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| Reza Pahlavi |
In the streets of Iran, a phrase once banished to the whispers of exile and treason, has roared back into the open: “Javid Shah” – Long Live the Shah.
What was for decades politically radioactive is now echoing through Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad, Ahvaz, Hamadan, and even the clerical stronghold of Qom. Videos smuggled out of the country show crowds chanting it without fear, alongside calls for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and open support for the exiled Pahlavi dynasty. For a regime whose entire legitimacy rests on the destruction of that dynasty and the systematic erasure of its memory, this is an existential threat. It signals that public fury has transcended complaints about prices or policy and become a wholesale rejection of the theocratic order itself.
The unrest began when Tehran’s bazaari merchants, that ancient and formidable class, shuttered their shops in response to the catastrophic collapse of the rial, which at one point traded at over 1.4 million to the dollar on the open market against an official rate of 42,000.
Economic despair, long simmering, exploded into outright defiance. But the slogans quickly outgrew mere grievances over bread and butter. Crowds chanted, "This is the final battle! Pahlavi will return," and "The shah will return to the homeland, and Zahhak (despot) will be overthrown," drawing on the ancient Persian myth of the tyrannical Zahhak to cast the current Supreme Leader as the monster of the age. Other voices rang out with "No to Gaza, no to Lebanon, I give my life for Iran," a blunt repudiation of the regime’s lavish funding of foreign proxies while its own people starve.
The security forces have so far responded with restraint: tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets. Reports speak of at least one death, a Basij militiaman killed in clashes, but the regime seems cautious, offering vague promises of "dialogue" rather than the full brutality it has deployed in the past.
The security forces have so far responded with restraint: tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets. Reports speak of at least one death, a Basij militiaman killed in clashes, but the regime seems cautious, offering vague promises of "dialogue" rather than the full brutality it has deployed in the past.
It knows that excessive force could tip the balance, turning manageable discontent into uncontrollable revolution. Yet the chants already suggest that a deeper shift is underway.To Western ears, "Javid Shah" might sound like a naive plea for literal monarchy restored. In Iran, its resonance is far more profound.
The Islamic Republic has spent forty-six years demonising the Pahlavi era as a time of corruption, foreign subservience, and moral decay. To invoke the Shah now is a deliberate assault on the regime's founding myth. More than that, it expresses a yearning for an Iran rooted in its own pre-Islamic, imperial history, an Iran ruled by kings and emperors for millennia, not by clerics obsessed with a pan-Islamic ummah and the export of revolution.
The Islamic Republic has spent forty-six years demonising the Pahlavi era as a time of corruption, foreign subservience, and moral decay. To invoke the Shah now is a deliberate assault on the regime's founding myth. More than that, it expresses a yearning for an Iran rooted in its own pre-Islamic, imperial history, an Iran ruled by kings and emperors for millennia, not by clerics obsessed with a pan-Islamic ummah and the export of revolution.
The Islamic Republic, should it limp to its fiftieth anniversary in 2029, will still represent less than two per cent of Iran's recorded history. The return of monarchist symbols is a reminder that the clerics are the historical interlopers.
Political change often begins with the breaking of taboos. The Woman, Life, Freedom uprising of 2022 shattered the enforced consensus around compulsory hijab. Now, protesters are reaching for symbols the regime has spent decades trying to bury. When people abandon the language dictated by the state and embrace the forbidden, authority begins to crumble. "Javid Shah" is precisely such a forbidden symbol.
Iran's bazaaris have always been more than traders. For centuries they have been a political force, their strikes capable of paralyzing the economy and shifting the course of history: toppling the Tobacco Concession in the 1890s, driving the Constitutional Revolution, supporting Mossadegh’s oil nationalization, and, most fatefully, helping bring down the monarchy itself in 1978–79 through prolonged closures that starved the Shah’s government of revenue.
Even under the Islamic Republic, born of an alliance between clerics and bazaaris, the merchants have periodically flexed their muscle during economic crises. The question this week was whether their strike was merely about money or something more fundamental. The fact that Pahlavi's name now passes their lips provides the answer.
What makes the present moment especially dangerous for the regime is that the bazaaris are not acting alone. Students, that other historic engine of Iranian upheaval, have joined them. University campuses, once hotbeds of Islamist and leftist fervor that helped destroy the monarchy in 1979, are now filled with young people chanting in support of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. For a generation born long after the revolution, the Pahlavi era is not lived memory but a symbol of an Iran free from clerical control, ideological compulsion, and the squandering of national wealth on foreign adventures.
When bazaaris and students align, Iranian governments have rarely survived. In 1979 they combined to fell the Shah. Today they converge against the very system they once helped install.
Against this backdrop, Reza Pahlavi has positioned himself as the natural focal point for a fragmented opposition. In recent months he has grown bolder: calling openly for regime change, convening broad coalitions of dissidents, and outlining principles for a future Iran, territorial integrity, equality, individual liberties, separation of religion and state. He has stressed that any return of monarchy must be decided by referendum and that he seeks no personal power unless freely chosen by the people.
IRGC,
Political change often begins with the breaking of taboos. The Woman, Life, Freedom uprising of 2022 shattered the enforced consensus around compulsory hijab. Now, protesters are reaching for symbols the regime has spent decades trying to bury. When people abandon the language dictated by the state and embrace the forbidden, authority begins to crumble. "Javid Shah" is precisely such a forbidden symbol.
Iran's bazaaris have always been more than traders. For centuries they have been a political force, their strikes capable of paralyzing the economy and shifting the course of history: toppling the Tobacco Concession in the 1890s, driving the Constitutional Revolution, supporting Mossadegh’s oil nationalization, and, most fatefully, helping bring down the monarchy itself in 1978–79 through prolonged closures that starved the Shah’s government of revenue.
Even under the Islamic Republic, born of an alliance between clerics and bazaaris, the merchants have periodically flexed their muscle during economic crises. The question this week was whether their strike was merely about money or something more fundamental. The fact that Pahlavi's name now passes their lips provides the answer.
What makes the present moment especially dangerous for the regime is that the bazaaris are not acting alone. Students, that other historic engine of Iranian upheaval, have joined them. University campuses, once hotbeds of Islamist and leftist fervor that helped destroy the monarchy in 1979, are now filled with young people chanting in support of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. For a generation born long after the revolution, the Pahlavi era is not lived memory but a symbol of an Iran free from clerical control, ideological compulsion, and the squandering of national wealth on foreign adventures.
When bazaaris and students align, Iranian governments have rarely survived. In 1979 they combined to fell the Shah. Today they converge against the very system they once helped install.
Against this backdrop, Reza Pahlavi has positioned himself as the natural focal point for a fragmented opposition. In recent months he has grown bolder: calling openly for regime change, convening broad coalitions of dissidents, and outlining principles for a future Iran, territorial integrity, equality, individual liberties, separation of religion and state. He has stressed that any return of monarchy must be decided by referendum and that he seeks no personal power unless freely chosen by the people.
IRGC,
As protests escalated, he issued a direct appeal: "Today is a time for greater solidarity. I call on all segments of society to join your fellow citizens in the streets and raise your voices demanding the downfall of this system."
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One exiled opposition figure told reporters this week: "It is crystal clear that the population accepts the leadership of Prince Reza Pahlavi… Now it is up to the prince to expand his circle and show that his professional cadres can take over the government. In that case, the military could join the people."
Whether these protests will gather the momentum to topple the regime remains uncertain, but it's looking as if it will. Several police stations have been overrun and burned and clerics are removing their clerical garb and running for the hills.
Repression could yet intensify. But something irrevocable has already happened. On the streets of the Islamic Republic, the people are once again calling for their king. And in a land with such a long memory, that call carries a weight no theocracy can easily dismiss.
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