Iran International
Why would anyone celebrate bombs falling on their own country? The question was widely asked after videos emerged showing some Iranians cheering strikes on regime targets.
But trauma specialists say those reactions reflect something deeper: decades of repression that have fundamentally shaped how many Iranians perceive danger. For many inside the country, the regime itself—not the bombs—has long been the most immediate threat to their lives.
The discussion gained attention after a viral Instagram reel by Iranian-origin actor and producer Tara Grammy. In the video, Grammy recounts a conversation a friend in Iran said they had with their therapist—a moment that appeared to capture what many Iranians had already been expressing online.
According to Grammy, her friend admitted they found themselves celebrating the sound of bombs hitting Tehran—something that surprised even them. The therapist’s explanation, she said, was psychological.
“When your entire life you have lived under the constant threat of the Islamic Republic—arrests, prison, executions, morality police, surveillance, people disappearing after exercising their right to protest—your brain learns to fear the thing that actually controls your life,” Grammy said in the video.
“Psychologists call this threat normalization.”
The concept describes how people living under long-term repression can come to see the greatest danger not as an external threat such as war, but the authority that controls their daily lives.
To better understand the reaction, Iran International spoke with two therapists who work with Iranians affected by political repression and trauma.
Clinical psychotherapist Azadeh Afsahi, founder of Iran House, an NGO in contact with political prisoners inside Iran, said many reactions seen online cannot be understood without recognizing the depth of suffering many Iranians have endured.
“I think what we need to look at is the big picture: why is it that a nation is celebrating what the whole world fears—bombs?” Afsahi said.
“For them, the bomb can feel like a form of liberation, as sad as that sounds. For 47 years they have lived under oppression without meaningful help.”
Afsahi said many Iranians understand the risks and potential loss of life associated with conflict. But for some, the possibility that the Islamic Republic could finally fall outweighs those fears.
According to Afsahi, many messages she has received from inside Iran reflect a mix of fear, anxiety and renewed hope. After recent crackdowns and mass killings during protests, she said many Iranians had fallen into what she described as a “collective depression.”
“Right now, despite their houses being bombed and loved ones being killed, there is still an element of hope,” she said. “Because the pain is being seen internationally, and somebody is intervening.”
Another trauma counselor, Farnaz Farrokhi-Holmes, said decades of repression have left many Iranians living with complex trauma—a condition caused by prolonged exposure to violence and fear.
“When trauma happens repeatedly, the brain begins to normalize the threats around it,” she explained.
Over time, she said, the brain adapts to survive in an environment of constant danger.
“The bombs are no longer perceived as the primary threat. The imminent threat is the IRGC—its survival and its continued power.”
Farrokhi-Holmes said she is currently providing pro bono counseling to a young Iranian woman who survived the January 2026 protest crackdowns and later escaped the country after witnessing security forces shoot demonstrators.
The trauma many Iranians carry, she said, is difficult for outsiders to fully grasp. Unless someone has lived under a system where arrests, violence and executions can happen without warning, the psychological response may be hard to understand.
Both therapists emphasized that reactions inside Iran remain complex. Many people are afraid. Many are grieving. But some, they say, also feel something absent for years: hope.
As Afsahi put it, many Iranians are not celebrating war itself but the possibility that decades of repression could finally end.
“They’re not happy about the war,” she said. “They are happy about the possibility of liberation.”
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.