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“The masking tape is to protect against flying glass during a bombing and the black curtains are to protect us from our neighbors […] Across the street. They’re totally devoted to the new regime. A glimpse of what goes on in our house would be enough for them to denounce us!”
This quotation, which occurs in Chapter 14, The Wine, after the Iraqis have started bombing Tehran, shows the extent to which Iranians feels besieged on all sides. The Satrapis have to protect themselves from the physical threat of Iraqi bombs as well as the existential threat of their own neighbors’ prying eyes. A family like the one across the street that is “totally devoted to the new regime” understands that the regime relies on Iranians to inform on the illegal or forbidden actions of other Iranians. Presumably the neighbors are true believers and thus happy to oblige. This quotation suggests that the fuel that keeps the Iranian regime going is the blood of their own citizens, who are either sacrificed in the war effort or imprisoned or executed so the regime can consolidate its power. If these devoted neighbors were to see the Satrapis engaging in anything they might deem worthy of a dog whistle, then it would bring down a gauntlet of trouble for the family.
“They eventually admitted that the survival of the regime depended on the war. When I think we could have avoided it all … it just makes me sick. A million people would still be alive.”
This quotation occurs in Chapter 15, The Cigarette, shortly after the Iranian regime has refused to negotiate for peace with the Iraqis. The illustration on the page is a full-page drawing of a chaotic battlefield scene, full of smoke, gunfire, and explosions. Many men are pictured fighting and dying as Marji narratively walks through the gruesome scene. Marji laments the Iranian regime’s decision to refuse peace, even when they know full well how many Iranians will die as a result of this decision. Marji also shrewdly observes that the regime depends upon the war for its survival. This suggests that the regime is fully aware of its cannibalizing nature. It is significant that Satrapi chooses to depict men both clean-shaven modernists and fully bearded fundamentalists in the battle scene. This represents the sad truth that the Iranian regime consumes the lives of every kind of Iranian, whether they support the regime or not.
“To die a martyr is to inject blood into the veins of society.”
This quotation, which occurs in Chapter 15, The Cigarette, when Iran refuses the Iraqis’ offer of a peaceful settlement, is a motto of the regime’s own making. It is a piece of propaganda that is intended to encourage Iranians to sacrifice their lives in the war effort. With this motto, the regime implies that dying for one’s country makes the country stronger. To Iranians like Marji, however, the opposite is true. Every Iranian that dies is a loved one whose death is a terrible blow to his or her friends and family. Marji’s own experience with Uncle Anoush and her classmates’ experiences in losing their loved ones shows that these traumas damage and weaken Iranians, and thus Iran. Nevertheless, the Iranian regime knows its survival depends upon its feeding off of its own citizens, and this motto suggests they embrace it.
