of the veil due to her family backgrounds. She later believed that she could become the prophet, the person who can solve all the problems in the world. Later, she realizes the history of the past about her country and how god did not select the king or partake in any role was all false. She devoted herself into reading and gaining as much knowledge as possible. Then she finally understood was about social class issues and the difference between her and her maid.

           I can actually relate to this based on my own experience. As you can see when I was younger as any other child, I believed in Santa Claus. I always believe that the presents in front of the Christmas tree during Christmas were brought by Santa Claus. Somehow, my logic rejected reality and I truly believed Santa could fit through my chimney even though I couldn’t myself. One Christmas Eve before Christmas was the night where I discovered the truth. When I reach a certain age, I was able to distinguish between the reality and the falsest of Santa Claus. I discovered that my parents were the ones who put the presents in front of the Christmas tree. After I realized it, I want to discover many other truths about the world and prove if everything that I once believed in was true. The moral of the story is that one should be a willing to understand the difference between reality and fantasies. If one just lives in their own little world with their own beliefs, then everybody will be oblivious and nobody will get along. Just as Marji realized that the outside world is not what it seems like when she understands more about this system she goes deeper into it. When she realized this, at such a young age, she was able to make such an intelligent decision and became interested in studying more on the history and past of her hometown. Margie was one intelligent person who is able to understand all this is so short time. This is interesting because Margie at such a young age was able to comprehend all this information in such a short time. Unluckily now, she is too young and her parents wouldn’t allow her to protest in the revolution because many people were killed during these protests. But I foreshadow that but after couple more years she'll be more involved with the protest and the revolutions.