By Shyam Bhatia
London. The images are striking not for their scale but for their normality. In several European cities, Iranian-owned shops and cafés have begun displaying symbols that were absent from public view for decades: the lion-and-sun emblem of pre-revolutionary Iran, portraits of the former royal family, and a slogan banned since 1979 — Javid Shah, long live the Shah.
Seen individually, each display could be dismissed as nostalgia. Seen collectively, they point to something more deliberate. Iranian exile politics, long defined by denunciation of the Islamic Republic, is beginning to experiment with what comes after it.
This shift has its roots inside Iran. The protests that erupted after the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022 marked a historical rupture. Leading this so-called ‘New Revolution’ are mainly young girls, sometimes mothers and girls together, openly throwing away their ‘oppressive chadors and veils.’
They are widely described as the first mass revolt led by women that openly confronted the theological authority of an Islamic republic. Unlike earlier unrest driven by economic grievance or electoral dispute, this movement challenged compulsory religious law, clerical power and the fusion of religion with violent state authority at their core.
The Shah was accused of ruling with an iron hand. The Islamic regime with a murderous sledgehammer.
Although brutally suppressed, the uprising has persisted long enough to alter the political conversation. It weakened faith in reform from within and forced a more uncomfortable question into the open: if the Islamic Republic cannot be fixed, what replaces it?
Among parts of the Iranian diaspora, that question has reopened space for figures and symbols once considered politically unusable. Royal imagery, previously confined to private homes or discreet gatherings, is now appearing in public-facing businesses. In some cases, shop owners invite customers to repeat the banned slogan aloud, a small act of defiance that tests whether the old taboos still hold power.
The re-emergence of this language does not imply consensus around monarchy. It reflects fatigue with a permanent protest culture that offers no destination. For many exiles, symbolism has become a way of rehearsing alternatives rather than endorsing a settled blueprint.
At the centre of this ambiguity is Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s last monarch. He has no organisational base inside Iran and has consistently avoided claiming an automatic right to rule. Instead, he presents himself as a transitional figure, secular, recognisable, and acceptable to Iranian people and Western governments wary of ideological unknowns.
In public statements, Pahlavi has rejected foreign military intervention and insisted that any change must be driven by Iranians themselves. He has argued that the separation of religion and state is essential for democracy, a formulation aimed as much at republicans as at monarchists.
Yet diaspora symbolism often runs ahead of his own caution.
In shopfronts and posters abroad, he is frequently presented not as a facilitator of transition but as a restored sovereign. The contrast exposes a central tension: between monarchy as emotional certainty and monarchy as political placeholder.
That tension extends across the broader opposition landscape. Iran’s resistance remains fragmented, with no agreed leadership or roadmap. Inside the country, the most credible voices belong to those least able to organise openly. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, writing from prison, has framed the uprising as a struggle against tyranny religious authoritarianism and violent crackdowns killing thousands – without endorsing any successor. Her authority derives precisely from Resistance Under Incarceration Rather Than Freedom In Exile.
Outside Iran, activists such as Masih Alinejad have sustained international attention on executions, intimidation and repression, while warning that visibility abroad can expose families at home to retaliation. Organised opposition groups that present themselves as governments-in-waiting continue to publish transition plans, but remain deeply polarising and distrusted by many Iranians.
Attempts to impose unity from above have repeatedly failed. A short-lived coalition announced in 2023 collapsed within weeks, reinforcing a chronic weakness of exile politics: prominence without cohesion.
From a strategic standpoint, the Islamic Republic’s resilience rests not on legitimacy but on control, violent control. Power remains concentrated in security institutions that command coercion, revenue and patronage. Western reporting suggests the Revolutionary Guard has expanded its economic reach, allowing the state to finance repression despite sanctions. No verified mass defections from the security apparatus — the decisive rupture in most revolutions — have yet occurred.
External pressure adds another layer of complexity. Donald Trump has revived the rhetoric of “maximum pressure”, echoing the sanctions strategy of his first presidency. While those measures inflicted severe economic damage, they also enabled Tehran to frame dissent as foreign-engineered, reinforcing nationalist siege narratives.
Pahlavi and other opposition figures have cautioned against that dynamic, arguing that overt external threats risk delegitimising domestic movements, a concern widely shared by activists who understand the regime’s capacity for survival.
In this context, the shopfront images now appearing across diaspora neighbourhoods should not be read as predictions of restoration. They are signals of impatience: with endless protest cycles, with opposition disunity, and with a political language that refuses to name alternatives.
A slogan on glass is not a strategy. But it marks a psychological shift from resistance alone to the public testing of forbidden futures.
Whether Iran itself will ever embrace those futures remains uncertain. That its diaspora is now willing to display them openly suggests the argument has entered a new phase.
