Today or tomorrow, the Iranians celebrate the first day of spring, with a 13 day festival called Norwuz.They traditionally meet together around a table, give gifts. The night before they will light a bonfire and jump over to symbolise moving from sickness (yellow) to red (flame). Think of it as their version of our Christmas, only tied in with the coming of new growth. It also involves a celebration of the new- new clothes for example – and a great big spring clean.
This tradition is at least 3000 years old, with roots in Zoroastrianism, and it has been celebrated by many peoples across West Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Black Sea Basin, the Balkans, and South Asia. In the modern era, while it is observed as a secular holiday by most celebrants, Nowruz remains a holy day for Zoroastrians,Baháʼís,and Ismaʿili Shia Muslims.
The Haft-sin table celebration most Iranians would normally celebrate would involve a feast including 7 traditional elements-
- Sabze (Persian: سبزه) – wheat, barley, mung bean, or lentil sprouts grown in a dish.
- Samanu (Persian: سمنو) – sweet pudding made from germinated wheat
- Persian olive (Persian: سنجد, romanized: senjed)
- Vinegar (Persian: سرکه, romanized: serke)
- Apple (Persian: سیب, romanized: sib)
- Garlic (Persian: سیر, romanized: sir)
- Sumac (Persian: سماق, romanized: somāq)
The Haft-sin table may also include a mirror, candles, painted eggs, a bowl of water, goldfish, coins, hyacinth, and traditional confectioneries. A “book of wisdom” such as the Quran, Bible, Avesta, the Šāhnāme of Ferdowsi, or the divān of Hafez may also be included.
This year, these celebrations will be limited for most people. Travel to family, shopping for new clothes or celebratory items – none of these things are safe when bombs are falling.
So here is a challenge- why don’t we make our own versions of the Haft-sin table? Lets gather this weekend with our friends and raise a glass to those who can not. Let’s read some Hafez and imagine the spice air of Iranian night right in our living rooms.
Do it as an act of solidarity and a sign of resistance, and we should do so with some humility. Remember that the situation in Iran even before the current Netanyahu/Trump war of choice was created by our own empire meddling and swindling. Here is a good summary of this history by George Monbiot;
Iran would not be treated as an “enemy of the west” were it not for what happened in 1953, when Winston Churchill’s government persuaded the CIA to launch a coup against the popular democratic government of Mohammad Mossadegh. The UK did so because Mossadegh sought to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company: to stop a foreign power from stealing the nation’s wealth. The US, with UK support, tried twice to overthrow him, and succeeded on the second attempt, with the help of some opportunistic ayatollahs. It reinstated the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1954, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company became British Petroleum, later BP.
Fury about the 1953 coup, combined with ever-more vicious repression under the shah’s dictatorship, triggered the revolution of 1979, which was captured by the ayatollahs, with horrible consequences for many Iranians. They would not be running the country were it not for our governments’ violent crushing of democracy for the sake of oil.
Perhaps this Hafez poem might be a good Haft-sin inclusion;
All the Hemispheres
Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out
Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.
Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.
Change rooms in your mind for a day.
All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.
Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.
From: ‘The Subject Tonight is Love’
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky
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