Comparison Of War In Persepolis And The Massacre At El Mozote

Whenever one hears of war, one would probably imagine soldiers fighting courageously on a large battlefield fighting valiantly for their causes. Often times however, the civilian aspects of war are often forgotten, and it seems that sometimes, they are the ones that suffer the most from conflict. Both The Massacre at El Mozote and Persepolis provide a look into the civilian view of war, and how society must change and adapt to the new reality. In The Massacre at El Mozote we get to see the unfiltered tragedies that war leads to. During the Salvadoran civil war in the 1980’s, the government was trying to suppress an insurgency led by Marxist rebels. Thanks to the aid and supplies of the U.S, the Salvadoran army conducted many “clean sweep” operations throughout the country. The purpose …show more content…
In The Massacre at El Mozote we see how the raping, torturing, and killing of innocent civilians broke apart families and destroyed livelihoods, as well as inspiring further political dissent amongst the people. While in Persepolis we see how the government used the war as a pretext for enacting extremely oppressive laws on its people, as well as capturing and executing political dissenters. The societal impacts were great as well, such as when the government enacted strict new religious laws, Marji and her family had to try and adapt to the new lifestyle they were forced to live; further showing how war can affect everyone in a country. It also does not help that these countries were both developing whenever these events took place. As the people were trying to build themselves up, the government came in and took it all away from them. Overall, the rash actions taken by the two governments impacted civilians the vast majority of the time, and these actions have resulted in lasting societal and political issues that we still see to this