May the new year be happy and victorious for all of you, my kind friends and longtime companions, and for all the proud people of this ancient land.

This year I am again attaching to my Nowruz greeting the beautiful Haft-Seen display from the burned Book City of Babylon, because for me this image remains an enduring embodiment of the power of culture and thought to triumph over destruction, and of the upper hand held by beauty and life over the forces of death and decay.

It is a symbol that can remind us for many years that we are stronger than everything that has happened to us in history.

We have passed through all the destructive storms of history because we have carried this culture—the culture of celebrating life—like a torch in our hands and passed it from one generation to the next.

A culture that celebrates “life” and its noble and elevated manifestations—poetry, joy, dance, and the praise of beauty—will never be defeated by death.

Long live life; may Nowruz be victorious.

Aydin Areta