Noruz, the Persian New Year that survived the Islamic revolution

Tehran, 20 Mar The millennial holiday of Noruz, the Persian New Year, is celebrated with joy in Iran after surviving the Islamic Revolution, which has tried in vain to eliminate this pagan holiday. Street singers dressed in red and painted black with a tambourine announce the arrival of spring on the streets of Tehran, many of them with huge colored eggs symbolizing fertility. In the Tajrish bazaar in northern Tehran, thousands of people make last-minute shopping in the crowded market passages, defying the coronavirus that in the last two years shone this holiday. With a history that goes back 3,000 years and which plunges its origins into Zoroastrianism, Noruz or new day is celebrated on the spring equinox and marks the solar Persian New Year, in this case 1401. PAGAN HOLIDAY After the Islamic revolution of 1979, the Ayatollahs tried to eliminate this tradition, which represents the end of winter darkness and the arrival of light and fertility, considering that it was an anti-Islamic pagan holiday. “I ask all those who celebrate the rituals they call Noruz to moderate themselves this year,” Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, requested in 1981. The call of the supreme leader was in vain. Iran is a largely Muslim country and Zoroastrians represent a minuscule part of its population, but the holiday lives on and it is perhaps the most Iranian celebration there is. “They told us not to celebrate it, that we had instead Eid al Fitr (end of the Ramadan fast) or the birth of the prophet, which are Muslim holidays,” a neighbor from Tehran tells Ephe. “But Noruz is an important holiday for us, a very old tradition. We are still celebrating it,” says this businessman. As writer Ramita Navai explains, “Noruz and everything related to it is as culturally important to Iranians as Muslim holidays”, so the government “could not win” in its attempt to eliminate it. “It is a pagan memory of Zoroastrianism and the regime declared it anti-Islamic because of it,” continues the fellow journalist in her book “City of Lies”, about the Iranian capital. The historian Ervand Abrahamian explains that after the victory of the religious the objective was to “Islamize Iran”. “The extremists asked to remove Noruz from the official calendar and turn the ancient ruins of Persepolis into a public urinal,” he tells in his book “A History of Modern Iran”. “For them, any sign of respect for pre-Islamic Iran exuded paganism,” says the historian. After the failed attempt to eliminate the holiday, the theocratic regime accepted the celebration and in some cases adapted it. Thus, many political and religious leaders take advantage of this occasion, which usually falls on March 20 or 21, to address the population with speeches. BONFIRES The holiday begins on the last Tuesday before Noruz, with Chaharshanbeh Soori, when bonfires are lit and people jump on them, a practice that was practically forbidden for years. Then, on March 20 or 21, families gather around seven foods whose name begins with that one and which are not to eat but to form the “Sofreye Haft Sin”, literally the “tablecloth of the seven s”. Foods are apple, garlic, wheat, lentils, fruits “somag” and “sanyed”, a sweet of wheat germ and vinegar. Each of them invokes a desire, such as health, wealth or love. In addition, a mirror is placed on the table to symbolize reflection; colored eggs, for fertility and goldfish, which represent life. Thirteen days later, “Sizdah Bedar” is celebrated, a day where families go to nature and have picnics. This party puts an end to Noruz. Included in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2010, Noruz is celebrated as the beginning of the new year by more than 300 million people in Central Asia, the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Middle East. “Noruz is the beginning of spring, the arrival of light, when everything blooms and plants grow,” says the neighbor from Tehran. “We will continue to celebrate it, it's part of our history,” he says. Jaime Leon