Reza Pahlavi is an unlikely political figure for today’s Iran. His public legitimacy is anchored in a past that most Iranians, especially those driving the current uprising, have never experienced — and in an institution, the monarchy, that sits uneasily with democratic aspirations. And yet, amid Iran’s most radical and generational uprising against the Islamic Republic, he has emerged as a unifying reference point. This is not simply a matter of nostalgia, nor an endorsement of monarchy.

Rather, Pahlavi’s appeal lies in the fact that he stands entirely outside the political and moral universe of the post-1979 Islamic revolutionary order. For a generation defined less by memory than by rupture, and one that has rejected reform after watching it fail repeatedly, distance from the Islamic Republic has become the most important form of legitimacy.

Pahlavi’s position outside the system is not accidental; it is foundational. He and his family were expelled as a direct consequence of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, whose defining act was the removal of the monarchy and the erasure of its political and symbolic order.

Unlike reformists, insiders-turned-critics, or figures shaped by the Islamic Republic’s institutions, Pahlavi exists entirely beyond Islamic Revolution’s lineage of legitimacy.

This is precisely why his name has returned to the streets. When protesters chant “This is the final battle: Pahlavi will return,” they are expressing a belief that the Islamic Republic has reached its historical limit. The slogan signals that the movement has moved beyond rejection alone and is actively searching for a political alternative outside the system. That search is also articulated through deliberate symbolic reversals. Protesters repeat “Javid Shah” three times, mirroring the rhythm once used for “Death to the Shah” during the Islamic Revolution. The lion-and-sun pre-revolutionary flag, long banned and erased from public space, reappears as an act of reclamation: a way of taking back streets, squares, and national symbols that the Islamic Republic has monopolized for decades.

These are practices of collective identity formation, through which protesters redefine who belongs to the nation and on what terms. In reclaiming suppressed symbols and repurposing revolutionary language, the movement articulates a generational verdict: that the Islamic Revolution itself was the rupture—from a national, secular, and future-oriented political trajectory—and that today’s uprising seeks not to reform its outcomes, but to undo that historical mistake.

This generational rupture did not emerge in isolation. Earlier moments of mass mobilization—from the student protests of 1999 to the Green Movement of 2009—were essential stages in the longer trajectory of dissent. While reformist in form, they articulated many of the same aspirations that animate today’s uprising: political freedom, dignity, and reintegration with the world. What they lacked was not desire, but political space. Those movements remained constrained by the hope that the system could be corrected from within, and by the high cost of identifying the Islamic Republic itself as the problem.

Today’s generation builds on those struggles, having learned from their suppression and failure. With no lived memory of the revolution, no emotional investment in its ideals, and no remaining faith in reform, Gen Z Iranians have become both more explicit and more radical, able to articulate what earlier movements could only gesture toward: that freedom requires a decisive break from the post-1979 order itself.

It is in this context that the symbolic return to the Pahlavi era should be understood. For many young Iranians, this turn is not about restoring monarchy or idealizing the past. It is about reclaiming a political and social trajectory that was violently interrupted in 1979. Despite its limits and exclusions, the pre-revolutionary period is remembered as a drive for social modernization, legal citizenship, gender reform, engagement with the world, and a national Iranian identity prioritized over an Islamic ummah-based identity.

The Islamic Republic reversed this orientation, redefining belonging through religious ideology rather than inclusive citizenship. Invoking the Pahlavi era, then, is less an act of nostalgia than a future-oriented gesture: a way of asserting that Iran once followed a different path and can do so again, this time with the political consciousness, pluralism, and democratic aspirations forged through decades of struggle.

What is being reclaimed is not a political system, but the possibility of a democratic future rooted in Iran’s own modern history. This is also where Reza Pahlavi’s greatest challenge—and opportunity—lies. The strong ideas articulated within the Pahlavi discourse in this uprising also require robust social organization to be effectively realized.

While he may command significant unity on the ground as the most visible figure outside the Islamic Republic, unity alone does not translate automatically into democratic legitimacy, particularly in the eyes of the international community. Iran is a deeply diverse society, shaped by ethnic, religious, linguistic, and regional pluralism, and any credible alternative to the current regime must speak to that diversity as a constitutive feature of citizenship, not a secondary concern.

Demonstrating sustained engagement with minority groups, civil society actors, and women-led movements is therefore not symbolic; it is a measure of accountability and democratic intent. This is where the role of the international community becomes crucial. Rather than withholding engagement out of caution or fear of fragmentation, the free world should engage with Pahlavi as the central opposition figure while conditioning recognition on inclusive dialogue, institutional guarantees, and mechanisms that create space for diverse voices to shape a post-Islamic Republic future. Such engagement would not confer unconditional endorsement, but leverage—helping transform unity into democratic credibility, and opposition into a genuinely inclusive political alternative for Iran.

First Published in Kayhan London

Mahya Ostovar is a women’s rights activist and an assistant professor at the University of Galway in Ireland.

Navid Sahraei is an Iranian researcher and former student activist based in Italy.