On a London high street lined with Persian grocery stores and kebab shops, Iranian exile politics has found an unlikely stage. A restaurant window advertises a 20 percent discount to anyone who walks in and says a phrase long taboo in the Islamic Republic: Javid Shah, long live the Shah.
The poster shows Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s last monarch, framed by images of his father and grandfather beneath the old lion-and-sun emblem of pre-revolutionary Iran. The message is simple: say the words and receive the discount.
It is a small and almost playful gesture, but it captures something real about the mood among parts of Iran’s diaspora. What for years survived mainly as nostalgia has begun to surface more openly. Protest against the Islamic Republic, many exiles now believe, has reached its limits. What must follow protest, they argue, is a credible alternative — though republicans, secular liberals and other exile opposition groups remain sharply divided about Iran’s future — and that inevitably revives the question of the monarchy.
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