Iran’s streets have always spoken loudly, but the refrains they echo today tell a story far different from those heard in earlier years. Over the past decade and a half, the language of protest in Iran has not only shifted, but it has transformed the political imagination of a generation. What began in 2009 as religiously infused calls for reform has, by late 2025, increasingly given way to open invocations of Iran’s monarchist past and chants for the return of the Pahlavi dynasty. This evolution reflects a widening disillusionment with factional politics inside the Islamic Republic and a deeper search for alternatives to the status quo.

In the summer of 2009, amid the disputed presidential election that sparked the Green Movement, crowds chanted “Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein.” This slogan intertwined religious symbolism with political dissent and rallied behind Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who challenged the election’s results. That language was not just poetic; it was a strategic appeal to Shiite legitimacy that sat within the framework of the Islamic Republic’s own ideological foundations.

According to Iranian columnist Amirhadi Anvari, the message then was not a rejection of the system itself but a plea for reform from within, a belief that change could be won by appealing to shared cultural and religious norms. Even when protests became emotionally charged with images like the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, the movement still sought legitimacy through familiar, religiously coded frames.

Over the years, however, that faith in factional politics has steadily eroded. Elections, once framed as opportunities for improvement, saw sharp declines in participation. In 2009, the state reported turnout near 85 per cent; by mid-2024, official figures placed participation at about 40 per cent of eligible voters, even as the population grew. Whether or not the precise figures are disputed, the trajectory is clear: abstention became a political signal, a sign that many Iranians no longer believed the ballot box could deliver........

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