Thesis and discussion

While reading Persepolis and analyzing the multiple situations and events that the girl went through, I thought a lot about my country and my origins. I can see that when there is trouble and insecurity each person and each community shall take its security from its own identity and develop a certain sense of own defense to protect its principals, way of life and standards. It made me see how every social, religious and political theory wants to create a national identity. I believe that these theories are manipulating the people especially the poor. In order to support my point of view I would like to analyze the two panels on page 101. My analysis of the two pictures in the book as well as the experience I got while growing up in Lebanon made me realize that the unstable situation in the country is due to the lack of freedom, the poverty and the manipulation of the youth by the totalitarian systems.

The two panels display a policeman hypnotizing innocents and poor children’s by indirectly force them to die and removing all their hope of a beautiful life. “First they convince them that the afterlife is even better than Disneyland” then they put them in the mood of the ideology of the system by putting out loud songs which will create a sense of collective behavior giving people to go to the extreme of themselves, (mental doping) “then they put them in a trance with all their songs”. What is interesting in the two panels is the difference in the face expression of the kids. In the first panel you can see that the kids are being worried and still thinking about what the guy is telling them, which is normal in the beginning just to think and accept the situation, their hands are on their heart and the eyes are drawn in a way so you can see how worried they are, you can also see how the policeman is manipulating them speaking to them with his hand up in the air. However, you can see the change of mood instantly in the second panel where the children’s become very aggressive and ready to kill, they are no more regrouped and not worried anymore, they face look like the fear is gone: aggressive look in their eyes, hands in the air, open mouth, probably shouting or something. This shows the degree of the manipulation of the supposed to be innocent children’s. Manipulation is the reason why the problems are happening there should be a freedom of belief and way of thinking.
Indoctrination is the main subject highlighted in both pictures as you can deduce from the previous paragraph. In fact, you ask yourself how they can convince the children’s so quickly and easily and they don’t let them question or criticize the beliefs or choose to believe whatever they want to believe. The policeman talk them about the afterlife by saying: “First they convince them that the afterlife is even better than Disneyland”, this will affect the young kids who will start thinking of that Disneyland as a different place from the place they live in right now instead of working on making their world a better one, so they loose hope on their actual life. Plus, another important point is that you can associate these behaviors with the syndrome of Pavlov which explain the quotation on the second panel: “ it’s nuts! They hypnotize them and just toss them into battle. Absolute carnage.” This method which cause a reflex response is because of the fear that the people have inside of them. Their attitude vis-à-vis their master becomes instinctive and with no brain behind. The moment their master will instruct them to act into a definite objective they will execute instinctively and immediately. The combination between their religion belief on the so called paradise and their “Pavlov syndrome” reaction will lead them to the suicide and their spectacular tragic act they conduct against the others.

For the people to avoid these regimes, the economical conditions have to be better it is the major problems, the people have to educate themselves and work and improve their life conditions. There should be someone who can influence them to go in other directions. At the end of the day, in each revolution and conflict of societies there will be a new area which will definitely lead to a better way of life: A new world will be awaken from this conflict, a more representative world of communities at stake. People should believe that their living can be more pleasant and more positive if they do work in ameliorating their economical conditions by way of integrating peacefully the society, its regulations, its principals and values. Once they realize that by integrating the society in which they live a sense of their life will be perceived that they are playing a vital role to built up a better environment for themselves, their parents, friends and relatives which can be definitely a solution to prevent them from seeking another sense of their life on different and antagonistic directions.


As a conclusion, I can say that the people in power are using their domination or their dominant position, betting on the fear that they will create on those inoffensive people to change their real identity into a more compliant subject to the dominant identity that the policeman represents. Thus, the police action is in a fact, annihilating any different identity that might be developed parallel to others identities as a form of co-existence. This is what define usually the totalitarian regime leading to one way of thinking under one society. Totalitarian regimes and one way of thinking, it has been proven throughout history that once they are established shall not last forever for reasons that it contains in his own inception the germs of its own distraction whether by way of revolution or internally by its own corruption since in both cases the natural evolution of humanity tends to freedom and prosperity.