President Hassan Rouhani in a speech during his presidential candidacy for the first term said, “Let me just explain; we have different crises of poverty, unemployment and lack of services. I will deal with this, I will provide a safer future, you will absolutely see.”
These words by President Rouhani were said five years ago, and unfortunately, nothing promised has been realized. Day by day, the Iranian daily life becomes much more miserable than before. The Iranian hopes and wishes fade further away just as one of the most prominent clerics in Iran, Nouri Hamedani, said a short while ago: “Only it is the citizens who suffer pain and tragedy, while the regime turns a deaf ear.”
» The Unemployment Tsunami and the Wealth Deprivation
To be unemployed for persuasive reasons, such as not having an educational qualification or lacking appropriate experience is perhaps understandable, but the situation in Iran is completely different. Most of the experts believe that the high unemployment rate in Iran is because of the regime’s allocation of capital, oil and other economic resources to support the sectarian militias in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, rather than invest in the Iranian society which has literally been forgotten.
The Interior Minister, Abdul Reza Rahmani, previously revealed “the unprecedented number” of unemployed had reached 60% in some cities, leading to an upsurge in social damage, fear, divorce, family disintegration, and criminal activities. This percentage is worrisome because it includes doctoral not just bachelor students’ amounting to approximately 50 thousand unemployed, plus annually 30 thousand sequentially.
The Iranian economist, Framers Tawfiqi described the unemployment crisis as the tsunami that has swept through the labor market, and said, “There is a tsunami of unemployment in Iran.” According to the Iranian Statistics Center, there are 22 million employed out of 78 million in Iran, which means that the proportion of workers to the population does not exceed 27%. This also means that one employed person is offset by three unemployed people.
Despite the country’s huge wealth, there are about 40 million below the poverty line, out of 78 million as confirmed by the chairperson of Iran’s Relief Organization, Barviz Fattah in a statement published in the reformist ‘Afkar’ newspaper.
» Is the regime’s dissolvement the only solution to the crisis?
Mujtaba Qafqazi in his piece that was published in ‘Asr Iran,’ titled ‘Iran’s administrative ability towards disintegration’, said that, “Iran is heading towards disintegration, we are moving towards the diaspora, all minds want to emigrate, no one wants to live here.” The frustrated Qafqazi asked, “If the elites gone, if the learners left, who will remain except for ignoramuses and poorly educated people? We are heading to a catastrophe in Iran. Things have got worse day by day, we are falling to the bottom. Unfortunately, those in the regime do not feel these actions.”
What Qafkazi wrote is a short biography of the Iranian society’s pain and hunger. Many statistics also show that elites and others who wish to emigrate exceed 1.5 million per year.
Qafqazi asserts that Iran, with its geographic breadth, is fertile soil for great minds but the fruit is harvested by foreign countries. And, when they are harvested, they manage sectors, and are praised, while in Iran there is a state of deflation, frustration and helplessness.
» I am angry. I will commit suicide!
In his book “Sociology in Question,” Pierre Bourdieu points out that social anger is the most extreme stage of rejection, frustration, and dissatisfaction, resulting in low levels of physical and moral interaction between individuals, institutions and the system. This resounds with Iran. The low standard of living, recurring daily crisis’s, the future loss of security, and desperation, has converted the Iranian street into an wrestling arena, where 66 people are involved in a bloody battle per hour, as confirmed by Shifa Dawlat Abadi in her remarks, which were broadcasted in Radio Zamaneh. She also asserted that the anger is now above the world average and reached the “Top Rank”. The daily results of quarreling reached 1500 per day for illogical reasons, but it seems that the Iranian society has been pushed to its extreme bypassing all patience parameters.
Perhaps, this level of anger could lead to more destructive outcomes, such as suicide by burning. The philosopher, Albert Camus said, “Isn’t suicide the ultimate solution to all this absurdity?”. Ebtikar” daily recently prepared a report on the subject. The report says, “Suicide rates are on the rise, especially burning of bodies, eight times the global average, it is one of the most severe cases of suicide, as an inevitable reason for death. Over the past year, many suicide cases have been carried out, including a 21-year-old girl who failed to do so.”
This tragedy in Iran includes a huge rise in food and energy prices, along with the complete neglect of the people by the Iranian regime that has sparked huge demonstrations in most of Iran’s major cities. The tragedy makes everyone ask a legitimate question, are Iranians really living their worst days?
