GERMANY PERSPECTIVE

Berlin treats Satrapi with particular attachment: Persepolis had been voted "Comic of the Year" in Germany in 2004, and the German press has covered her death with rare editorial density. Tagesschau and ZEIT run obituaries that prioritize one thing: letting Satrapi's own voice be heard. The paper quotes a line she spoke verbatim in September 2024 in Paris during a protest: "People have been fighting for their freedom for more than forty years. Look at the veils of 1982 — compare them with today. Every millimeter of forehead or hair we have won was ten more meters toward freedom. I think above all we must keep hope alive." The German press emphasizes her humor as weapon — "if people can laugh with me, then I am no longer this abstract idea of a woman from this vast Middle East; I become a person." FAZ and ZEIT both treat the Legion of Honor refusal as a coherent political act. French illustrator Luz publishes a drawing of her in the Persepolis style; Berlin relays it. The implicit contrast: while the Iranian regime is commemorating Khomeini's death anniversary on June 5, Germany lets Satrapi say that freedom is won millimeter by millimeter. That is not neutral — it is a moral cartography.