🕊️ 💔Marjane Satrapi is one of the most influential Iranian artists of our time. The author of Persepolis, filmmaker, illustrator, and storyteller, she helped millions understand Iran through the lives of its people rather than through the lens of politics. Her work captured the humor, complexity, resilience, and heartbreak of being Iranian in the aftermath of revolution and exile.
As an Iranian-American, I’ve always felt conflicted by the way parts of the Western creative, academic, and political worlds engage with Iran. They celebrate our poetry, films, artists, resilience, and resistance. They admire the beauty that emerged from suffering.
But too few stop to ask why so many of those artists, writers, thinkers, entrepreneurs, and dreamers were forced to create from exile in the first place.
Millions of Iranians did not dream of becoming a diaspora.
We dreamed of staying home. 💔
We dreamed of building companies in Tehran, making films in Shiraz, creating art in Isfahan, raising our families, caring for our parents, and contributing to the country we loved.
Instead, generations of Iranians were forced to choose between freedom and home.
The world celebrates the extraordinary achievements of Iranians abroad—and it should. But those achievements are also evidence of a profound loss. They are reminders of what Iran itself was denied.
When Marjane Satrapi speaks about sadness, I understand.
There is a particular grief in watching the world applaud the resilience of a people while failing to fully reckon with the conditions that made that resilience necessary.
The tragedy is not that Iranians succeeded despite everything.
The tragedy is how much more they could have contributed had they been free to flourish in their own country.
Imagine Marjane Satrapi’s talent, brilliance, and voice in a free Iran.
Then imagine the millions more like her.
That is the loss and my dream of a Free Iran.
#MarjaneSatrapi #Persepolis #Iran #womanlifefreedom
I think he should have some negative relationships with survivors specifically admins bc of how the admins treat guests. I wish more fanarts and fanfics explored that more bc THYE usually have him be friendly with everyone no matter what