1405 - Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst
So today is "Nowruz," the first day of the Iranian calendar. The word-by-word translation of it is "New day" as "Now = New" and "Ruz = Day". People normally celebrate this year in Iran by gathering with their family, friends, and loved ones. This year, I found it quite difficult to be that "cheerful" or celebrate this day, as with any other event in the last two months. Iranians inside the country have gone through a brutal massacre in January and February, and right after the crackdowns, a dreadful foreign invasion since late February that killed thousands and displaced more. As a member of the Iranian diaspora, which partly has gone downhill with its absurd support for Trump and Netanyahu in the past couple of weeks, I didn't really feel the necessity for a "party" as I saw many were pushing to prepare a massive event in Shanghai, which will likely end up singing YMCA and imitating Trump's disgusting moves as I saw in videos since the start of the war while YOUR OWN COUNTRY IS GETTING BOMBED. Similarly, the opposite of this is the amazing group of regime apologists and pro-Ayatollahs, which, clearly, isn't the most pleasant place to be, as I don't want to end up punching someone's face in the first day of the new year while discussing the basics like how evil the late supreme leader was.
The final decision was to technically do nothing special. I had a short phone call with my parents, had lunch with a friend, came to the library and listened to the best Kendrick Lamar song while writing this text, and will have a movie night at Noa's later this evening. Yet, for 1405, I can wish nothing but more peace in the world and fewer genocidal, rapist conservative politicians. Hopefully, 1405 will be less traumatizing.
Nowruz Mobarak!