Thank you for this comment. I should have been more careful in reprinting Ebert’s quotation, and examined more carefully the claims his friends were making in the historical context of 1972.

The reason I choose this quotation is because Ebert makes the connection that many Americans see Iranians as a monolithic group with little interest in democracy, and that Persepolis chips away at that perception somewhat by presenting the individual stories of a segment of the Iranian population before and during the revolution. My intention was not to demonize people living in other Middle Eastern countries at that time, although you are right in noting that the quotation could be taken as reinforcement of a good Muslim/bad Muslim dichotomy.

You are also right in noting that one story by one woman cannot be treated as comprehensive, particularly when it only explores in a limited degree the human rights violations that took place under the Shah.

//they explained proudly that Iran was a “modern” country, that they were devout Muslims but did not embrace the extremes of other Islamic nations, that their nation represented a new way//

Was the ‘modern’ and ‘new’ way of this family’s Iran the fact that hundreds of thousands of Iranians were tortured and murdered by the West-loving Shah?

I wonder what were the “extremes” of other “Islamic” nations seeing as how no less than 5 Muslim majority nations at the time were run by Socialist governments that had progressive policies regarding education, women, land distribution, and so forth (not including those under the thumb of the Soviet Union). Of course, the Persian snub-nose towards their Arab neighbors — the thousands of years or rivalry and dislike between these two cultural groups — wouldn’t have anything to do with the comment. And one can’t expect someone like Ebert (or most people in the US, let’s be honest) to investigate when we’d rather use the words of those we deem to be “good Muslims” against those we deem to be “bad Mozlems.”

People just say these things and regurgitate it. It has no meaning for those of us on this side of the world living this life, whose history is this history, whose reality is this reality. There are many true stories from pre-Revolutionary Iran — not just M. Satrapi’s or this family’s. But somehow, the stories of people from South Tehran, or from Shiraz, or some village off in the mountains — those stories don’t get told (in English, in the US, at any rate).

Iranian women are admired by women in the Middle East for many reasons. The high rate of education, the fact that they sit in Parliament and in the Cabinet, their full participation in the arts there, their pioneering stance in the field of sports for Muslim women. You say “extreme repression,” and we see 69% of the PhDs there being women. BTW, what percentage of American PhDs are women?

Here is some good reading: http://religiondispatches.org/Gui/Content.aspx?Page=BL&Id=26

Sorry for taking up so much space.