A Nowruz for a New Iran

This Nowruz feels different. A Nowruz for a new Iran. My beloved Iran, ancient land of light, fire, and spring. As the new year begins and the spring wind comes down from the Alborz Mountains to stir the sprouts on the Haft-Sin table, I hear your voice. Not silence. Not surrender. A cry rising from your wounded chest: 'Iran is Iran again!' Nowruz, one of the few distinctly Iranian traditions that even the darkness could not steal from us, is more than a celebration of spring this year. To me it is light's victory over darkness, the triumph of a truth that was chained by lies and blood for more than forty years, but never died. Every drop of blood spilled on the earth, every young person lost in the streets, every mother whose hair turned white while she waited: they are present in this year's new growth. They bore the cold of a long winter so that we and those who come after us might feel the warmth of freedom, the warmth of the Iran we know. Remember the dark nights when shots filled the air, the streets where the names of the fallen were written on walls, the prisons sealed with iron chains. Their walls are beginning to crumble. The wall of darkness pressed against Iran's chest has cracked. The Islamic Republic's forbidden barriers are breaking, one by one. On the other side stands a people united in heart and voice, gathering beneath one flag, one name, one hope: Reza Shah II, a symbol of national identity to us. My Iran, your Haft-Sin table holds more than sprouts, coins, and senjed fruit this Nowruz. It holds the blood of those we lost, mothers' tears, daughters' cries, and sons' resolve. At its center stands the Lion and Sun flag, raised not by the wind but by a people's will and their cry of 'Long live the king!' This spring is a spring of freedom, one without exile, prison, or fear. The dawn call that accompanied executions has fallen silent. In its place, children laugh in the streets and songs of freedom rise in the squares. My fellow Iranian, my dear friend, a part of me: if tears fill your eyes, let them fall. May they be tears not of grief but of joy, victory, and Iran's rebirth. May your Nowruz be victorious, your Iran endure, and your freedom last. This Nowruz feels different: the color of the blood of Iran's children who died for freedom, the scent of liberty, the taste of victory. A new, free Iran begins today. Together we will build it. Long live Iran. #جاویدشاه Long live the united people of Iran.