We Are Becoming Many
On resistance, fear, and the price of gathering in Iran
In Iran, being many is never neutral. A crowd is read as resistance before it is read as presence. The word Azadi on the banner means freedom. The crowd is framed against the Azadi Tower, formerly known as Shahyad, a symbolic monument whose meaning has been rewritten many times.
The two images in this post are displayed together deliberately. The first holds a moment of hope. The second holds what follows.
When I encountered the print by Egil Storeide, its grey palette stayed with me. It recalled recent photographs of victims laid out in black body bags in Tehran.
Seeing those photographs was deeply upsetting. From that point on, it became difficult to separate the crowd from the thought of how quickly presence can turn into absence. Collective strength already felt fragile.
People enter the streets knowing this. They know the risks and carry that knowledge with them. They do not step forward because they expect protection, but because silence has become impossible. To appear is already to accept the possibility of loss.
Fear has shaped public life for a long time. People return even when they are exhausted, even when they are grieving. They return out of refusal to accept a life organised entirely around fear.
Bodies gathered in life can be gathered again in death. Each figure was once a person with a name, a voice, and a life that mattered.
“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.” Pablo Neruda
© Mehrdad Aref-Adib 2026
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