Satrapi Profile

Over at Salon, Marjane Satrapi (whose novel Embroideries I loved) talks to Michelle Goldberg about sex, divorce, abortion, and, well, embroideries (no, not that kind. Read the book, you’ll figure it out.)

Do you have any advice for secular Americans who are faced with living in a country that’s increasingly governed by religious fundamentalists?

If I have any advice, it’s that every day that you wake up, don’t say, “This is normal.” Every day, wake up with this idea that you have to defend your freedom. Nobody has the right to take from women the right to abortion, nobody has the right to take from homosexuals the right to be homosexual, nobody has the right to stop people laughing, to stop people thinking, to stop people talking.

If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.

Read the rest here. (You’ll have to watch a Salon ad. Worth it, though.)