20 March - Noruz - or the Iranian New Year, was always my favourite time of year in Iran. Sunshine, warmer temperatures, a long holiday and plenty of relaxed socialising with friends, not to mention the fact that it was the only time in the year when Tehran was not masked by a brown, clagging smog - all giving rise to positivity and optimism for the year to come. The Noruz period would see a "Haft Sin" (seven items beginning with the Farsi letter 'S') in every home - one of those items is always a small dish containing with new shoots of grass, wheat or barley, symbolising a fresh start. In the concrete jungle of Tehran, it was always heartening to see those green shoots taking root for a few weeks, even if it sometimes felt as though the dense, brown smog would eventually discolour and smother them.
So for this reason President Obama's Noruz message to the Iranian people resonated loudly with me, as I know it did to many Iranians. Perfectly pitched as it was, though, clearly it will take more than a three minute video address to overcome 30 years of mutual hostility. Karim Sadjadpour set out the context very well here - in particular by explaining that "it takes two to tango". The Iranian regime's first reaction to Obama's message was predictably defensive: it would be hard to imagine otherwise. But let's hope that these green shoots, planted by Obama, will properly take root, and fight their way through the smog which will be belched out by the regime in the coming months.
Posted at 11:29 24 March 2009 by Simon Shercliff | Comments[0]
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