A huge demonstration filled the blocks around the Vancouver Art Gallery last weekend, part of a weekly presence of Persian and other Vancouverites calling for regime change and democracy for Iran. (photo by Richard K. Lowy)
As the street protests in Iran grow – and the death toll caused by the regime’s police and military crackdown increases – so do solidarity rallies worldwide.
A huge demonstration consumed the blocks around the Vancouver Art Gallery last weekend, part of a weekly presence of Persian and other Vancouverites calling for regime change and democracy for Iran.
The global movement against the Islamic regime has coalesced around Reza Pahlavi, son of the late shah who was deposed in the 1979 revolution. Posters of the crown prince fluttered among hundreds of pre-revolutionary Iranian flags amid chants of “javid shah,” long live the shah.
“I am Stephen and I am Jewish,” said one of the speakers at the rally a week earlier, on Jan. 10, who preferred not to use his surname.
“I have attended almost all the Iranian rallies in recent years for one reason and one reason only: to tell the Iranian people loudly and clearly you are not alone,” he said. ”Anyone who knows what the Iranian people have suffered over the past 47 years can empathize, especially now.”
He emphasized the ancient and contemporary relationship between Jewish and Persian peoples.
“When Israel was attacked on Oct. 7, 2023, the Iranian people came out in bad weather, in the rain and the cold and the snow, to march side by side with Jews all over the world. Why? Because they understand our pain, because it is their pain,” he said. “It is the collective pain of peoples who want what everyone wants: to live in peace and unmolested by those who want to control the world, who tell you what to think, what to wear, what to do, what to believe in.
“Persia was the first empire in the world, under Cyrus the Great, that brought people together and did not, did not oppress them,” he continued. “This is part of the Iranian historical identity. You can have all the Islamic revolutions you want. You will never erase this historical identity, with its great, great culture.”
He commended Iranian Canadians for their contributions to Canada and their devotion to democracy in their homeland.
“You here are Iranians who know what I talk about because you have been living in freedom in Canada and look how you’ve flourished. When people speak of Canadian Iranians, they do so with respect for a people that knows how to work hard and how to contribute to society, to give back, to become productive citizens of a free and open society,” he said. “Is that so much to ask for your brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters in Iran? And it is a blessing that, when Iran is finally free, many of you will return to Iran to help rebuild.”
He called Pahlavi “a man who understands the world.”
“He knows the Iranian people inside Iran and outside Iran. Anyone who questions his commitment to his people can read about how he has worked tirelessly throughout his life to pursue a free Iran and return independence to Iranian people.”
Hundreds are dying in the name of freedom, Stephen said.
“The crackdown is brutal,” he said. “Many of us have seen the image of the older white-haired Iranian woman on the streets of Iran, bleeding from the mouth, her fist raised in defiance: ‘I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I have been dead for 47 years.’”
He commended US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for forcefully supporting the Iranian protests, and called for the leaders of Canada and other Western countries to express their support as forcefully.
David Zacks was one of several people at the rally carrying an Israeli flag. The response, he said, was “a hundred percent positive.” People were asking to take photos with him and thanking him for his presence.
“Iranians and Jews have been great friends for thousands of years,” said Zacks. “Everybody I talk to says, once the regime falls, they’ll be great friends again.”