Nowruz in a time of war |
What does celebration look like in the middle of a war?
For many Iranians who marked Nowruz this year, celebration has meant holding onto tradition — gathering with family and setting the Haft-Seen table, a traditional display of symbolic items marking the new year — even as the United States and Israel carry out airstrikes and uncertainty deepens at home and across the diaspora.
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Broadview spoke with two Iranians separated by geography — Toronto-based visual artist and educator Amir Akbari and, in Iran, newspaper editor Barzin Jafartash.
After the attacks began, Jafartash says he left Tehran for his hometown in Mazandaran, a northern province along the Caspian Sea, at his family’s urging. Despite being able to hear the sound of fighter jets in the distance, he said spirits were high on March 20 as Nowruz celebrations in the region were “pretty much normal.”
“We bought flowers, nuts, cookies and sweets… we had family and friends over,” he said of the evening. He says he heard similar accounts from Tehran, where people still observed the holiday despite........