From the moment it seized power, the regime sought to overwrite the people’s ancient identity with a rigid, imported ideology to control their collective memory.
January 9, 2026 15:28
For nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic has waged a systematic campaign to erase the Iranian people’s memory of who they are. This was never merely a political project, it was cultural colonisation. From the moment it seized power in 1979, the regime sought to overwrite Iran’s ancient identity with a rigid, imported ideology. It was not enough to control the state, it had to possess the soul of a civilisation.
And yet, despite decades of censorship, propaganda, and brute force, the Iranian people have not forgotten. They are rising, not for bread, not for fuel, but for dignity, for memory, and for the right to be themselves and to live with dignity.
Iran is not a country defined by the Islamic Republic, it is a civilisation that predates Islam by millennia. It is the land of Cyrus the Great, whose charter of human rights remains one of the earliest declarations of universal dignity and who ended the Babylonian Captivity, allowing exiled Jews to return to Judah and rebuild their Temple. It is the home of Ferdowsi, the great poet who preserved the Persian language in the 11th century through the Shahnameh or Book of Kings, one of the world's longest epic poems created by a single author, and of Hafez, whose 14th century verses still echo in the hearts of millions.
It is a nation that made vast advances in architecture, astronomy, medicine, and poetry while much of the world was still in darkness. And yet, in the hands of the clerical regime, this legacy has been buried under layers of ideological dogma. Schoolbooks have been rewritten to erase pre-Islamic history. Ancient festivals like Nowruz and Mehregan have been stripped of their meaning or discouraged altogether. Even the Persian language has been infiltrated by Arabic terms, not through natural exchange, but through deliberate imposition.
This cultural erasure is also often repeated in the West. Museums like the Victoria and Albert in London display Iranian artefacts under the label of “Islamic art” as though Iran had no artistic tradition before the Arab conquest. They fail to mention that Islam, upon entering Persia, encountered a civilisation so rich and refined that it absorbed much of its aesthetics, its manners, and its intellectual frameworks.
The Islamic Republic has not only tried to erase Iran’s past, it has squandered its future. It has destroyed a thriving country and while the people suffer from water shortages, power cuts, and economic collapse, the regime pours billions into foreign militias and proxy wars. From Hezbollah in Lebanon to militias in Iraq and Syria, and to Hamas in Gaza, Iranian wealth has been syphoned off to fund ideological adventurism. The regime claims to speak for the oppressed, yet it has turned Iran into a prison for its own citizens. It jails poets, tortures students, and shoots girls in the streets for daring to show their hair. This is not governance, it is occupation.
And yet, the Iranian people endure. More than that, they resist. In recent years, a new generation has risen, unafraid and unbowed. They chant the names not of the ayatollahs, but those of the monarchs, the symbols of Iran’s sovereignty and civilisation. “Reza Shah, roohat shad” is not a nostalgic slogan, it is a declaration of intent. “Long live the Shah” is not a whisper of the past, it is a cry for the future. “This is the last battle” is not a metaphor, it is a vow. The people are calling for Prince Reza Pahlavi, not out of sentimentality, but because they see the monarchy as the living embodiment of their heritage. They believe Pahlavi is returning, not as a ruler imposed from above, but as a symbol summoned from within.
Western commentators, ever eager to impose their own frameworks, often reduce Iran’s uprising to an economic protest. They speak of inflation, unemployment, and sanctions, as though the Iranian people are mere consumers, not human beings. This is not about the price of bread, it is about the theft of identity. It is about a people who refuse to be defined by a regime that despises their history and their identity. It is about reclaiming a stolen civilisation.
The Iranian struggle is not just a national one, it is universal. It is a reminder that identity matters, that history matters, that no regime, no ideology, no amount of propaganda can erase the memory of a people who remember who they are.
Iran is rising, not to negotiate with its captors, but to bury them. Not to reform the regime, but to restore the nation. And in doing so, it offers hope to all who believe that dignity is not granted by governments, but inherited from ancestors and defended by those brave enough to remember.
Afshin Payravi is the director of the Association of Iranian Human Rights and Allies, a non-profit organisation based in the UK
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