1
Purdah 1 and Persepolis

• Gender and Nation

Iran
2
Outline

• A. Purdah
• Tradition of Veil, Burqa and Purdah
• Purdah 1
• Views Expressed in Persepolis
• B. Persepolis
• Introduction
• Discussion Questions
• A childs perspective on religious fundamentalism
  
• The cultural identity of an exile

3
Purdah, Burqa and Veil (Hijab)

• Purdah???? -- Purdah is the practice that
  includes the seclusion of women from public
  observation by wearing concealing clothing from
  head to toe and by the use of high walls,
  curtains, and screens erected within the home.
  Purdah is practiced by Muslims and by various
  Hindus, especially in India. (http//www.kings.edu
  /womens_history/purdah.html )
• Burqa body-covering, head-covering face veil
• types of sartorial hijab (http//en.wikipedia.org/
  wiki/List_of_types_of_sartorial_hijab )

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Purdah, Burqa and Veil (Hijab)

• Mostly believers in Islam see purdah as a very
  positive and respectful practice that actually
  liberates women.
• Different Views e.g. ???????
• Muslim girls in UK
• in Iran
• In Egypt
• in Nigeria, etc.
• In France, 2004 -- a law was set to prohibit
  students to wear any clearly visible religious
  symbols thus wearing the burqa has been banned
  in public schools.

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Literary Examples Purdah 1

• Imtiaz Dharker -- poet, painter and
  award-winning documentary film-maker. Born in
  Lahore, Pakistan.
• Why is there a change in the pronoun from she
  to we?
• Is she confined by purdah, or protected, or . .
  . ?

6
Marji Satrapi against it, but also the French
law which bans it

• . . . All my life I have been against the veil,
  and now I am the one defending the veil. I hate
  the veil and what it means, . . . but I put
  myself in their the girls place. Its a
  question of these girls identity. Their mothers
  never wore the veil, and so they want to. Why?
  They came to France, 3040 years ago, but for
  the French they are not French, and for the
  Arabs they are not Arabs. So the height of irony
  is that the veil has become a symbol of
  rebellion....(qtd in Costantino)

7
Marji Satrapiviews expressed in Persepolis

• The mother feels breathless wearing it, once
  humiliated
• Marjane and the other
• Girls

8
PersepolisMarjane split in between
9
Persepolis in the market
10
Persepolis, Lolita and Beauty School amidst
Controversies

• Persepolis (2003-2004) around the time of the US
  War on Terror and the French debate over
  veiled Muslim girls in secular public schools
• Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003) reinforces
  Western concepts of Iranian women as oppressed?
• Kabul Beauty School (2007) Deborah Rodriquez as
  an American savior or victim of marital abuse?

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Persepolis Time Line

• The Qajar dynasty (????)
• 1925-1979  the Shah regime (?????)
• 1979 -- revolution wearing the veil
  and anti-alcoholism
• 1979-1989 -- the Khamenei era
• 1980-1988  -- IranIraq War
• 1979 enthusiastic about revolution
• 1981 -- age 12 Marijan went to Vienne, smoked
  drug, fell in and out of love
• 1987  --age 18 Marijane returned to Iran got
  married and then divorced. 
• 1993 --age 24 -- Marjane left Iran again
• present -- Marjane Satrapi at the airport, unable
  to board a plane to Iran.

12
National Authorities

• The Shah
• The revolution
• The 90s

13
Iraq vs. Iran War (1980-1988)

• Reasons
• Iran Islamization of the nation Iraq reduces
  and controls religion
• Khomeini once expelled by Iraq
• the issue of Kurdish (???), etc.
• Father The West sold weapons to both
  sides. . .

• The US
• secretly supported Iraq in its production of
  chemical weapons.
• sold weapons to Iran in exchange for the
  hostages (?????? Iran-Contra Scandaldisclosed in
  1986)
• (References Reasons and
• Senate Mitchells Speech against Olive North
• http//usinfo.org/zhtw/PUBS/AmReader/p842.htm )

14
A Related Film

• Charlie Wilson's War -- Charlie Wilson urged the
  government to provide essential weapons to help
  the Mujehideen in Afghanistan beat back the
  Societ Army.
• Wilson "I always, always, whenever a plane goes
  down, I always fear it is one of our missiles.
  Most of all I wanted to bloody the Red Army of
  Russia. I think the bloodying thereof had a
  great deal to do with the collapse of the Soviet
  Union.
• But -- the weapons probably wound up in the hands
  of the Taliban regime, which took power in
  Afghanistan and harbored Saudi fugitive Osama bin
  Laden, organizer of the September 11 attacks. "I
  feel guilty about it," he said. "I really do."
  "Those things happen," (source)

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Persepolis Discussion Questions

• Two perspectives
• A. on religious fundamentalism
• How does Marjane experience revolution as a
  child?
• How does her family survive and/or suffer from
  the Khomeini regime
• The 2nd time Her experience as a young adult?
• B. On exile
• The 1st time -- liberation?
• The 2nd Exile any difference?
• C. Filmic Techniques?

16
Marjanes Growth

• Pre-revolution Westernized, loves Bruce Lee
• Idealistic and inquisitive

17
Childrens Perception

• takes on the adults enthusiasm (or fanaticism)

18
Whats Wrong?
19
Dictatorship Consequences

1. Execution of Uncle Anouche and (later) many
   dissidents

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Dictatorship Consequences

1. Police Persecution

21
Survival under Dictatorship

1. Parties
2. Alcohol

22
Nation and the People Religious Control of
Dressing

• Marjane wearing denim jacket and buying punk
  music (Iron Maiden, etc.)
• Punk is not ded

23
Education
24
Education Marjanes rebellion

25
War Childrens Perspective
26
Political Dictatorship Casualties
Communist Niloufar Uncle Taher
27
Experiences in the West Forgetting herself in
Commodities and Pop Music
28
Loneliness and Sense of Guilt

• Feeling isolated among her friends who dont
  understand revolution.
• Physical changes

29
Experiences in the West Falling in Love
30
Apparent Freedom? Homelessness
31
Total Isolation and Homelessness

32
Return Depression and Cultural Conflicts
Migration is a one-way trip there is no way
home.
33
Return Depression
34
Exile Mother-Daughter Relationships

1. Cannot return home
2. Acknowledges her Iranian background

35
Mother-Daughter

• The mother protective
• The father --instilling revolutionary thoughts.

36
The Grandmother teaching her to survive
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To maintain her integrity
38
When Marjane accuses a man of sexual harassment

1. Asks her to maintain her integrity
2. To take off her veil

39
About Divorce
She herself got divorced 55 years ago The first
a practice for the 2nd.
40
Jasmine Care of the body
41
Filmic Techniques

• The black and white to suggest an era of
  dictatorial control
• Drawing to show different emotions and human
  situations human closeness, humans as shadows,
  with dignity, freedom, fantasies, liberty, etc.

42
Child imagination

• Also when she falls in love, falls out of love

43
Variations of Shape and Shadows
Fear
Dignity
44
Human Smallness
45
Large Figures for Identification

46
Works Cited

• Costantino, Manuela "Marji Popular Commix
  Heroine Breathing Life into the Writing of
  History." Canadian Review of American Studies
  38.3 (2008) 429-447. Academic Search Complete.
  EBSCO. Web. 2 Oct. 2009.