My Dream for Iran

One day at the height of the anti-regime mass protests in Iran in 2022, I had a long, tearful conversation with a dear friend. We allowed ourselves to alternate our mourning with dreams about the future. My friend and I, like most Iranians, are embarrassingly exceptionalist about our homeland, convinced that Iran can rival any country in its offerings. 

We dreamed of working for the Iranian tourism board, designing ad campaigns to lure travelers from every corner of the world. Iran’s Shia shrines already draw millions of pilgrims from Muslim countries. We dreamed of a day when millions of Jews might also visit the Tomb of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan, and millions of Baha’is could visit the holiest land of their faith.

We dreamed that the Saadi Foundation, a government-run institution dedicated to promoting Persian language, might host well-attended classes in Lisbon, Montreal and Johannesburg. Instead of its current fare of dour Islamist pretension, it would offer the best of Iranian arts and culture: our cinema, our poetry, perhaps even our wine. I am sure my more artful compatriots would come up with something less tacky but we did come up with a tagline: “Taste the Shiraz Wine That’s Actually from Shiraz.”