Aidin PanahiIn 1979, Iran’s revolutionaries — an alliance of Marxists and Islamists — rose on promises of justice and equality. They pledged to give citizens free water, free electricity, and free housing. The slogans captured a nation’s imagination, uniting two ideologies that despised each other but shared the same illusion: that moral purity and government control could replace economic discipline. Within years, the illusion collapsed. Inflation exploded, jobs vanished, and the regime they created silenced its own believers.
Half a century later, in a different world and under a different flag, the same rhetoric echoes in New York City.
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